internet cool?!

While Microsoft is trying to convince you that they actually have anything signifigant to do with the “cloud”, real apps are popping up all over the place that are changing the data crunching, access, and storage game - all remotely.

Lord knows I’ve had lots to say about music in the past.  And much of what I loved about personal music on the interwebs continues to get finger blasted by The Man.  But there are a few great apps still out there. One such app came across my radar yesterday called Mougg and it’s awesome.

Alrighty. I was browsin’ the interwebs looking for a few new ways to discover music because welp, my collection sucks. And after a pile of usual (and not so usual suspects) I found a few that are pure awesome. Longer post on the lot of them coming, but for now meet my new favorite way of discovering music - Shuffler. Internet-radio made by music blogs. (Think Blip.fm but (you do know what Blip is, right?) but across the internet instead of locked in one site.

Huh? Think of it this way. You’re channel surfing the music web. The web is your player, bloggers are your dj’s. It’s rad. I wish I thought of it. It leverages the Mesh. It’s Simple Smart and Social. And now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve have some new music to go listen to.

This dude is making music with computers err trees errr both.  Whatever. It’s awesome. And nerdy. But not too nerdy. It’s kinda tree-huggy too. And that’s awesomer. Enjoi.

from the site

In the garden of my house there’s a tree with lots of randomly grown twigs. It looks odd and nice at the same time.One day I asked myself if I could create a piece of music with it.

To tune the tree I picked a fundamental note and tuned the twigs by trimming them with a pencil sharpener. I used two Røde NT6 and a NTG-2 as microphones, combined with a customized stethoscope.

I recorded the tracks live on a Pro Tools LE system. I didn’t use any synthesizer or sampler to create or modify the sounds. All the sounds come from playing the tree, by bowing the twigs, shaking the leaves, playing rhythms on the cortex and so on.

Below you can see the video and some pictures with more detailed descriptions from his posting on Behance.

Diego Stocco - Music From A Tree from Diego Stocco on Vimeo.

I modified a stethoscope by using some hose accessories.The connection between the plastic pipe and the microphone needed to be sealed in order to transmit the sound well.

Here I was recording the low frequencies coming from a big piece of cortex. I used this sound as a kick drum.

The two Røde NT6 attached to my fingers with rubber bands. I came up with this idea because mike stands are not very practical for certain locations and also because in this way I can move the microphones dynamically around the object I’m recording.

Tuning the twig by trimming it with a pencil sharpener.

This is the twig that I was using to play the bass note.

A little twig I used for high-pitched sounds.

The track is also available as an high-quality download on my Bandcamp page:
http://diegostocco.bandcamp.com/track/music-from-a-tree