aLoneTreeReadsImaginarySounds is a video in which a lone “speaking” tree is “reading” 34 imaginary sounds, texts that describe sounds using verbal metaphors, inviting readers to an imagined musical experience, in which they are to use their own musical imagery to interpret the texts. in the video, the texts are read by “Daniel”, a text-to-speech voice produced by Apple, in an alphabetical order according to their titles: iS1, iS1iS2_x1, iS1iS2_x1iS6, iS1iS2_x1iS6iS5, iS1iS2_x1x1, iS1iS2_x2, iS1iS2_x3, iS1iS2_x4, iS1iS2_x4v1, iS1iS2_x4x1, iS1iS2_x4x1iS5_x1, iS1iS2_x4x1iS5, iS1iS2, iS1iS2iS3, iS1iS2v1_v1, iS1iS2v1, iS1v1, iS1v1iS2, iS1v2, iS1v2iS2, iS1v3, iS2, iS2v1, iS2v2, iS3, iS3iS4v1, iS3x1, iS3x2, iS4, iS4v1, iS4v2, iS5, iS5iS6, and iS6.

these titles indicate how the imaginary sounds are interrelated. for example, the title iS1iS2_x4v1 refers to the 1st variation of iS1iS2_x4, which is the 4th extract of iS1iS2, which is the combination of iS1 and iS2. the schema below is a representation of these interrelations (simple-arrowheads indicate variations, triangle-arrowheads indicate combinations, and inverted triangle-arrowheads indicate extracts). more on variations, combinations, and extracts can be found here.

at Music for Oneself, the event i created for my master’s recital at the Hochschule für Musik Basel, the video was played on a laptop placed in the main corridor of floor -1 of the Jazzcampus of the Musik-Akademie Basel as one of the 5 “images” in which the notion of music for oneself was manifested, providing visitors with the opportunity of reflecting on what music for oneself could be. it was possible to listen to it with a pair of headphones that were connected to the laptop.