Green Music

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Back in the 70's, I experimented making Music with plants (Green Music). At that time, there was even a synthesizer devoted to that task : the BM-5. It was made by Jeremy Lord Synthesizers Ltd in London (U.K): I still have two of these small synthesizers myself. The basic principle involved hooking wide-leaved plants to electrodes: the electrical signal originating from the plant was then amplified and sent to a Sample and Hold having a high frequency clock. The resulting output DC voltage was then sent to the VCO of an external analog synthesizer and the Envelope Follower output of the device was patched to control the cutoff frequency of the VCF and the amplitude of the VCA. Interestingly, whenever somebody made a gestual threat towards the plant, the DC voltages became totally chaotic, but resumed to a normal pace when the plant did'nt feel threatened anymore...