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    Today in Tech

    Song of the trees: Record player hacked to translate tree rings into music

    By Tecca | Today in Tech – Mon, Jan 23, 2012

    We may never be able to speak with trees, but we can at least listen to their stories thanks to this hacked record player than can translate tree rings into music. The player called Years created by Bartholomäus Traubeck, uses the rings from a very thin cross section of a tree's bark as a music sheet from nature.

    Tree rings are most commonly used for dendrochronology or the method of dating trees. But when you feed the hacked player a slice of the bark that's as thin as a record, it translates the rings into haunting piano music instead. The needle found on typical players is replaced by the PlayStation Eye, which serves as a webcam that reads the rings. The thickness, strength, and growth rate of the tree where the slice of bark came from are then analyzed.

    The final piece is generated when the results from the analysis are combined with data about the wood's texture and color, giving us an overall view of the tree in an eerie, poignant ditty.

    Traubeck via TheNextWeb

    This article was written by Mariella Moon and originally appeared on Tecca

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    25 comments

    • Apollo01 N
      Apollo01 N  •  Los Angeles, California  •  4 mths ago
      No matter what the recording may sound like, it's gotta be better than that RAP crap.
      • M.
        M. 4 mths ago
        Ill feed this troll!!!!!! I'm sorry that you cant open your mind to different things.
      • M.
        M. 4 mths ago
        In your defense though, it IS better than alot of the #$%$ they play on the radio. Rap and otherwise. Im sorry that your exposure to music is limited to the technology of am/fm.
      • A Yahoo! User 4 mths ago
        TrooDat
    • ryno73
      ryno73  •  Seattle, Washington  •  4 mths ago
      The ignoramus that wrote this article surely doesn't know that before the term "hacking" came along, there was a word called "modified" which would have been a much more appropriate verb for what happend here. Douche waffle!
    • Beep
      Beep  •  4 mths ago
      Not bark! Trunk! It's a slice of a tree trunk! The player is made from an old record player & a camera & a computer and it uses a slice of tree trunk! NO Bark! Get it? No bark.
      • gingerduck
        gingerduck 4 mths ago
        Nice call but the cambium symphony is shorter and uses just bark. It is much shorter but very lively. just made that up.
    • Matthew G
      Matthew G  •  Troup, Texas  •  4 mths ago
      The tune would sound better if the played it from the inner rings outward, following the trees birth to death instead of vice versa.
    • Reptile Hunter
      Reptile Hunter  •  Muskegon, Michigan  •  4 mths ago
      Y'all grouchies must not have had your speakers on. Thought it was beautiful no matter how it was done.
      so there...
    • Ned
      Ned  •  San Antonio, Texas  •  4 mths ago
      This sux!!
    • Dale
      Dale  •  Greenville, South Carolina  •  4 mths ago
      Holy Beatles! Don't they realize this is being played backwards?
    • FACTOID
      FACTOID  •  4 mths ago
      Maybe the rings around Saturn would be a hit or the rings around Uranus.
    • JJMurray
      JJMurray  •  4 mths ago
      Okay, first of all why is this a "hacked" record player? Did someone crack into it and steal its SSN or something? Second - it's a slice of tree not a slice of BARK! Journalists are so incredibly terrible at what they do!
      Having said that I think the music is great! Weird, but great!
      • Spencer
        Spencer 4 mths ago
        ugh it's like people that say their facebook/twitter was "hacked". knowing someone's password or leaving yourself logged in on another's computer HARDLY counts as hacking... -_____-;;
      • laethyn
        laethyn 4 mths ago
        hacking != "having someones SSN or something"
    • Mike
      Mike  •  Nashville, Tennessee  •  4 mths ago
      They sound better when they hit the ground right where you fall em...
    • 2741
      2741  •  Los Angeles, California  •  4 mths ago
      Cool
    • SilverAcorn
      SilverAcorn  •  4 mths ago
      Wait a minute! I just realized it's the core problem: Lack of the 3 R's in education: "Readin', 'Ritin', and 'Rithmetic".
    • Lee
      Lee  •  Burbank, California  •  4 mths ago
      Sucks for the tree
    • D. R.
      D. R.  •  4 mths ago
      I'm not buying the explanation. I think what we have here is a little, postmodern piano composition coupled with video of a slice of tree trunk rotated on a turntable with a light bulb attached to the arm where the needle would normally have been. It's slick, but once you realize that the rings in a tree trunk are not as uniform as those on recordable media, you have to start asking questions that are too difficult to answer.
    • PerryC
      PerryC  •  Sugar Land, Texas  •  4 mths ago
      WOW. This article was dumb and full of errors. Major errors. A new low in journalism.
    • Boredtotears
      Boredtotears  •  4 mths ago
      some people have incredible brains....and no idea what to do with them
    • Big Bonanza
      Big Bonanza  •  Douglasville, Georgia  •  4 mths ago
      Kewl!! Release it to radio, it's almost guaranteed to be a #1 hit
      • A Yahoo! User 4 mths ago
        G+AY=U
    • Michael
      Michael  •  4 mths ago
      Let me be the first to call... BullShiat !
    • Spencer
      Spencer  •  San Diego, California  •  4 mths ago
      that was so cool!!!!! I wish I had one of these.
    • Teanna West
      Teanna West  •  Elmhurst, Illinois  •  4 mths ago
      They are trying to tell us something....It sounds beautiful
      • A Yahoo! User 4 mths ago
        Douche+Bag=U
      • Reptile Hunter
        Reptile Hunter 3 mths ago
        Too many cannot see the forest among the trees. Alot of truth to that ol' saying. As for Jerry the Jock Sniffer, his name correctly explains his comment to you.
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