Music of Trees

Just received a link to this post from the ever-interesting Experimental Research Network.
http://theconversation.edu.au/forest-sonata-listening-to-the-music-of-the-trees-6096
YEARS from Bartholomäus Traubeck on Vimeo.

As I'm currently going through lots of data from grids about trees and grids and caches in Yorkshire that turn into sounds of rocks and water, it's pertinent to think about the sounds I've used in contrast to this approach, demonstrated with the trees and discussed in the blog post.

These are first thoughts, and may just be a confused ramble - or something to return to and consider at length.

The first thing that strikes me is just that - my interest in sounds is of the material itself - the lithophones are struck with beaters, the water tumbles around the hydrophone. So the sounds used endeavour to convey something of the sound of the material, with a relationship to site (water in situ near the cache sites, rocks though not recorded in situ were sourced from the cache area). There is still the question of attributing and mapping sound. I chose to attribute water and rocks to colours in space (the grids). And to do so according to the sounds available (without re-recording to fit the structure) and my personal choice.
So although I use computers to hold and work the content, that's only as a tool rather than as a material - I think of it like a chisel for carving wood, or a rubber kidney for working clay. Of course the computer is used in several ways, some more 'forming' than others, so perhaps it's closer to a set of modelling tools, the wire, kidney, turntable and board, rolling pin and cloth, that might make a clay-working toolset.
In contrast, the music of trees uses light to read the material of the tree and algorithms to turn that into computer-generated sounds attributed by the composer. The information comes from the material, and is 'read' with light over time and space (turntable rotates the 'record' ). That 'reading' triggers the generated sound. In Hunter Gatherer the light (colour) over time and space (grid) triggers the material sounds to be heard. Similarly to playing tree trunks, each grid is unique, and can come from a single author (person/tree) representing a new position in their body of experience (moment of noticing/section of trunk), or from various authors (people/trees). So there is something different in the new position - I am not sure to what extent a tree maintains its position through the various cross-sections of its trunk - or a person through the various moments of their life. In the tree trunk, all moments are present simultaneously. In the person's grid the expression is of them in a particular moment relative to a particular focus or experience. So both trunk and grid potentially show consistency of personality as well as variations of personality within one individual. And the potential to map alongside other individuals. In both cases sound has been attributed by the 'artist' and could potentially be changed for each individual (person/tree) or for each grouping (project/forest).

With the grids what we hear is the sensory imagination (personal subjective response to a moment of noticing) made into material sound (rocks and water). The relationship (allocation of sounds) is functional rather than aesthetic.

With the trees what we hear is the material (tree slice) made into the sensory imagination (music). The relationship is aesthetic (I assume!)

So it seems i'm suggesting the sensory-imaginary can become tangible, and the trees piece is suggesting the tangible can become sensory-imaginary.
'Sensory-imaginary' is probably not an adequate or accurate term, but it will suffice for now to point to the creative expression of 'something more' that is so many things so challenging to put into words.

In the comments under 'Years' on vimeo are a few links to other people's work.
This one uses tree material as sound source and striker:
https://vimeo.com/28590075
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bricolage-universel/6753925475/in/photostream