WEBVTT 00:00:01.000 --> 00:00:03.000 The Hindus say, "Nada brahma," 00:00:03.000 --> 00:00:06.000 one translation of which is, "The world is sound." 00:00:06.000 --> 00:00:09.000 And in a way, that's true, because everything is vibrating. 00:00:09.000 --> 00:00:12.000 In fact, all of you as you sit here right now are vibrating. 00:00:12.000 --> 00:00:15.000 Every part of your body is vibrating at different frequencies. 00:00:15.000 --> 00:00:17.000 So you are, in fact, a chord -- 00:00:17.000 --> 00:00:19.000 each of you an individual chord. 00:00:19.000 --> 00:00:21.000 One definition of health may be 00:00:21.000 --> 00:00:23.000 that that chord is in complete harmony. 00:00:23.000 --> 00:00:25.000 Your ears can't hear that chord; 00:00:25.000 --> 00:00:28.000 they can actually hear amazing things. Your ears can hear 10 octaves. 00:00:28.000 --> 00:00:31.000 Incidentally, we see just one octave. 00:00:31.000 --> 00:00:33.000 Your ears are always on -- you have no ear lids. 00:00:33.000 --> 00:00:35.000 They work even when you sleep. 00:00:35.000 --> 00:00:37.000 The smallest sound you can perceive 00:00:37.000 --> 00:00:40.000 moves your eardrum just four atomic diameters. 00:00:40.000 --> 00:00:42.000 The loudest sound you can hear 00:00:42.000 --> 00:00:44.000 is a trillion times more powerful than that. NOTE Paragraph 00:00:44.000 --> 00:00:46.000 Ears are made not for hearing, 00:00:46.000 --> 00:00:48.000 but for listening. 00:00:48.000 --> 00:00:50.000 Listening is an active skill, 00:00:50.000 --> 00:00:53.000 whereas hearing is passive, listening is something that we have to work at -- 00:00:53.000 --> 00:00:55.000 it's a relationship with sound. 00:00:55.000 --> 00:00:57.000 And yet it's a skill that none of us are taught. 00:00:57.000 --> 00:01:00.000 For example, have you ever considered that there are listening positions, 00:01:00.000 --> 00:01:02.000 places you can listen from? 00:01:02.000 --> 00:01:04.000 Here are two of them. 00:01:04.000 --> 00:01:06.000 Reductive listening is listening "for." 00:01:06.000 --> 00:01:09.000 It reduces everything down to what's relevant 00:01:09.000 --> 00:01:11.000 and it discards everything that's not relevant. 00:01:11.000 --> 00:01:13.000 Men typically listen reductively. 00:01:13.000 --> 00:01:15.000 So he's saying, "I've got this problem." 00:01:15.000 --> 00:01:17.000 He's saying, "Here's your solution. Thanks very much. Next." 00:01:17.000 --> 00:01:19.000 That's the way we talk, right guys? NOTE Paragraph 00:01:19.000 --> 00:01:21.000 Expansive listening, on the other hand, 00:01:21.000 --> 00:01:23.000 is listening "with," not listening "for." 00:01:23.000 --> 00:01:25.000 It's got no destination in mind -- 00:01:25.000 --> 00:01:27.000 it's just enjoying the journey. 00:01:27.000 --> 00:01:29.000 Women typically listen expansively. 00:01:29.000 --> 00:01:31.000 If you look at these two, eye contact, facing each other, 00:01:31.000 --> 00:01:33.000 possibly both talking at the same time. 00:01:33.000 --> 00:01:36.000 (Laughter) 00:01:36.000 --> 00:01:38.000 Men, if you get nothing else out of this talk, 00:01:38.000 --> 00:01:40.000 practice expansive listening, 00:01:40.000 --> 00:01:42.000 and you can transform your relationships. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:42.000 --> 00:01:45.000 The trouble with listening is that so much of what we hear 00:01:45.000 --> 00:01:48.000 is noise, surrounding us all the time. 00:01:48.000 --> 00:01:51.000 Noise like this, according to the European Union, 00:01:51.000 --> 00:01:53.000 is reducing the health and the quality of life 00:01:53.000 --> 00:01:55.000 of 25 percent 00:01:55.000 --> 00:01:57.000 of the population of Europe. 00:01:57.000 --> 00:01:59.000 Two percent of the population of Europe -- 00:01:59.000 --> 00:02:01.000 that's 16 million people -- 00:02:01.000 --> 00:02:03.000 are having their sleep devastated 00:02:03.000 --> 00:02:05.000 by noise like that. 00:02:05.000 --> 00:02:07.000 Noise kills 00:02:07.000 --> 00:02:09.000 200,000 people a year in Europe. 00:02:09.000 --> 00:02:11.000 It's a really big problem. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:11.000 --> 00:02:13.000 Now, when you were little, if you had noise and you didn't want to hear it, 00:02:13.000 --> 00:02:15.000 you'd stick your fingers in your ears and hum. 00:02:15.000 --> 00:02:18.000 These days, you can do a similar thing, it just looks a bit cooler. 