8 Sounds of Nature is an interactive sound installation based on a traditional Chinese musical concept.

Traditional Chinese musical instruments are classified into 8 categories according to the constructing materials, this system known as “Ba Yin” (八音, 8 sounds) was defined in the book “Rites of Zhou”(周礼) over 2000 years ago.

All the materials are from the nature :

metal(金), stone(石) , silk(丝), bamboo(竹) ,

gourd(匏), clay(土), leather(革), wood(木)

 These 8 categories also resonate with the 8 trigrams (八卦) of Taoist cosmology defined by “I-Ching“ which represent the fundamental principles of reality. Each object is placed to the direction of their assigned trigram.

The sound being heard when touching the object mixed the material’s musical instrument’s sound with a landscape of other sounds representing the material. The salt on the central plate is visualizing the sound by the vibration created by the speaker underneath. The audience can put on the headphone to soak in the sound by touching those objects, it could also be heard by the speaker’s amplification.

This interactive sound installation aims to express the Chinese ancient musical culture by basic human actions of touching, hearing and seeing. Displaying them to the audience on a round table and inside of those frames visually delivers a sense of eastern Asian aesthetic.

We could use this as an educational exhibit in the museum who’s expertise is in Chinese culture, it also educates people that certain frequency of sound vibration could form different patterns with the sand on the mental plate. It is both cultural and scientific.