WEBVTT

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[music]

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Do you hear what I hear?

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[slow cello music]

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Do you hear what I hear?

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It's a universal question.

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And it's also an ancient question.

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And...

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it's an exceedingly contemporary question.

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It asks so much of us, 
doesn't it?

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Are you feeling what I'm feeling? 
Am I alone in what I hear?

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Let's listen to the question.

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And let's listen to the way that technology 
is constantly changing the answer.

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As humans, we listen in groups, 
and we always have.

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We used to dwell in caves 
and sit around the fire.

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And likely we listened to a sort of--ooh!-- 
[light cello music]

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grunting nightly newscast of the events of the day.

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You know, big thunder.
Many antelope.

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Guy next door has new rock. 
[audience laughs]

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[cello music continues]

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We listen to each other's hopes and our dreams 
and our experiences and our aspirations.

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And our stories, real or imagined, 
with storytelling time.

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'Cause listening is sharing.
We shared these things.

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[Cello music stops]

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It went on for a very long time, right? 
Eons.

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But then we grew complex.

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Our stories grew very complex.

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Time passed 
and technology arrived.

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The cave got nicer.

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[Cello music starts again]
We got some indoor plumbing.

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And we began to sit around 
and listen to a thing called radio.

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We listened to the news of the world 
and the songs of the day

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and we listened 
to the speeches of Winston Churchill.

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[cello music continues]

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And we kept on listening, 
with technology amplifying and broadcasting it all.

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We listened together to teachers,
preachers, fascists, and popes.

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We listened to operas 
and rock stars.

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We listened to people try to sell us soap 
and cigarettes.

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[silence]

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The fact is, we used to listen 
to events as events.

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You know? The speech, the concert. 
You had to be there.

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But then we found 
that we could record and play back.

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And that's technology.

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And we found 
that sound could be openly accessible.

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We could get it anywhere, anytime. 
Alone or apart.

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And the radio became the home stereo.

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And listening got a little less big group-y 
and a little more parlor, right?

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We found that we could actually purchase 
a song or a sound.

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Have you heard what I've heard? No? 
Well, come on over.

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I'll play it for you.

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Now, of course we don't always listen in groups.
No, no.

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Often, frequently, we listen privately.

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Private listening. It's a primal thing

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Sound. Is. Primal.

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It exists...in a pre-language realm. All right?

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And unlike movies and television and computers, 
which are always two dimensional,

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sound is always three-dimensional. 
[High pitched music starts]

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It's around us; it's within us.

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That phrase "in the beginning was the Word" 
can be understood as in the beginning was sound.

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The sound of the word.

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Sound was the first thing ever.

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And this begins for us

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in a dark, warm,
very comfortable place

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known as the womb.

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[Music continues]

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Inside the womb, we begin to hear 
far before we begin to see.

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And the first thing that we ever hear 
is this steady, four-four pounding

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known as mother's heartbeat.

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It's the first and most important sound of our lives. 
And it stays with us.

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Have you ever wondered why later in life,
we go to dark, warm, dance clubs?

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On a liquid diet and we kinda bop around 
to that same four-four pounding beat?

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[Audience laughs]

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Yeah. That's technology recreating the best place 
in the whole world, the womb.

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[Audience laughs]

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We get together and we gather to listen to it. 
It's fantastic.

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[sighs]

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Now later, outside of the womb,

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we discover 
that sound is truly wonderful.

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awh ...

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It defines us. 
It amazes us.

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It touches us so deeply.

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Do you remember, as a child,

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laying in the backseat of the car
on a rainy night on the way home,

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falling asleep to your parents' voices, 
very low talking,

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windshield wipers keeping time, 
and you're listening

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to the passing cars

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and the sound of tires 
on the wet pavement.

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[imitates engine noise 
and sound of splashing water]

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You remember the first time 
you discovered zippers?

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[imitates zipper sound]

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Wow! 
[audience laughs]

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We wanted to share that. 
"Mommy, listen to this!"

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[imitates zipper sound]

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[audience laughs]

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The truth is that private listening 
always leads to that need to share.

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And it's at that age 
that we begin to ask ourselves,

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"Do you hear what I hear?"

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The song, "Do You Hear What I Hear?" 
was written in the late sixties,

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about the time of the Cuban missile crisis. 
Um, about the same time,

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headphone technology was leaving the battlefield 
where it had been for decades.

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And it was beginning 
to enter the home.

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Headphones

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made listening more private, more personal.

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They cut us off from one another in exchange 
for a more powerful private listening experience.

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Just a decade later, 
the Walkman arrived,

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which is a portable listening device, right? 
And it untethered us from the home stereo.

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And we were free to walk around the planet, 
you know, listening privately.

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Carrying, slugging 
these backpacks full of cassettes. Remember?

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[Audience laughs]

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Sound attached itself to us, 
and we began to carry it around.

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And somehow private listening 
became more fashionable than group listening.

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Recall this? 
Well, headphones, they were amazing.

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Total aural immersion. 
And yet, total loneliness.

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The sound was great, 
but it was hard to share.

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We tried to counter that loneliness 
with something called the mix tape.

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[audience laughs]

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It was this love letter sound object 
made up of the sounds and songs

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that we would offer to others.

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"Here, listen to this. 
Hear what I hear.

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Feel what I feel 
when I listen to this."

