Live plants have been used as musical instruments, especially in

electronic music Electronic music broadly is a group of music genres that employ electronic musical instruments, circuitry-based music technology and software, or general-purpose electronics (such as personal computers) in its creation. It includes both music ...

. Live plants can be used as

electronic musical instrument An electronic musical instrument or electrophone is a musical instrument that produces sound using electronics, electronic circuitry. Such an instrument sounds by outputting an electrical, electronic or digital audio signal that ultimately is ...

by running a weak electric current through them and by amplifying the way the current is changed when the plants are touched, or by applying

contact microphone A contact microphone is a form of microphone that senses audio vibrations through contact with solid objects. Unlike normal air microphones, contact microphones are almost completely insensitive to air vibrations but transduce only structure-bor ...

s and amplifying the projection and tone of the sounds produced when handling them.

John Cage John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and Extended technique, non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one ...

composed ''Child of Tree'' (1975) and ''Branches'' (1976) for what he described as "amplified plant materials". Cage was a proponent of chance music and felt that the organic nature of music without man-made instruments was very strong and influential. The percussion group So Percussion gave a concert in 2007 featuring Cage's pieces, where percussionist "Jason Treuting played an amplified cactus, running his hand over the plant's unfriendly spikes to produce an alluring sound like a babbling brook." Another piece for amplified cactus is ''Degrees of Separation'' "Grandchild of Tree" by Paul Rudy which received mention at the Bourges International Competition for Electroacoustic Music in 2000. Rudy mentions in his own program notes:

The idea for a cactus and tape work came about when I heard a performance of John Cage's ''Child of Tree''. I was immediately taken with the sound of the cactus in particular. Taken from its natural environment and placed in the confined and groomed existence of a pot, amplified with a contact microphone, the cactus took on a completely new and interesting character...

A piece by Mark Andre, ''...zu Staub...'' also features three amplified cacti alongside classical instruments. In 2007, the French digital artist duo Scenocosme created a sound installation where visitors create sounds by touching the leaves of plants in pots hanging from the ceiling.

References

External links

CHILD OF TREE - John Cage

Laud Plasmaht - Ariel Guzik
{{Plucked idiophones Experimental musical instruments Idiophones Cacti