I’m late in posting this, but it’s too good to pass up – our friend Troels Folmann sends us his latest sound design experiment, this time with bees.

Better audio:
Bees by Tonehammer

Specs:

• 200-230 wing flaps per second (hence the tone)
• Top speed: 15 mph.
• Compound eyes with thousands of tiny lenses plus simple eyes.
• A life form with 20,000 known species, on which human life depends
• Availability: with our protection, a long, long time. Without, we’re toast.

There’s also a free bee sample set for use with Kontakt or (via WAV) any other tool. [Download link, .rar ]

We’d love to hear music you make with those samples. If you compose something, send them to us in comments!

Lots of additional info:
Music Made with Bees [tonehammer]

Bee populations are in decline, which is a deep concern. Happily, at least one culprit has been ruled out: research suggests mobile phones are not to blame after all.

The New York Times has a good recent article on bees, why they’re so important to human life and agriculture, the disturbing rapid decline in their population, and a breakthrough that’s occurred in the last week. The news isn’t good: colony collapse, and it may be linked to a combination fungus/virus. Hopefully this new evidence will lead to a solution.
Trouble in the Hive, by Kirk Johnson for the NY Times

You can support bee research here: http://www.helpthehoneybees.com/

(In this case, surprisingly, academia teamed up with the US Army chemical and biological research group. It’s nice to see a non-destructive military application of chemicals and biology.)

The connection to sound, though, is clear to me: just as photographs or video can help us get closer to subjects that matter, so can sound and music. They’re another way of experiencing our world. So send in that bee music.

Sure, we spend a lot of time looking at far-out gear and high technology, but you have to tip your hat to practicality. Tascam’s TC-1S is a compact, portable tuner that you can take anywhere. Solar and USB power mean you never have to worry about powering it, either.

Features:

• 12-tone equal-tempered chromatic tuner.
• Input via 1/4″ jack or mic
• Note/sharp-flat/bargraph pitch indication readout on the LCD. Display via “bar,” “fine,” “strobe animation,” or “needle.”
• Protective silicone case included
• 51 grams.

Shipping this month, street price “under US$40.”

It’s a cute little design, and with the economic squeeze continuing, I think smart design wins out. Tascam is being a little loose with the term “environmentally-friendly,” however. The press release I received called this “planet-friendly tuning” and claimed “every planet-conscious musician” will need one.

I can’t verify whether this is indeed the “world’s first solar-powered tuner” – if anyone knows for sure, let us know. But nothing about this design suggests that it’s especially ecological, beyond the solar panel. Avoiding battery waste is a very good thing, so in that sense, sure, this is environmentally friendly. But you have to then weigh that against power draw from conventional tuners and the impact of manufacturing the panel.

More info: Solar panels are definitely nothing to sneeze at. Check out this 2007 report comparing rechargeable to disposable alkalines — and alkaline batteries are far less harmful than the kinds of batteries found in, say, your laptop.

Presumably, the major environmental impact of all the gadgets we love has to do with their materials. The silicone in the case may well be low-impact, but it depends on the particular silicone Tascam used, to say nothing of the other ingredients of this device.

On the other hand, good design means you consume less, save longer, and get more use out of a device. So in the long run, it could be the practicality of a device like this tuner that helps the planet – because you love and use it for a long time.

I’m hardly an expert in environmental design; I’m just pointing out the obvious. But since Tascam raised the issue, let us know what you think. A discussion of what music gear really is planet-friendly is an important one for another day. And as for the tuner, let us know if it’ll go in your bag.

If you think culture has become too disconnected from the Earth, “Harvest” and the Terrafon instrument surely count as a shock to the system. A traditional ensemble picks up an enormous tone arm and transducer and, through back-breaking labor, drag it across arable fields. It’s part sound art and performance, part agriculture. But it certainly counts as a gramophone – it’s just a really big one that reads the grooves of the earth.

Beat juggling with two of these I’m guessing is largely out of the question.

One half of the artistic creative team, Olle Cornéer, writes with a description:

Harvest (2009) is a new art piece for the new instrument terrafon, traditional ensemble and cropland – by Olle Cornéer and Martin Lübcke.

In this performance Alunda Church Choir, conducted by Cantor Jan Hällgren, plays the soil of northern Uppland (in Sweden) on terrafon. Harvest by Alunda Kyrkokör was exhibited at the Volt Festival in Uppsala the 6th of June 2009. Terrafon is a large agricultural version of the horn gramophone, amplifying the sounds in the track it ploughs.

There is more to come. There are still many croplands still untouched by terrafon. The only thing needed is a powerful local musical ensemble that can sweat it out. This is indeed a demanding piece.

Video illustrates what this all means in practice:

Harvest by Alunda Kyrkokör (2009) from Olle Corneer on Vimeo.

The artistic duo behind the work is a fascinating collaboration. Olle is a producer and musician, while partner-in-crime Martin Lübcke has a PhD in theoretical physics, specializing in superstring theory. That has been the grounds on which their other work, Bacterial Orchestra, explores ideas both of biological epidemics and multi-celled organisms and neural networks. Of course, to make it truly multi-celled, they’ve made the piece an iPhone creation. (I think some folks have found the iPhone phenomenon to be viral as is, so this seems somewhat appropriate.)

Public Epidemic No 1 from Olle Corneer on Vimeo.

Every cell listens to its surroundings and picks up sounds, trying to play together in a musical way. The musical material comes from the background noise, people talking or sounds played by other cells.

Every cell has a unique DNA. Only the ones that are musical fit enough survives. If
the surroundings doesn’t meet up to its conditions – too noisy, too quiet or no distinct
pulse – the cell dies and is reborn with a new, hopefully better, set of DNA.

The result is a musical organism adapting to and changing its environment, growing and evolving with other cells and spectators.

More on that piece:
http://www.bacterialorchestra.com

It’s nice to me that, while these works are both conceptual, you might not guess they came from the same team. I wonder what will come next.

Humans Turning Up Volume In Oceans [NPR “Science Out of the Box”]

A new report shows the way in which sound travels through the ocean has been impacted by global warming. A growing community of artists are working in media like sound to address environmental challenges. But it seems the planet is making some “sound art” of its own. Curious to hear what people think of the report.