Most of us listen to music at least sometimes, rarely – like in confession – do we listen to each other. The listening I want to talk about here, listening to the world, goes beyond the framework of human culture, of interpersonal relationships.
When I talk about listening to the world, I mean not only all the pleasant and unpleasant sounds produced by human activities (on a scale from an opera aria to deafening artillery fire), but also all the vocal and sonic self-expressions of non-human creatures and even the sound of the Earth: let's say the thunderous roar of a volcanic eruption.
The ultimate horizon of listening to the world (also wide listening) is your current listening distance. It is a way of listening that encompasses and perceives the world as a living and interconnected whole. One single world of interconnected sound.
We often describe ourselves as a visual species. For example, we speak of contemporary culture as a visual culture, even though there is at least as much audio content as visual content, if not more. Metaphors of knowledge are also connected to the act of seeing, to luminosity.
Yet our earliest contact with the outside world was auditory. Before we took our first breath of air and opened our eyes, we listened to the rhythm of our mother's heart, the hum of her blood circulation, the soothing vibrations of her voice, but also to the sounds that were transmitted to us through our mother's body and amniotic fluid: other people's voices, music, dogs barking, but also the fossil noise that is so difficult to escape today...
All of this was imprinted on us in the womb, subtly shaping our nervous system, our future. My mother supposedly listened to a lot of classical music during her pregnancy – I don't know if that's the case, but to this day, there's nothing that can calm and satisfy me as much as orchestral music.
So we return to the beginning. Listening is an act of remembering, of dispelling the fog. A return to the world that has never abandoned us, that welcomes us even when we are not listening, that never falls below the horizon, because it is its own horizon.
How to tune in to listening? Where to start? You can start at home. Or go for a walk in the streets, in the fields and treat your walk as a listening exercise, a sharpening of your ears. Listen to the sounds your body makes, your own breath, your own steps, the rustle of fabric against your limbs.
Gradually expand the circle of listening, the sphere of hearing. Enter the vibrating presence of the world, let it embrace you. Listen to what is in your immediate surroundings, what you pass by. Does anyone respond to you? Try listening from afar. And then try to connect it all, to see it in relationships.
You can also try visiting the same places for a longer period of time. I call the places I visit regularly to listen (or record, which I often do at the same time) my listening places. They don't have to be exceptional, exceptionally beautiful places.
It can be a treeless mountaintop, a busy footpath in a city park, a cluttered patch of land under a motorway. The aim of such an approach is to get to know a place in as many shades, situations, seasons as possible – from as many acoustic angles as possible.
The soundscapes around us are constantly changing. There are sounds that repeat in certain places, so-called sound dominants or signatures (in my hometown, České Budějovice, these are, for example, the sounds of trolley buses or the town hall chimes), but everything else changes – from minute to minute, from day to day, from month to month.
Regular listening in a place strengthens your bond with it; it makes you more indigenous, it keeps you in tune with the land. You get to know the local songs and moods, and the place – its people – get to know you. It’s a two-way process of imprinting, of tuning in. When I listen, I reach out to home. And where home is, the heart follows.
Listening also reveals to us whether there are any significant changes taking place in a given place – and thus gives us the opportunity to react to them in a timely manner. You may hear an unfamiliar chirp, which means that a new bird species (in the biological sense as well as in the English sense) has graced you with a visit. cinema), but you may also notice that something or someone is missing...
Increased attention to the sound quality of our enlightenment may eventually change your everyday habits – you will start using a scythe instead of a lawnmower, a bicycle or a longboard instead of a car. By its very nature, listening leads to a slower and more attentive, quieter lifestyle. And therefore also to a fuller experience of being, or rather co-existence.
Initial interest can eventually grow into a desire to recognize individual voices and sounds, to be able to name them. One day you will ask: What or WHO do I actually hear now? And you will go against it. Naming takes things out of uniformity, indistinguishableness – it is an expression of participation and care.
If you walk through the same places for a long time, week after week, month after month, sooner or later you will also start to notice individuality. This thrush has such and such a song, such and such phrasing, it is simply different from the others, unique. And this tree, this very tree, is the center of its universe, the map of home.
And if you persist long enough, you will begin to understand to some extent what birds and other creatures are communicating with their voices. A song will cease to be a song, a call a call, a contact voice a contact voice. You will realize how extremely limiting and crude such general categories are, how they close the door to understanding rather than helping to open it, inviting it to pass through.
And one day you might try to talk to the world, not just listen to it passively. It's so beautiful when a male oriole responds to your whistle, even flies over to take a closer look. Or the idea that a nightingale will incorporate a few notes from a melody I played on the flute or duduk near it into its song!
But remember, taking a step forward begins with a simple expression of interest. It’s not about being able to name exactly what I hear. It’s about the act of paying attention, of focusing your attention in a certain direction. The rest will come naturally. In the words of American poet Mary Oliver, Attention is the beginning of piety.. I listen, I bow.
The text was presented in abbreviated form at the Vodňany PechaKucha Night on 21.