Interview: Andy Martin pt.2
“I don't feel like nature is somehow healing me - I feel as if my body is remembering what it's supposed to be like.”
Earth.fm’s Wind Is the Original Radio podcast is pleased to share the second part of curator Melissa Pons’ conversation with sound designer and field recordist Andy Martin. (You can find part one here.)
Here, in another thought-provoking instalment, Andy shares his thoughts about deep listening, questioning (in part because of the varied ways in which it is defined) the difference from just… listening.
In the field, Andy “describe[s] [him]self as a witness”, of anything from “the trickle of water to hummingbirds which are out to kill each other” - but he refutes the idea of there being any “inherent meaning in a soundscape; it just is; it just exists”. Where deep listening often aspires to finding meaning or making a connection - “an intentional beauty or a message within the soundscape” - he asserts his conviction that there are no such intentions, beyond those of individual wildlife.
“I can listen in wonder and awe”, but “there's nothing there that is a meaningful, special interaction for me; it is just life existing. If we're looking for a deeper connection, a deep meaning within the soundscape [...] we're missing the reality of what's there, and we're trying to put our own feelings, our own belief systems onto that reality - and that's not my job. [...] My job is to listen and bring forth.” What Andy sees as people’s misinterpretations of the natural world overriding the reality means that, “The moment I hear someone describe a dawn chorus as an outpouring of joy, they've lost me. Because that's what it sounds like to us - but that's not necessarily what it is.”
Further topics discussed in this episode include:
The idea that, by entering other beings’ habitats, uninvited, recordists make themselves into “voyeur[s]”: “To imagine that I am not making a disruption when I go into that space [...] I think is very foolish” - one of the benefits of rolling out hundreds of metres of mic cables to listen while recording (another being the avoidance of self-noise: “I sniffle, I cough, I shuffle - I make a lot of noise”)
The difference between American robins’ dawn and dusk calls and whinnies
The close evolutionary relationship between birds, dinosaurs, and crocodilians - plus, a hair-raising story of being alone in a Louisiana swamp, hearing alligators booming in the twilight and legging it for his car. (Really, who can blame him?)
Hearing soundscapes in those fog-shrouded swamps of the Atchafalaya Basin change over course of a year and noting the different times at which different species of frogs and insects sing, and the different frequencies in which they do so: Bernie Krause's acoustic niche theory in action
The potential selfishness of making nature recordings, and whether it's necessary to assign a 'higher cause' to justify making doing so in ways that may exoticize the environments in which they are made
Acknowledging the unlikeliness “that someone'll hear [his] recordings and dedicate themselves to some sort of ecological practice”... but also acknowledging the value of influencing people on a smaller scale - including himself. Though Andy states that he makes recordings for the enjoyment of hearing the more-than-human beings’ comings and goings, he also notes that listening to them has changed his own behaviour to the extent of affecting how he brought up his daughter
The privilege of being involved in the Giving Contest organised with George Vlad and Thomas Rex Beverly: a call for donations for environmental causes, with nature sound recording bundles as prizes
The way that spaces like the Amazon rainforest, which we think of as untouched wilderness, were affected by Indigenous, pre-colonial farming and water management: places where humans have in fact influenced ecosystems for thousands of years. More modern examples include the American bullfrogs which are considered ubiquitous, but which were limited to the eastern half of North America before being bred as a cheap protein source during the Gold Rush, and ultimately released into the wild
The possibility of humanity having positive impacts on the natural world - even if making that change may be a long time coming.
We hope that you enjoy this episode. If you’d like to connect with Andy, you can do so on LinkedIn and Instagram and listen to various recordings and other interviews here.
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