by
Karen McCoy & Robert Carl
A Word About the Sounds of Talking Trees
When Karen McCoy and I began this project, we thought of the trees as having memories of the sounds they have heard over the past 125 years, and preserving them in their bodies. If only we could some way tap into that memory and make it audible to human ears….
The result has been compact sound systems, one embedded in each tree, which broadcast these sounds at regular intervals. The core of the system is an Arduino microcontroller and a WaveShield playback, a single small loudspeaker, and solar-powered rechargeable batteries. Lief Ellis is the designer and fabricator of this system, and has been a real partner in the creation of a device that is pushing the envelope of outdoor installation possibilities.
These sounds are necessarily delicate, and are meant to be perceived through the ambient sonic environment, not imposed on it. As a result, Karen’s listening trumpets (gourd, horn, and metal--animal, vegetable, mineral) are essential for the participant to distinguish and hear the sound more clearly and closely.
I set out to create a series of sounds that reflected the history of the tree and its environs, loosely modeled on the idea of an iconic sound from each decade (though there is plenty of overlap). Each soundfile is very much a tiny musical work, structured to have a flow and point. The majority are made up of many different sounds, mixed, processed, and edited to create the final product.
If you want to listen to all the sounds used in this piece, they have been archived on this website.
You can also download the files, and listen to them anytime, including on the actual installation site, even comparing how they sound from your digital device with how they appear through the listening trumpets.
---Robert Carl