Designing a Soundscape for the Cars of the Future

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

News, David, Books, Arts, Storytelling, Wnyc, New, Remnick, News Commentary, Yorker, Politics

4.2 • 5.5K Ratings

🗓️ 16 August 2022

⏱️ 23 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Electric cars, compared to cars with internal-combustion engines, are nearly silent, which can present a danger to cyclists and pedestrians. So car companies are turning to sound engineers to craft artificial soundtracks for things like backing up, or starting the engine. John Seabrook, who writes often about music, reported on the composers and designers who are building a new soundscape for the streets and highways of America. Plus, a visit with Ada Limón, who was recently named the twenty-fourth U.S. Poet Laureate. Limón lives in Kentucky, and in 2018 she took the Radio Hour to her favorite racetrack, and spoke about her lifelong love of horses.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNWC Studios and The New Yorker.
0:11.1	This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, I'm David Remnick.
0:14.0	John Seabrook has written for The New Yorker on many subjects, but he's a particular
0:18.4	expert on pop music.
0:20.2	How in today's music business, a track is built layer by layer by an entire team of composers
0:26.1	and producers.
0:28.0	Really John took that close attention to the process of making songs to a very different
0:32.5	kind of sound environment.
0:34.6	Here's John Seabrook taking a little trip with our producer, GoFen and Putabuele.
0:41.4	So let's imagine we're walking through London in the 19th century.
0:45.4	You know, it's 1859 and it's a beautiful sunny day and we're strolling down the high
0:52.7	street.
0:55.0	What are we here?
0:56.5	What does it sound like all around us?
1:00.6	It's going to sound pretty different than walking through New York City sounds today.
1:04.2	I think first of all you're going to hear the clip clip of horses hooves and you're going
1:08.5	to hear wagon wheels.
1:11.6	You're going to hear church bells.
1:14.0	You're going to hear running water.
1:15.6	Probably you're going to hear more animal and bird sounds than we can hear today.
1:23.1	You're going to hear blacksmiths hammers which have a particular sound.
1:28.4	They go ping, ping, ping, ping.
	...

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