birdsong

New article online/World Listening Day

Yesterday it was World Listening Day, initiated by a Chapter of the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology. This week people all over the world organise sound walks and encourage others to pay more attention to their ears.

Last week my article about a unique listening experience in Taiwan was published in the Journal of Sonic Studies. The whole issue is devoted to sounds in Southeast Asia, and covers many countries from north (China) to south (Indonesia and India).

My article neatly fits in the  appeal to listening from the organisers of World Listening Day, as it is the result of a near-constant interest in what I hear during the last three-four decades, nearly all my life. Not only to music, to be sure, but simply to everything I hear around me: whether I am in cities, nature, houses, cars or trains; whether I listen to radio’s, live concerts or my smartphone; whether the sounds are intentional or accidental.

I encourage anyone to open up their ears and share their listening experiences, just as Marcel Cobussen, one of the editors of the Journal of Sonic Studies, writes in his editorial. And I would like to ask Taiwan readers in particular to keep their ears open for birds imitating portions of the sounds of the garbage truck and report to me immediately if they do so!

You can read my article (and listen to it) here and find Marcel Cobussen’s ‘Encounters With Southeast Asia Through Sound’, an introduction to all the other contributions, here. Happy reading and listening!

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