‘Listening to nature makes us realise we are part of its ecological world’

Jeff T

Titon

is professor emeritus of music at

Brown University

. Speaking with Srijana Mitra Das at Times Evoke, the eminent academic discussed why it is so important to listen with care to nature’s music, how climate change will alter the way the world sounds — and why participating in nature’s sound ecology can help human beings feel harmony with the environment:


Why is it crucial to listen to nature’s music today?

Listening is a way of being in the world and being with others. It is also a way of knowing the world, both the natural world and the humanbuilt environment. Normally, we humans identify ourselves as thinking beings, looking out into the world, separate from the objects that we see — but we are also feeling the vibrations of the world, and if we pay attention to them, a different world opens. This is a world of connection, rather than a world of distance. Upon listening, we realise that we are inside this world, part and parcel of it, instead of looking out at it. At moments of genuine connection through music, we feel a deep kinship with others. And it is based on this feeling of kinship that we can try to build more responsible institutions and a more just, caring and harmonious society.

Are there moments of sound when the human and natural worlds meaningfully intersect? Yes, there is very meaningful communication between species via sound. As an example, there is cross-species communication among human beings and

domestic animals

, whether Sami herders and their reindeer, Mongolian nomads and their sheep, trackers and their dogs or children and their pets. There is also cross-species communication between predators and prey — a noise from a human warns an animal of its presence, or an alarm call from one animal warns all the other animals within hearing distance.

Why do you say it is important to create a ‘

sound commons

’ for all living creatures?

Most living beings communicate by means of sound — and communication is required for the survival of both individuals and species. A commons is a resource that is shared but cannot be owned — it’s like the air surrounding the

Earth

and the oceans. A sound commons is a sonic resource, an acoustic space that enables all living creatures and species to establish acoustic niches where they can communicate with the least amount of interference. Of course, anthropogenic or human noise, such as noise from ships and sonar or vehicular traffic, airplanes, construction equipment and so on, generates the most interference in this natural sound commons today.



What are the scientific notions of a ‘sound ecology’ and a ‘sound economy’? A sound ecology is, literally, the study of beings and their sonic relations to one another and to their environment. These sonic relations are direct, physical connections. One being produces a sound vibration — the resulting sound travels in a longitudinal wave and vibrates other beings. By means of these sounds, these beings communicate with one another and with their environment. Importantly, those direct, physical connections also imply direct connections among beings within a community. So, a sound economy is built on direct personal connections and exchanges, quite like the functioning of a local economy. This contrasts with the distant relations, the indirect exchanges, the legal relations, the contracts and competition we see in an unsound, global economy. Ecological connections expressed through music and sound are thus based on cooperation and sustainability. It is very important to delve deeper into this way of experiencing the world. We should explore ecomusicology more and think about the study of sound, music, nature and culture, in a time of environmental crisis.



You have worked on the sound of climate change itself — can you describe this to us? We hear climate change in the sounds of the intensifying wind and rain storms around us, in the breaking and falling of trees, the sounds of more frequent forest fires and the terrifying sounds of floods. We hear climate change in the changing soundscapes of where we travel and live, as some species vanish, taking their sounds with them. Climate change is ensuring that our world never sounds the same again.