my third experiment collaborating with houseplants this FAWM:

1. Rhapis excelsa
2. Crassula arborescens
3. Dracaena trifasciata ← THIS

for christmas, my wife got me this pocket SCÍON thing that's a biofeedback instrument. you can hook it up to basically any living organism and it will translate its electrical pulses into musical data.

since i started these experiments, (1) my wife really wanted to hear what the "snake plant" (Dracaena trifasciata) would do, and (2) i really wanted to hear what a plant conducting a small orchestra would sound like. so i did both!

here's how it worked:

• the SCÍON generates up to 5 melodies, so i began with one voice and gradually brought them in and out by hand over the course of the piece
• recorded the 5-voice MIDI output into logic pro, distributing them across a 12-piece orchestra via divismate micro plugins:
  • voice 1: bass, cello (in 5ths), bassoon
  • voice 2: viola, french horn
  • voice 3: violin, clarinet, trombone
  • voice 4: trumpet, flute, oboe
  • voice 5 → direct to violin
• mixed the result using the audio modeling SWAM orchestra bundle i got on a black friday sale a few years ago
• created a visualization (color-coded by voice) using magic music visuals
• edited it all together!

this was several hours of work, but i don't feel like it was as much of a "collab" with the plant as the other ones i've done so far. still, i think the result is interesting and musically pleasing at times!

open to more suggestions of things to try for plant collabs...

#plantscape #orchestral #generative #ambient #instrumental