Nature’s latest album

Carlo Patrão’s article discussing the sounds of plants and plant music was incredibly interesting to me. When I read about how people produced music that was designed to help your plants grow better by using specific frequencies, it reminded me of how in the 1960s, the practice of speaking to plants became very popular. Both talking to plants and the plant music that Patrão wrote about had a focus on helping plants grow better. I also found the soundscapes created by conducting cacti and the study of how plants affected instruments highly intriguing because it reminded me of what a site specific dance is. Site specific dance requires you to connect with your surroundings and be affected by them by either interacting literally, figuratively, or contrasting them. Site specific work always requires adaption. The case about plant growth in similar because the plants were literally interacting with the pianos used and changing them. Conducting cacti requires the same adaption and interaction as site specific dance because João Ricardo had to learn a way of using the cacti in a way that made sense. He was able to learn how to use the cactus needles to create something much more than what they were before, just cacti.

While reading, I had to question where site specific music might fit in. What would plant inspired music sound like? Not simply music created by plants or for plants, music created by humans for humans in the way a site specific dance may bring attention to details of a park you may have never noticed before. Everyone has a different relationship to different types of plants so there could be many variations of how plants affect emotion in a musical format. However, with something as simple as a cello piece describing the smell of a rose, I think that would be very interesting to explore as well.