Earth Day at 50 Teach-Out

Xiaoying Pu is a PhD candidate in the School of Information at the University of Michigan. She performs the “Winter Snow Wind Song” as part of the “Rings of Fire” collection assembled by Pamela Ruiter-Fennstra. Below is a short description of this performance.

*I was interning at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, when I saw an animated 3D simulation shown in a CAVE (Cave automatic virtual environment). The simulation was depicting a wind turbine field, with an array of turbine blades rotating and piercing through a stream of air particles blasting into the distance. Visitors at the time and I were captivated by the technical insights—the sheer volume of the data, the distribution of the air turbulence, the optimal placement of turbines, etc. *

Then I realized that it was a silent animation. There was something missing, not only the noise pollution turbines produce, but also the human aspect. What does wind sound like? During my research, I found this Pacific Northwest medicine song.

*What draws me in the most is the richness the song contains behind its steady rhythm and simple melody. With no lyrics, the song was originally sung using vocables such as o, ey, hey, and “each little sound, within that sound there is another sound,” contains medicine, teachings, and connections to the past ancestors.[1] Through the sweeping opening, and then a gradual development, the song vividly depicts its purpose. Here, snowflakes are no longer particles and parameters in a supercomputer simulation; rather, in the winter wind, they twirl and fall and carry the thoughts of the people of the Puget Sound. The Swinomish people would “throw their thoughts” on the snow in midair because when the snow lands, their bad thoughts will be put to an end. *

[[1] Fields, Gregory. (2017). “Pacific Northwest Medicine Songs of the Four Seasons from the Straits Salish and Coast Salish of Washington and British Columbia”. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Folkways Recordings.