Learning to Listen to Wild Sounds

Outside Podcast

Wilderness, Sports

4.3 • 2.2K Ratings

🗓️ 20 April 2022

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

When we open our ears to the marvels of natural soundscapes, we experience the energies of the world in a unique way—and begin to understand the mysteries behind them. But when we habitually ignore what we’re hearing, we both miss out on one of the best parts of being human and enable the loss of an enormous diversity of species on this planet. So argues biologist and acclaimed author David Haskell in his new book, Sounds Wild and Broken. Considered by many as the premier nature writer in America today, Haskell believes that one of the most important things we can do to heal the earth is remember how to listen. In this episode, Haskell walks us through the rich history of sound and offers a powerful lesson in sonic awareness.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From outside magazine, this is the outside podcast.
0:20.4	Two friends are walking down a busy city block.
0:23.4	One of them lives in the city, and the other is visiting from the countryside, and as
0:27.8	they're walking and talking, all of a sudden the friend from the countryside says,
0:31.9	listen, do you hear that?
0:34.2	And the city friend says, no, I don't hear anything.
0:37.3	What is it?
0:38.3	So the country friend leads them further down the block, walking faster and listening
0:42.6	intently.
0:43.6	They turn down an alleyway, and about halfway down this alley, there's a dumpster with some
0:48.4	discarded cardboard in front of it.
0:50.8	The country friend squats down and starts gently turning over the cardboard, then says,
0:55.6	there it is.
0:59.8	It's a cricket, singing in the back of an alley.
1:05.6	The city friend, totally in shock, says, how could you possibly have heard that?
1:10.2	The country friend just smiles, and then walks them back out the alley to the main street,
1:15.2	reaches into a pants pocket and tosses some change onto the sidewalk.
1:23.2	Up and down the block, in this loud city, people freeze and look around.
1:28.0	And the country friend says, you hear what you listen for.
1:34.9	This is Michael Roberts, and that story is one I was told years ago, at Summer Camp, but
1:40.4	I've been thinking about it a lot lately, while working on this week's episode, which
1:44.7	features the biologist and author David Haskell.
	...

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