00:02:18.000 --> 00:02:20.000 It looks a bit like this. 00:02:20.000 --> 00:02:22.000 The trouble with widespread headphone use 00:02:22.000 --> 00:02:25.000 is it brings three really big health issues. 00:02:25.000 --> 00:02:28.000 The first really big health issue is a word that Murray Schafer coined: 00:02:28.000 --> 00:02:30.000 "schizophonia." 00:02:30.000 --> 00:02:32.000 It's a dislocation 00:02:32.000 --> 00:02:34.000 between what you see and what you hear. 00:02:34.000 --> 00:02:36.000 So, we're inviting into our lives 00:02:36.000 --> 00:02:39.000 the voices of people who are not present with us. 00:02:39.000 --> 00:02:41.000 I think there's something deeply unhealthy 00:02:41.000 --> 00:02:43.000 about living all the time in schizophonia. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:43.000 --> 00:02:45.000 The second problem that comes with headphone abuse 00:02:45.000 --> 00:02:47.000 is compression. 00:02:47.000 --> 00:02:49.000 We squash music to fit it into our pocket 00:02:49.000 --> 00:02:51.000 and there is a cost attached to this. 00:02:51.000 --> 00:02:54.000 Listen to this -- this is an uncompressed piece of music. 00:02:54.000 --> 00:02:57.000 (Music) 00:03:00.000 --> 00:03:03.000 And now the same piece of music with 98 percent of the data removed. 00:03:03.000 --> 00:03:07.000 (Music) 00:03:07.000 --> 00:03:09.000 I do hope that some of you at least 00:03:09.000 --> 00:03:11.000 can hear the difference between those two. 00:03:11.000 --> 00:03:13.000 There is a cost of compression. 00:03:13.000 --> 00:03:15.000 It makes you tired and irritable to have to make up all of that data. 00:03:15.000 --> 00:03:17.000 You're having to imagine it. 00:03:17.000 --> 00:03:19.000 It's not good for you in the long run. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:19.000 --> 00:03:22.000 The third problem with headphones is this: deafness -- 00:03:22.000 --> 00:03:24.000 noise-induced hearing disorder. 00:03:24.000 --> 00:03:27.000 Ten million Americans already have this for one reason or another, 00:03:27.000 --> 00:03:29.000 but really worryingly, 00:03:29.000 --> 00:03:31.000 16 percent -- 00:03:31.000 --> 00:03:33.000 roughly one in six -- of American teenagers 00:03:33.000 --> 00:03:35.000 suffer from noise-induced hearing disorder 00:03:35.000 --> 00:03:38.000 as a result of headphone abuse. 00:03:38.000 --> 00:03:40.000 One study at an American university 00:03:40.000 --> 00:03:43.000 found that 61 percent of college freshmen 00:03:43.000 --> 00:03:45.000 had damaged hearing 00:03:45.000 --> 00:03:47.000 as a result of headphone abuse. 00:03:47.000 --> 00:03:50.000 We may be raising an entire generation of deaf people. 00:03:50.000 --> 00:03:52.000 Now that's a really serious problem. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:52.000 --> 00:03:54.000 I'll give you three quick tips to protect your ears 00:03:54.000 --> 00:03:56.000 and pass these on to your children, please. 00:03:56.000 --> 00:03:58.000 Professional hearing protectors are great; 00:03:58.000 --> 00:04:00.000 I use some all the time. 00:04:00.000 --> 00:04:03.000 If you're going to use headphones, buy the best ones you can afford 00:04:03.000 --> 00:04:05.000 because quality means you don't have to have it so loud. 00:04:05.000 --> 00:04:07.000 If you can't hear somebody talking to you in a loud voice, 00:04:07.000 --> 00:04:09.000 it's too loud. 00:04:09.000 --> 00:04:11.000 And thirdly, if you're in bad sound, 00:04:11.000 --> 00:04:13.000 it's fine to put your fingers in your ears or just move away from it. 00:04:13.000 --> 00:04:15.000 Protect your ears in that way. NOTE Paragraph 00:04:15.000 --> 00:04:18.000 Let's move away from bad sound and look at some friends that I urge you to seek out. 00:04:18.000 --> 00:04:20.000 WWB: 00:04:20.000 --> 00:04:23.000 Wind, water, birds -- 00:04:23.000 --> 00:04:25.000 stochastic natural sounds 00:04:25.000 --> 00:04:27.000 composed of lots of individual random events, 00:04:28.000 --> 00:04:30.000 all of it very healthy, 00:04:30.000 --> 00:04:32.000 all of it sound that we evolved to over the years. 00:04:32.000 --> 00:04:35.000 Seek those sounds out; they're good for you and so it this. 00:04:38.000 --> 00:04:40.000 Silence is beautiful. 