Music of the Plants

Music of the Plants
"The earth has music for those who listen"
- William Shakespear -

In general, most humans regard plants as mute, immobile, unintelligent (“vegetative”), rather insensitive, but useful resources for human consumption and other commercial activities such as logging, biofuel, etc. How totally wrong we are!

Apart from indigenous human cultures living/used to live close to nature (such as the Native Americans, most indigenous islanders, Aboriginal people of Australia, etc.), the so-called “modern humans” are for the most part totally “plant blind” and fail to perceive the reality and absolute magic of plant life.

The fact that plants are sentient organisms that can communicate, have a social life, and are intelligent beings that can solve problems by using elegant strategies, has been denied by humans for centuries – mainly due to cultural prejudices and influences. In fact, plants have survived and evolved on earth for millions of years longer than the human species.

Consequently, it is not surprising that plants are much more sensitive than humans, and besides the five main senses that humans have (sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell, but evolved in a “plant” way), they have at least 15 more (e.g. to sense and calculate gravity, humidity, electromagnetic fields, chemical gradients, etc.). Thus, to be honest, and from a plant’s perspective, humans are just speedy, heedless, and very arrogant co-inhabitants of this planet.

Focusing on sound – it has scientifically been proven that plants can not only perceive sound but can also produce sound and with the aid of modern human technology, changes in a plant’s bioelectrical energy can be amplified and translated into sound/”music” audible to the human ear (read more about SOUND and ENERGY).

In order to fully understand and communicate about what is referred to when talking about “Music of the Plants”, we need to have a basic understanding of what plant electrophysiology is.

Plant electrophysiology

Plant electrophysiology is the study of the electrochemical phenomena associated with biological cells and tissues in plants. It involves measurements of electrical potentials and currents on a wide variety of scales from single ion channels to whole plant tissues.

Electrical properties of plant cells mostly derive from the electrochemical properties of their membranes where stimuli such as chemical substances, thermal stimuli, applied pressure, electrical or magnetic stimuli, and mechanical stimuli, will induce electrical responses of excitation known as action potentials (AP).

There are two main ways of measuring these electrical responses or signals (action potentials (AP) and variation potentials (VP)) in plants:
1. The first is extracellular, which takes measurements from outside the cells, and
2. the second is intracellular, which requires one electrode inside the cell vacuole and one outside the cell wall (a process that requires more specialist knowledge and bulky expensive equipment).

Thus, in order to transform these bioelectrical plant responses or signals into sound or music (called bio-sonification), it is easier to use extracellular readings using standard electrodes and data acquisition devices such as a “biodata sonification device”.

In short: “bio-sonification” basically means using technology to turn the bio-electrical responses or signals of living organisms into sound.

LESELI Plantmusic
Electrodes attached to a plant
LESELI Plantmusic
Biodata Sonification Device
Leseli Experience

By connecting two electrodes to a plant, the bioelectrical signals are collected and sent from the plant to the sonification device where the biodata is processed (amplified, filtered, etc.), and transformed into sonic data that is then translated into music by either build-in or external computer software.

In short: The bioelectric changes in a plant trigger notes in an electronic instrument (synthesizer) – similar to a human playing a MIDI keyboard.

“There is a voice that doesn’t use words. Listen.”

Rumi

WHY music of the plants?

Making tangible these hitherto unknown aspects of the complex and magical life of plants through sound/music has the potential to not only engage the public but also to alter the way that humans perceive the biosphere of which we are an inseparable part.

“Nature is not mute – it is man who is deaf”

Terence McKenna

Plants not only comprise more than 82% of the biomass of all life on earth, but they are also complex organisms that have been communicating, trading information and resources, avoiding common enemies together, and being mediators between the sun and the animals (including humans), right under our noses for quite a long time now and music might be one of the best means to guide our attention back to them and perceive them finally as the magical beings they are.

"The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence."
- Nikola Tesla -

Join the LESELI team for an inspiring talk and presentation of the “Music of the Plants”
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