Pando’s voice: Unveiling the acoustic wonders of Southern Utah’s most famous tree

Written by Alysha Lundgren
August 30, 2023

ST. GEORGE — “What is the voice of Pando?”

Clouds roll across a deep blue sky in Fishlake National Forest, Utah, Aug. 14, 2023 | Photo by Alysha Lundgren, St. George News

Sound artist Jeff Rice explored this concept while navigating Fishlake National Forest’s trembling giant, recording ants’ footsteps across a branch, a rumbling underground soundscape and other acoustic wonders both mysterious and immediately identifiable.

Pando is the world’s largest tree, and according to the Friends of Pando website, “The word ‘pando’ is Latin for ‘I spread.’ The aspen tree was given the nickname ‘Pando’ by scientist Michael Grant in a 1992 article in Discover Magazine because of how it ‘spreads out’ across 106 acres.”

Quaking aspens are named for their leaves’ distinctive fluttering noise, but this did not make Rice’s task any easier.

“What does Pando sound like? For most people, the sound of an aspen grove is defined by its trembling leaves,” he writes on the Friends of Pando website. “For me, as someone who has been around aspens my whole life, this sound is instantly recognizable and almost impossible to describe.

“Even creating a working definition is difficult,” he adds. “‘It is the sound of the wind on a perfect day’ is one interpretation I have heard. ‘It is the sound of the West,’ is another. It is a ‘whisper’ and a ‘shimmer.’ Some people think it is like ‘the sound of rain.’ There does not appear to be much general agreement. The frog ribbits, the bird chirps, and the bull bellows.”

Artist in residence

Portrait of sound artist Jeff Rice, date and location not specified | Photo courtesy of Jeff Rice, St. George News

Rice was raised in Salt Lake City, exploring the mountains and traveling to Southern Utah, where he roamed its aspen forests.

The sound artist first visited Pando in 2018 for the New York Times Magazine’s Listen to the World project. He spent several days recording trembling leaves in “The Tree” — a nickname indicative of its nature as a single organism comprised of over 40,000 individual trees, or clones, connected via a massive root system.

“I realized there was so much more to the to ‘The Tree’ and so much more that I wanted to record from that area,” he told St. George News. “And I’d always been thinking about going back.”

An opportunity to “connect with” and experience the tree came along last year when Rice became an artist in residence with Friends of Pando, returning to Fishlake National Forest in July 2022.

For his second trip, he said he approached Pando from an “artist’s point of view.”

Jeff Rice set up microphones in various places in Pando, Fishlake National Forest, Utah, date not specified | Photo courtesy of Jeff Rice, St. George News

“I wanted to just explore all kinds of different options and different angles and different ways of recording Pando,” he said. “There’s so many interesting facets to Pando; it just really challenges all your ideas about the world, you know?

“How could a forest be a single tree? Or how could something be 9,000 years old? How could a living thing be that old? And it just poses all of these questions and challenges that were really intriguing to me.”

Acting as a guide, Friends of Pando’s Executive Director Lance Oditt helped Rice both find recording locations and see the tree from a different perspective, the sound artist said.

“I gotta give Lance a lot of credit for helping to make this happen through Friends of Pando and also just as an adviser — really critical to the whole thing,” Rice said.

‘Connection and contact’

While Rice has completed his residence, various incarnations of the project are still in process. The work is done in two parts: recording in the field and processing in the studio.

“I needed to make sense of those recordings and try to understand what they meant and what the best recordings were — what I found out,” he said. “So then I tried the process of logging everything and just documenting the tree.”

Raindrops cling to an orange leaf, Fishlake National Forest, Utah, Aug. 14, 2023 | Photo by Alysha Lundgren, St. George News

He uploaded the raw recordings to the Acoustic Atlas, which he co-founded. Montana State University stores over 3,000 recordings of various species and environments in the Western U.S. to document soundscapes, “connect people with the sounds of regional ecosystems and biodiversity,” and promote collaboration among researchers and educators.

Rice’s work can be found by searching his name. For instance, the sounds of thunder and rain in Pando can be heard here.

“Then I had to start to understand, ‘Well, how do we make art out of this?” Rice said. “And so what does that mean? What’s the difference between art and just making a recording? And so I looked for themes and different ideas, and one of the themes that I came up with was just this idea of connection and contact.”

To create many of the recordings, Rice attached Piezo contact microphones and hydrophones to parts of the tree or on tripods to explore “new ways of listening to Pando that are less traditional.”

A hydrophone records in the “portal to Pando,” Fishlake National Forest, Utah, date not specified | Photo courtesy of Jeff Rice, St. George News

For instance, he placed a hydrophone in the “portal to Pando” — a hole at the base of a tree that Oditt showed him — to record its roots. A thunderstorm rolled in, and he had to abandon the area. It continued to record as he huddled in his car. It captured the giant’s rumbling root system and a mysterious creature muttering.

“We got this sound we didn’t expect, and that was a huge surprise — one of the highlights of the trip,” he said. “But I think there’s a rich underground soundscape at Pando and probably most forests, to be honest.”

He created the Pando Suite and various interpretations of the recordings, which can be found here. The musical pieces were made by inputting sounds into a computer, which triggered software to play pitches based on natural tones, such as birdsong. The computer “hears” the sounds and plays back various patterns.

“So it was a collaboration, I guess, between me and Pando,” he said.

Recording the tree wasn’t without obstacles, Rice said, describing the experience as one of his “biggest recording challenges.” The circumstances have to be right to record Pando’s trembling leaves, with blowing wind and an absence of intruding noise. Because the area is frequented by tourists visiting the forest and nearby Fish Lake, the sounds of vehicles were an issue.

“It’s like watching a pot of water boil,” he said.

Lupine flowers flaunt their bright purple petals against Pando’s stark, white trunks, Fishlake National Forest, Utah, Aug. 14, 2023 | Photo by Alysha Lundgren, St. George News

Additionally, because the work was completed in a natural setting, he faced inclement weather, rugged terrain and steep hills.

“It’s not like being in the studio at all,” he said.

The Pando Suite isn’t the end of the experience, Rice said. He’s planning to present various recordings with video at the Jack Straw Cultural Center in Seattle, Washinton, where he hopes attendees will consider questions of identity, connection with nature and “vibrational communication.”

“Those are very abstract concepts, the way I’m describing them, but partly, it’s just a feeling and experience,” he said. “When you go into an art exhibit, you are connecting with those sounds in a physical way.”

Friends of Pando has also announced three new artists in residence, featuring ceramics and mix-media artist Emily Loughlin, photographer Steve Babbitt and filmmaker and photographer Mitch Epstein.

The sound featured in the background of the video at the top of this article is the Pando Suite, courtesy of Jeff Rice.

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Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2023, all rights reserved.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Alysha Lundgren joined the St. George News team in 2022. She began her career as a freelancer, writing resource articles for families of children with disabilities. She's also covered topics such as astronomy, recreation and nature. Originally from Nevada, Alysha fell in love with Utah quickly after moving to Cedar City. In her free time, she enjoys wandering and photographing Utah's gorgeous landscapes or hunkering down in a blanket to play video games or read a good book.

Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @STGnews

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