Today is World Listening Day. What exactly is that? Here’s a video by Eve Payor and the Atlantic Center for the Arts Soundscape Field Station that might just answer that question for you. Put on some headphones, take 11 minutes to check it out, and then get out there and listen to the world right there where you are. As I write this I hear the wind in the trees through the open doors and windows of my house in Glen Ellen, CA. What do you hear?

R. Murray Schafer - who is the inspiration for this day - wrote “still the noise of the mind… that is the first task.” To listen intently requires that we first be silent, and still. Try it out; you might be surprised to find a symphony of sounds happening all around you.

Jack Hines - July 18th, 2020