Rhythm

BBC Earth Podcast

Jenkins Laura

Society & Culture, Places & Travel, Tv & Film

4.6 • 611 Ratings

🗓️ 6 December 2022

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Sebastian is not afraid to admit that he lacks natural rhythm. But Rutendo thinks he’s too hard on himself – perhaps the world is just out of sync with him. Besides, every living thing is built upon natural rhythms, from our response to night and day, to the beating of our hearts.

Kristina Bolinder leads us on an exploration of a plant with a very unusual habit: it only flowers under the light of the full moon. The reason why connects a century of lunar records with the latest in botanical research.

Deep in the Budongo Forest in Uganda, a team of researchers has been following a group of chimps for several years, and learning that they each have their own signature rhythm, expressed through drumming on the base of trees. What’s more, they can choose when to reveal their identities through their drumming, and when to keep them hidden.

Frozen Planet II Producer Rachel Scott tells us about the rhythm of life in the Arctic, from the devastating effects of climate change, to a beautiful and unexpected

sequence featuring polar bears dancing on ice.

We close with the friendly tap-tapping sounds of the Great Spotted Woodpecker – who reveals much within its rhythm.

Credits:

The BBC Earth podcast is presented by Sebastian Echeverri and Rutendo Shackleton.

This episode was produced by Rachel Byrne and Geoff Marsh.

The researcher was Seb Masters.

The Production Manager was Catherine Stringer and the Production Co-ordinator was Gemma Wootton.

Podcast Theme Music was composed by Axel Kacoutié, with mixing and additional sound design by Peregrine Andrews.

The Associate Producer is Cristen Caine and the Executive Producer is Deborah Dudgeon.

Special thanks to:

Kristina Bolinder for sharing her discovery that connected plants to the lunar cycle.

Vesta Eluteri, Viola Komedova, Catherine Hobaiter and Mugisha Stephen for the feature on chimpanzee drumming.

Rachel Scott from the BBC Natural History Unit.

Chris Hails of wildechoes.org for providing the woodpecker soundscape.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I struggle with rhythm.
0:11.0	I'm fine on my own. I can get into a groove when I'm humming a song to myself,
0:16.0	but as soon as I need to coordinate with anything going on outside of my head, like playing an instrument, it all goes terribly wrong.
0:30.5	But in high school, I once tried to get past that and pushed myself to the limits of my ability to groove.
0:39.1	My high school let us pick our gym class, and in what was probably an attempt to look cool,
0:45.7	I took ballroom dancing.
0:50.8	I wasn't the worst in the class somehow, but that was the biggest rhythmic challenge of my life.
0:58.0	We had a final exam.
1:00.0	With a partner, we had to choreograph a dance, in my case at Chacha, and perform it in front of the whole class.
1:08.0	My partner was probably, definitely, annoyed at the sheer number of times I messed up in practice.
1:20.6	But we passed the class. I really wish I could say that the power of music stayed with me, that my life was transformed,
1:28.3	and I went on to dance my ass off and become kick-ass at all rhythm games.
1:33.3	But that would be a lie.
1:36.3	I can't throw down sick dance moves like the jumping spiders that I study, but they're still really fun to watch.
1:43.3	Every animal out there has got its own rhythm to its life,
1:47.3	and maybe my groove's just a little bit different.
1:56.2	I'm Sebastian Etchevere.
1:58.1	And I'm Rutendo Shackleton.
2:00.1	And this is the BBC Earth podcast.
2:10.5	In this episode, we're talking about rhythm.
2:14.1	From the chimps that each have their own drumming style
2:16.9	to the plants that follow the cycle of the moon.
	...

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