Blog Post 5
December 2021

TREE clip #3
Listening to this pine tree being shaken, with the birds chirping in the background was an interesting contrast of an iconic symbol of winter and natural sounds that evoke milder seasons of spring and summer. Asking what time of year this clip sounded like, was a good chance for me and the kids to discuss seasonal associations of different sounds.

When I explained that the tree was a pine we got to talking about Christmas trees dropping their needles. With memories of the summer holidays still vivid in our minds we recalled the carpets of needles that line the pine forests, so inviting to lie in yet also a perfect place for ants to build huge nests! So we know that pine trees drop lots of needles all year around but had they ever seen a pine tree completely shed its needles like the deciduous trees in the garden? They hadn’t but my son was curious if this ever happened.

This was a good way to find out how much we all knew about evergreens and deciduous trees. Unsurprisingly there were questions I couldn’t answer, such as why do evergreens have needles instead of leaves. We turned to this useful website for help before turning to our Christmas tree and appreciating its life and journey with renewed interest.

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Blog Post 4
November 2021

TREE clip #4
Autumn is an exciting time of rapid change in nature, a season we probably most associate with trees. The kids and I talked about the visual aspects of Autumn such as the shift in the light and the dramatic changes in the colour and structure of the leaves. Then listening to the clip was highly evocative of the piles of leaves that can be jumped into and thrown about at this time of year as well as finding fallen branches to build dens.

With the birdsong, this clip sounded quite a lot like a spring day, very much unlike the gusty, windy weather we have been having. The next time we were getting buffeted around on a windy day in the local park we played a favourite game, to stand beneath a large tree and spot falling leaves and catch them before they hit the ground. Not as easy as it sounds, which makes it all the more fun. A successful catch means you get to make a wish.

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Blog Post 3
August 2021

BeechHedgeVideo

The immediate response to Tree #7 was one of anger about cutting down trees and humankind’s impact on nature. We spent part of our summer in the Cairngorms National Park in Eastern Scotland, a mountain range home to half of the UK’s native pineforest as well as extensive commercially planted forestry. This sparked a lot of discussion about which species are there naturally, which had been farmed and how trees and forests are farmed.

We talked about tree surgeons and managing tree life, and the info beneath Tree #7 helped with understanding that sometimes trees need to be cut down in order to help other trees and species that surround them to thrive.

On the way down to England we drove past the world’s tallest Beech hedge just outside Blairgowrie. The Meikleour Beech Hedge was planted in 1745 and is one third of a mile long and 100 ft high. It is believed to have been planted by Jacobite rebels before they were killed in battle with the English. It was left to grow so high in their honour, yet in order to grow it still requires trimming every ten years in a complex operation that takes four men six weeks to complete.

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Blog Post 2
August 2021

Following our first listen to the tree collection and discussions about subterranean existence of trees, we found ourselves watching Wes Anderson’s brilliant film adaptation of the Roald Dahl book Fantastic Mr Fox.

The film begins with Mr Fox and his wife upgrading to a new den beneath a tree in a more desirable neighbourhood, and throughout the film there are remarkable visual depictions of life beneath and overground. My kids and I listened to Tree clips #2 and #3 and talked about the range of wildlife living within trees and how we might detect them, through looking for their tracks, scanning for droppings and by listening.

I found this conversation also useful as a way to encourage empathy for other beings, whose lives might be beyond our immediate view but yet remain part of the world we inhabit and therefore affected by our actions.

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Blog Post 1
June 17 2021

We began with Tree #1 from the tree project, ‘wind in late summer trees’ recorded by Duncan Chapman.

First off my son said it sounded “scary, like a ghost” which was an interesting response that was completely the opposite of my daughter’s more positive reaction. It was interesting how he changed his response to it being like “a happy, sunny day’ once I reminded him it was a tree.

We all thought the recording of the leaves in the wind, rising and falling in intensity, sounded like waves breaking on a pebbly beach. Later we happened to be visiting the seaside and as we walked down to the beach through a wooded glen, we climbed trees, tried to hear the sea and separate out the sounds of the waves from the sound of the wind and the leaves. We talked about their similarities and differences. “Both go loud and quiet” “The sea is more bubbly”.

When we got home we read the notes on Tree #1 and discussed how it was the irregular shape of the leaves that created the distinctive sound. We had collected a variety of interestingly shaped pebbles which were a visual clue to why they created a similar sound when the waves hit them.

The connections with waves was an interesting link to what we had discussed previously about perception of sonic frequencies. We then started talking about the shape of a wave and sound being represented by waveforms. We talked about what we thought different parts of the wave would sound like and why, discussing how high and low are physical descriptions that we apply to this intangible thing called sound. We played notes on the piano and discussed pitch in relation to position on the keyboard. From here I played up and down the octaves on a midi keyboard until the sound was either too low to hear or too high for comfort. On my computer we looked at a waveform analysis of the sounds that we were playing and compared it with white noise, which was “Sooo spiky!” (There are plenty of good videos online that talk about pitch, frequency and how sound works…. https://youtu.be/3-xKZKxXuu0)

This was a really useful starting point for discussing how sound can be represented visually in waveforms, musical notation and in art. We decided we would do some drawings when we listen to other tree recordings. At that point my son pointed at the school logo on his school uniform and said “ Look, there’s a tree on it because trees are educational”

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Prologue

When I was told about the tree project I immediately got excited and jumped to a lot of associations between trees and sound. Ahead of hearing the clips I had already made a long list of points about the sound of trees, what they represent to us as images and the connections that exist between trees, us, our ears, brains and minds.

I thought it would be interesting to log these points and then compare them after hearing the clips. In this vein I also thought it would be good to take each clip one at a time in order to respond to each clip more freely without dwelling on it too much in advance.

I make music and podcasts so sound is a familiar medium for me and I probably pick up on associations with sound more readily but I was interested to hear what my daughter and son, aged 9 and 6 respectively, would think of when I mentioned sound recordings of trees.

At school my son has started practicing meditating at the end of the day, so when I explained how we were going to focus on the sound of trees, he saw it as a meditative process. We talked together about how a tree works well as an aid to meditation. The relaxing sound of leaves in the wind is a nice, simple starting point that led on to how focussing on our breathing can allow our mind to rest. I thought this was a really interesting point where the conversation could either lead into more psychological and spiritual territories or remain with discussions about the physical realm, such as trees producing oxygen.

My daughter who is several years older was better equipped to discuss how bringing to mind the root system of a tree as well as its aboveground network of branches, could be a powerful image for jumping into a conversations about the concept of the conscious and subconscious mind.

This metaphor is a good starting point to discuss how the world is full of things that surround us on a daily basis but which cannot see, hear, touch or smell. The mind is a good example of this but also – bringing this thought process all the way back round to sound – so are subsonic and ultrasonic frequencies.

I find this a really fascinating idea to consider, especially in terms of how we can discuss this with children. I know from experience that many adults struggle with this kind of thinking and I suspect that actually children have a greater capacity to understand this than we might presume. A tree in this instance is a powerful metaphor, and it provides the basis of a conversation that will only be strengthened when we listen to a minute of tree sounds.