May Collective Collaborative Playlist: Music to Play To Your Plants

Design by Andres Duarte

In this late spring month, give your plants a little extra love 'n attention by playing them some music! The T&E crew curated a playlist featuring songs intentionally composed for plants, songs created by sampling plants, as well as an assortment of other great nature-related tunes.

More recommendations not on Spotify:

​One of the producers of Aloe Extract Sound was Momoe Soeda, an expert in medical research relating to aloe. Soeda is quoted as describing how the music was produced:

"This CD was produced by attaching a surface potential measurement device to the aloe leaves and converting the measured values ​​into music information to play a synthesizer. The music played by this aloe releases you from everyday stress and leads to deep relaxation. Please enjoy it as a new type of relaxation sound." 

Playlist curated by Noe, Ronny, Andres, Parisa, Kurt B., Randy and A. Iwasa.

An excerpt from our Cosmo Sheldrake interview from 2019...

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Do you play Plantasia for your plants? Or do you play anything else to keep your plants happy?

I think my plants hear it just because I like to play that record pretty frequently! I find it helpful for me to concentrate and work to, so at the very least my plants are listening vicariously [laughs]. I haven't done any serious sort of experiments whether it actually helps them grow, but it's interesting to think about nonetheless. It's a topic that people consider more and more, and they're discovering plants may potentially even have a visual sense, and a much more interactive, responsive sensibility than people give them credit for.

I think it's important not to rule out the prospect that plants can hear. In fact, there was a study recently that showed that plants adjust the level of sugar in their nectar depending on the kind of frequency from the wing of the inset coming up towards them. They did this in a lab setting where they'd play sounds of an approaching bee, and the plant's nectar would rapidly turn a hell of a lot more sweet in response. So, it seems that plants can hear, and even if it's just through picking up vibrations that doesn't really matter because that's all sound is anyway. I do think it's entirely possible that we do need to be more careful what we say and play around plants for sure.

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Check out our full interview with composer Cosmo Sheldrake on morphic resonance, field recording in nature and much more here.