When attempting to pen a song, the scientific method of dendrochronology is not one people often (if ever) turn to for inspiration.

However, harnessing it allows a human songwriter to be taken out of the equation almost completely, allowing the tree to make up its own tune, although you’re unlikely to hear their melancholy tunes in the charts any time soon.

Regardless, Bartholomäus Traubeck used this for his latest collection of pieces, Years, which were created by analysing a slim cross-section of a tree and reading the concentric circles like the spiral on a vinyl record.

One of the wooden LPs,  this one from a Maple tree

The modified turntable records the rings using a surprisingly basic camera - a Playstation Eye.

The more rings the tree has, the older it is, but also the thickness of the rings represents how much the tree grew in a given year. This can be used by scientists as a physical record of weather through the years, as a thicker ring is likely to indicate that the weather was good.

These variations mean that every song the tree “plays” is different, and sometimes dramatically so.

YEARS from Bartholomäus Traubeck on Vimeo.