Sound Escapes - Relearn the Art of Truly Listening

Gordon Hempton has spent his life capturing the sounds of the natural world — and learning to really listen to the world around him. He says over the course of our lives we apply more and more filters that dictate what is and isn’t worth our attention. That can help us navigate the human world, but life can be less rich for it. So BirdNote and Gordon have teamed up to present a series of soundscapes — to help us all relearn the art of truly listening. Listen in at BirdNote.org/SoundEscapes.

This show is made possible by Jim and Birte Falconer of Seattle, the Bobolink Foundation, Idie Ulsh, and the Horizons Foundation.

BirdNote^®

Sound Escapes - Relearn the Art of Truly Listening

Written by Ashley Ahearn and Mark Bramhill

This is BirdNote.

  [Songbird chorus: Western Meadowlark and other species]

Gordon Hempton has spent his life capturing the sounds of the natural world — and learning to really listen to the world around him. He says we’re all born good listeners…

Preschool kids, they are true listeners. I find that they make great naturalists.

But we lose that skill over time. As we age, our busy lives and and cultural expectations pull us away from this wonderful, innate skill that we all possess. It starts when kids first go to school.

GH: The teacher stands up in front of the class and says, “Class! Listen!” And everybody turns in the direction of the teacher. And they find out that “oh, she’s important.” And so listening is paying attention to who’s important. // There you begin to apply filters.

Over the course of our lives, we apply more and more filters that dictate what is and isn’t worth our attention. Which can help us navigate the human world — but life can be less rich for it.

So BirdNote has teamed up with Gordon Hempton to create a series of soundscapes to help us all relearn the art of truly listening. Learn more at BirdNote.org/soundescapes.

For BirdNote, I’m Ashley Ahearn.

This show is made possible by Jim and Birte Falconer of Seattle, the Bobolink Foundation, Idie Ulsh, and the Horizons Foundation.

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Bird and nature recordings by Gordon Hempton.
BirdNote’s theme music composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler.
Producer: John Kessler; Managing Producer: Jason Saul; Editor: Ashley Ahearn; Associate Producer: Ellen Blackstone; Assistant Producer: Mark Bramhill
© 2019 Tune In to Nature.org   March 2019   Narrator: Ashley Ahearn

ID# hemptong-06-2019-03-01    hemptong-06