tuning (into) the world
on listening, imagination, play, and seeing clearly with art
Welcome to Being Sound. Being Sound is a publication dedicated to listening and creative expression. Getting in touch with our inner ear, sonic vision, and the creative worlds of sound and music. My plan is to share bits of my own curiosity through various lenses—writing, prompts, sheet music, studio process, digital archiving and audio workstations (such as Ableton Live). I’ll leave it open to where the inspiration leads, and what feels most alive.
Tuning (into) the world
I’ve been thinking a lot these days about art’s role in our world, and how we can use our creations for meaningful change and transformative experience.
Lately I have been holding this question: With everything happening in the world right now, why is art essential? How can we use it to it’s most true and impactful potential?
With every day that goes by, this art as a way of being in the world feels more essential and totally revolutionary in itself. To be able to direct our attention where we want it to go, to notice, to be curious, and to be able to live in a state of awe amidst everything. That is what feels essential to me these days.
Can we tune ourselves through listening and expression? Can we tune the world?
As we open ourselves to receiving sound, just listening, we might hear birdsongs in the park, trains, city sirens, concrete drilling, leaves rustling in the wind, conversation in a cafe. Maybe we resonate with some of these, and tense up with others.
When we hear a song that speaks to us, we might discover that we are not alone in a feeling. Or rather, an artist may be inviting us to get in touch with something already within us. Music can certainly provide the sonic architecture for us to move through emotions and experience. When I am performing for an audience, I often feel this sense of connection and community that the music can hold.
Neuroscientist Andrew Huberman, in The Huberman Lab Podcast, shares that listening to music activates neurons in our brain that exactly match the frequencies of the sounds we hear, through a process called entrainment. This makes our bodies resonate with the music, influencing emotions, movements, and physiological states like breathing and heart rate. He says that this is why music can impact motivation, emotional states, and cognitive functions.
I think that we often use this experience intuitively when we use playlists for different activities, times of day, seasons, and periods of our life. Spotify and algorithmic playlists have really caught onto this. We can tune in with our music. It is said that the Indian Ragas tune in to these times of day and seasonality as well—maybe a deeper conversation for a future post.
What are we entraining to, listening to? What kind of world do you dream of for yourself and others?
Last month I was so lucky to be in a month long masterclass series with long time hero and legendary music producer, Brian Eno. In his class, Brian suggests that artists are feeling makers and world makers. That we imagine new futures with our art, through the act of play. That with our music we can create sonic worlds that have feelings and values attached to them.
“What do you think of a world like this? How does that sit with you? Do you like it? Dislike it?”
The key is this: You can experience the feeling of these worlds without suffering material consequences of them. This is how he suggests that adults use play in a meaningful way.
“Playing is fundamentally the most serious thing that we do, because it’s in playing that we model different futures. We want to imagine what it would be like to live in a totalitarian state—we write the novel 1984. Or what would it be like to live in a future where we start to solve climate change? That’s the novel The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson. So what we’re doing is modeling other possible realities. That’s what art does for us. And it’s the most important thing that humans do. So when people say, ‘You’re just playing,’ they’re missing the point: playing is very important.” — Brian Eno, The Great Discontent
His perspective, maybe supported by this entrainment idea in neuroscience, suggests that listening to and making music has the potential to transform how we think, communicate, behave—and maybe even organize as a society.
As artists, is our work more effective as a mirror, bringing awareness to what is happening in our world, as-it-is, or when we can envision and embody an entirely new world, free from the old ways of being?
I am thinking of Kendrick Lamar’s recent Superbowl Halftime Show. Maybe aside from the rivalry and some humor, I wonder if most viewers caught the intensity of our moment mirrored back to us, so vividly during this moment. The music, narration, costumes, set design and dancers all seemed to mirror this back to us in high definition. To me, it felt like a powerful way to use that platform.
One of my favorite artists in the field of acoustic ecology, Bernie Krause, uses recorded sound as a means to increase awareness of our Earth’s ecosystems, as-they-are. Bernie’s work, as written about in his amazing book The Great Animal Orchestra, involves collecting and analyzing recordings of natural environments over time to assess ecosystem health, raise public awareness, and inform policy.
And speaking of Brian Eno collaborators, take a listen to the work of Laraaji, and you’ll quickly find yourself settling into a more peaceful, expansive world—a little bit lighter and more free from our usual ways of being in the world.
Are these approaches mutually exclusive? Can our art exist in the conversations between both?
The call to action: let’s try creating from here!
I will post a new song soon as I explore this myself in the coming week.
If you feel the calling, share any inspiration in the comments, group chat, or message me directly. It might be as simple as an idea that came to you, a link to a voice memo, a melody, a song, or any kind of creative work-in-process. We’ll figure it out as we go. As I learn how to best use Substack, it might be cool to get together and share what we create.
And please, share this with a friend who might join in as well!
Much love.