00:04:40.000 --> 00:04:42.000 The Elizabethans described language 00:04:42.000 --> 00:04:44.000 as decorated silence. 00:04:44.000 --> 00:04:47.000 I urge you to move away from silence with intention 00:04:47.000 --> 00:04:50.000 and to design soundscapes just like works of art. 00:04:50.000 --> 00:04:53.000 Have a foreground, a background, all in beautiful proportion. 00:04:53.000 --> 00:04:55.000 It's fun to get into designing with sound. 00:04:55.000 --> 00:04:58.000 If you can't do it yourself, get a professional to do it for you. 00:04:58.000 --> 00:05:00.000 Sound design is the future, 00:05:00.000 --> 00:05:03.000 and I think it's the way we're going to change the way the world sounds. NOTE Paragraph 00:05:03.000 --> 00:05:05.000 I'm going to just run quickly through eight modalities, 00:05:05.000 --> 00:05:08.000 eight ways sound can improve health. 00:05:08.000 --> 00:05:11.000 First, ultrasound: we're very familiar with it from physical therapy; 00:05:11.000 --> 00:05:13.000 it's also now being used to treat cancer. 00:05:13.000 --> 00:05:16.000 Lithotripsy -- saving thousands of people a year from the scalpel 00:05:16.000 --> 00:05:19.000 by pulverizing stones with high-intensity sound. 00:05:19.000 --> 00:05:21.000 Sound healing is a wonderful modality. 00:05:21.000 --> 00:05:23.000 It's been around for thousands of years. 00:05:23.000 --> 00:05:25.000 I do urge you to explore this. 00:05:25.000 --> 00:05:27.000 There are great things being done there, treating now autism, 00:05:27.000 --> 00:05:29.000 dementia and other conditions. 00:05:29.000 --> 00:05:32.000 And music, of course. Just listening to music is good for you, 00:05:32.000 --> 00:05:34.000 if it's music that's made with good intention, 00:05:34.000 --> 00:05:36.000 made with love, generally. 00:05:36.000 --> 00:05:38.000 Devotional music, good -- Mozart, good. 00:05:38.000 --> 00:05:40.000 There are all sorts of types of music 00:05:40.000 --> 00:05:42.000 that are very healthy. NOTE Paragraph 00:05:42.000 --> 00:05:44.000 And four modalities where you need to take some action 00:05:44.000 --> 00:05:46.000 and get involved. 00:05:46.000 --> 00:05:48.000 First of all, listen consciously. 00:05:48.000 --> 00:05:50.000 I hope that that after this talk you'll be doing that. 00:05:50.000 --> 00:05:53.000 It's a whole new dimension to your life and it's wonderful to have that dimension. 00:05:53.000 --> 00:05:56.000 Secondly, get in touch with making some sound -- 00:05:56.000 --> 00:05:58.000 create sound. 00:05:58.000 --> 00:06:00.000 The voice is the instrument we all play, 00:06:00.000 --> 00:06:03.000 and yet how many of us are trained in using our voice? Get trained; 00:06:03.000 --> 00:06:05.000 learn to sing, learn to play an instrument. 00:06:05.000 --> 00:06:08.000 Musicians have bigger brains -- it's true. 00:06:08.000 --> 00:06:10.000 You can do this in groups as well. 00:06:10.000 --> 00:06:12.000 It's a fantastic antidote to schizophonia; 00:06:12.000 --> 00:06:14.000 to make music and sound in a group of people, 00:06:14.000 --> 00:06:17.000 whichever style you enjoy particularly. 00:06:17.000 --> 00:06:19.000 And let's take a stewarding role for the sound around us. 00:06:19.000 --> 00:06:21.000 Protect your ears? Yes, absolutely. 00:06:21.000 --> 00:06:23.000 Design soundscapes to be beautiful around you 00:06:23.000 --> 00:06:25.000 at home and at work. 00:06:25.000 --> 00:06:27.000 And let's start to speak up 00:06:27.000 --> 00:06:29.000 when people are assailing us 00:06:29.000 --> 00:06:31.000 with the noise that I played you early on. NOTE Paragraph 00:06:31.000 --> 00:06:34.000 So I'm going to leave you with seven things you can do right now 00:06:34.000 --> 00:06:36.000 to improve your health with sound. 00:06:36.000 --> 00:06:39.000 My vision is of a world that sounds beautiful 00:06:39.000 --> 00:06:41.000 and if we all start doing these things, 00:06:41.000 --> 00:06:43.000 we will take a very big step in that direction. 00:06:43.000 --> 00:06:46.000 So I urge you to take that path. NOTE Paragraph 00:06:46.000 --> 00:06:48.000 I'm leaving you with a little more birdsong, which is very good for you. 00:06:48.000 --> 00:06:50.000 I wish you sound health. NOTE Paragraph 00:06:50.000 --> 00:06:53.000 (Applause)