Technology and sonic culture - do you hear what I hear? Dale Sherrard at TEDxUMontana

[music]

Do you hear what I hear?

[slow cello music]

Do you hear what I hear?

It's a universal question.

And it's also an ancient question.

And...

it's an exceedingly contemporary question.

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

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

Let's listen to the question.

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

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

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

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

grunting nightly newscast of the events of the day.

You know, big thunder.
Many antelope.

Guy next door has new rock.
[audience laughs]

[cello music continues]

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

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

'Cause listening is sharing.
We shared these things.

[Cello music stops]

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

But then we grew complex.

Our stories grew very complex.

Time passed
and technology arrived.

The cave got nicer.

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

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

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

and we listened
to the speeches of Winston Churchill.

[cello music continues]

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

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

We listened to operas
and rock stars.

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

[silence]

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

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

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

And that's technology.

And we found
that sound could be openly accessible.

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

And the radio became the home stereo.

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

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

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

I'll play it for you.

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

Often, frequently, we listen privately.

Private listening. It's a primal thing

Sound. Is. Primal.

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

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

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

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

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

The sound of the word.

Sound was the first thing ever.

And this begins for us

in a dark, warm,
very comfortable place

known as the womb.

[Music continues]

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

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

known as mother's heartbeat.

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

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

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

[Audience laughs]

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

[Audience laughs]

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

[sighs]

Now later, outside of the womb,

we discover
that sound is truly wonderful.

awh ...

It defines us.
It amazes us.

It touches us so deeply.

Do you remember, as a child,

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

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

windshield wipers keeping time,
and you're listening

to the passing cars

and the sound of tires
on the wet pavement.

[imitates engine noise
and sound of splashing water]

You remember the first time
you discovered zippers?

[imitates zipper sound]

Wow!
[audience laughs]

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

[imitates zipper sound]

[audience laughs]

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

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

"Do you hear what I hear?"

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

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

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

And it was beginning
to enter the home.

Headphones

made listening more private, more personal.

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

Just a decade later,
the Walkman arrived,

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

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

Carrying, slugging
these backpacks full of cassettes. Remember?

[Audience laughs]

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

And somehow private listening
became more fashionable than group listening.

Recall this?
Well, headphones, they were amazing.

Total aural immersion.
And yet, total loneliness.

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

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

[audience laughs]

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

that we would offer to others.

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

Feel what I feel
when I listen to this."

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

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

The backpack full of cassettes
collapsed itself into the technology.

And the device got smaller, smaller,

lighter, nearly invisible.

That little button called shuffle

killed the mix tape.

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

That vanished,
and the randomness of streaming arrived.

Robots called algorithms
began to "know us."

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

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

And the cave where we used to listen

was suddenly becoming
this isolated private space.

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

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

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

All right?
Private listening has engulfed us.

As if the world was too noisy

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

All right, I know
that the Internet and telephone technology

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

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

So private.
So isolated.

Sad.

And it's getting pretty dark. Right?

Where are we going with this?

Zombie hordes of earbud slaves.
[audience laughs]

We're wandering randomly and disconnected.

It’s an Orwellian nightmare.

Dude!

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

Well, maybe.
But maybe not.

Technology did not get us into this mess.

We did.
Our neurotic culture did.

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

Right?

Maybe it’s not so scary.

Listen.

Sonic culture is beginning to join
with the global network.

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

That tinny and tiny earbud
is passing away

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

You've seen 'em.

And their days are numbered, as well.

We have new technology,
something known as Bone Conduction.

I love saying "bone conduction.

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

And what this does is frees us from headphones.

We're listening here instead of here.

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

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

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

into a fleshy part of his ear here.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[audience laughs]
Right?

It's in development.
There are prototypes.

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

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

Here, download...

this.

Hear what I hear.

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

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

It's very popular.
[audience laughs]

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

there are more vendors
than there ever were before.

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

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

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

Classical, rock and roll,
bluegrass, electronica.

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

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

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

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

They call it file sharing.

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

And noise bands.
And online gaming,

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

while they blow the zombies away. Right?

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

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

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

That's group listening, all right?

It's not very good for the ears,

[music becomes louder and continues]

but my god, what enthusiasm!

[audience laughs]

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

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

And the technology just supports that, right?

You know, we want to share our stuff.

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

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

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

[Cello music continues

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

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

and together we can celebrate the sounds
of our lives.

[music continues]

So listen up, listen well.

Thank you.

[applause]