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But you know, technology. Our finger's constantly 
on the fast-forward button, right?

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That Walkman quickly became the CD player, 
the MP3 player, the iPod, the iPhone, Anyphone.

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The backpack full of cassettes 
collapsed itself into the technology.

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And the device got smaller, smaller,

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lighter, nearly invisible.

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That little button called shuffle

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killed the mix tape.

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Remember the little segues we used to make, to make it just the perfect song to song?

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That vanished, 
and the randomness of streaming arrived.

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Robots called algorithms 
began to "know us."

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And not only would they play the songs 
we wanted to hear,

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but they would suggest other songs 
that we might want to hear, or even purchase.

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And the cave where we used to listen

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was suddenly becoming 
this isolated private space.

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And maybe the sound wasn't so good, after all.

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It's kind of thin and tinny 
and compressed and plastic.

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It's the fast food of sonic culture 
and it's not very nutrient.

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All right? 
Private listening has engulfed us.

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As if the world was too noisy

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And now we carry this little iWomb around 
to keep us sonically safe.

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All right, I know 
that the Internet and telephone technology

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probably have us more connected 
than we ever have been before.

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You know, I don't argue that. 
But in our listening, we're so alone.

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So private. 
So isolated.

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Sad.

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And it's getting pretty dark. Right?

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Where are we going with this?

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Zombie hordes of earbud slaves. 
[audience laughs]

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We're wandering randomly and disconnected.

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It’s an Orwellian nightmare.

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Dude!

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It's the end of humanity, it's--
surely, it's the end of days.

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Well, maybe. 
But maybe not.

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Technology did not get us into this mess.

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We did. 
Our neurotic culture did.

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And cultures evolve, we hope. 
And so does the technology.

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Right?

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Maybe it’s not so scary.

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Listen.

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Sonic culture is beginning to join 
with the global network.

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And group listening and private listening 
are beginning to merge again.

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That tinny and tiny earbud 
is passing away

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in favor of these new, like, fashionably hip 
and really cool and great-sounding headphones.

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You've seen 'em.

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And their days are numbered, as well.

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We have new technology, 
something known as Bone Conduction.

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I love saying "bone conduction.

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And what it does is it stimulates 
the, uh, auditory canals using soundwaves.

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And what this does is frees us from headphones.

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We're listening here instead of here.

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And that allows us, for the first time ever, 
to listen normally to our friends at the restaurant,

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and if we want to, listen to some playback 
at the same time.

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Uh, it was only a few months ago, 
the first man implanted little sonic magnets

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into a fleshy part of his ear here.

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He doesn't need any headphones at all. 
iPhone.

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There's a new kind of broadcasting 
known as “bluecasting.”

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And this is the use of bluetooth technology 
to broadcast locally.

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If you can imagine going to a library 
or a restaurant or a cafe

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or a...classroom or a museum 
or even a dance club.

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And you can choose to hear music 
if you want to, bopping around, rocking out.

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Or if you don't want to, click. 
It is off.

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And it's not bothering you. Imagine a dance floor full of people and no sound.

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[audience laughs] 
Right?

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It's in development. 
There are prototypes.

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And what is the podcast 
if not a virtual mixtape, right?

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It's a playlist, and it's our hopes 
and our dreams and what I'm thinking today.

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Here, download...

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this.

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Hear what I hear.

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There's even this thing called the, uh, the TED 
talk,

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where people gather in caves 
and listen to this sort of grunting of ideas.

00:12:49.700 --> 00:12:51.800


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It's very popular. 
[audience laughs]

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Live music is back; it's everywhere. 
Uh, right now, our--

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there are more vendors 
than there ever were before.

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Um, we're listening 
as if decades of recorded plastic playback

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has left us really hungry 
for live, real, actual sounds. All right?

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We're back in the concert hall. 
It doesn't matter.

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Classical, rock and roll, 
bluegrass, electronica.

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You know, yak mating music. 
We're back in there, listening for it.

00:13:24.433 --> 00:13:27.066


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It's very beautiful. 
Now, myself, I look at youth culture.

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I look at the millenials. 
And they're down.

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They are listening again in groups. 
They're sharing sound.

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They call it file sharing.

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But they're also doing these things, 
it's a group listening, turntable party.

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And noise bands. 
And online gaming,

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where they can talk to each other 
[electronic music starts]

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while they blow the zombies away. Right?

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And they're forming little subcultures 
of group listening, like this.

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It's called “Decibel Drag Racing." 
And they jack up their cars.

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And they compete 
to see how loud each other can be.

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That's group listening, all right?

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It's not very good for the ears,

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[music becomes louder and continues]

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but my god, what enthusiasm!

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[audience laughs]

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Guys, it’s not about the technology at all, 
and it never was.

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It’s our need to share our sounds 
and our stories.

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And the technology just supports that, right?

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You know, we want to share our stuff.

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And I believe, personally, I believe 
that our, the future of sonic culture

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is actually quite bright. 
Or to join the millennials, you know,

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[Cello music starts]
it's awesome, it's sweet, it's sick.

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[Cello music continues

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And I think that eventually, 
we're all gonna hear each other.

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I want to hear what you hear, 
and you want to hear what I hear,

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and together we can celebrate the sounds 
of our lives.

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[music continues]

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So listen up, listen well.

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Thank you.

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[applause]