It was August 2021, and Ygg wanted to sing. When Adriana and I went into the woods, we were looking for a tree that would meet our needs. Serendipity was the keyword that guided our steps, but we found nothing that interested us or piqued our curiosity. We left the woods disconsolate, and that tree was there, lonely in the middle of the meadow. It was an old apple tree of 50, full of fruit; a hardy variety that ripens in winter. Its branches greeted the sun in the late afternoon, except for one. It was broken at the base but not entirely severed; weakly attached to the main trunk, just enough to cling to life or endure a slow agony.
The song of the apple tree
What sound can we associate with suffering? Instinctively, we often think of it as cries or screams, thus a high-pitched, shrill, or harsh sound. However, for plants, it’s not always the case because various chemical and physical mechanisms are triggered.
Do you expect a shrill sound? Instead, in this case, it’s the opposite. The sap flows more slowly in the branch only partially attached to the main stem.
The sound of this branch and its leaves is deeper, slower. There is less sap and fewer notes, as seen in the image. In the green part, the trunk is healthy and has a high density of MIDI notes. In the red part, the damaged branch has fewer notes because the physiological activity is slowed down. This is how Ygg tries to connect with the old apple tree through bio-data-sonification.
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