Meklit Hadero: The unexpected beauty of everyday sounds | TED

As a singer-songwriter,

Ως μια τραγουδίστρια-συνθέτρια τραγουδιών,

people often ask me about my influences or, as I like to call them,

πολλοί συχνά ρωτάνε για τις επιρροές μου, ή, όπως μου αρέσει να τις λέω,

my sonic lineages.

τις ηχητικές καταγωγές μου.

And I could easily tell you

Και θα μπορούσα εύκολα να σας πω

that I was shaped by the jazz and hip hop that I grew up with,

ότι διαμορφώθηκα από την τζαζ και το χιπ χοπ με το οποίο μεγάλωσα,

by the Ethiopian heritage of my ancestors,

από την κληρονομιά των προγόνων μου από την Αιθιοπία,

or by the 1980s pop on my childhood radio stations.

ή την ποπ του 1980 των ραδιοφώνων της παιδικής μου ηλικίας.

But beyond genre, there is another question:

Αλλά πέρα από το είδος, υπάρχει και μια ακόμη ερώτηση:

how do the sounds we hear every day influence the music that we make?

πώς οι ήχοι που ακούμε καθημερινά επηρεάζουν τη μουσική που δημιουργούμε;

I believe that everyday soundscape

Πιστεύω ότι το καθημερινό ηχοτοπίο

can be the most unexpected inspiration for songwriting,

μπορεί να γίνει η πιο απρόσμενη έμπνευση για τη σύνθεση τραγουδιών,

and to look at this idea a little bit more closely,

και για να δούμε αυτήν την ιδέα λίγο πιο προσεχτικά,

I'm going to talk today about three things:

θα μιλήσω σήμερα για τρία πράγματα:

nature, language and silence --

τη φύση, την γλώσσα και τη σιωπή--

or rather, the impossibility of true silence.

ή μάλλον, τo ανέφικτο της αληθινής σιωπής.

And through this I hope to give you a sense of a world

Μέσω αυτού ελπίζω να σας δώσω μία γεύση ενός κόσμου

already alive with musical expression,

ήδη ζωντανού με μουσική έκφραση,

with each of us serving as active participants,

με κάθε έναν από εμάς να υπηρετεί ως ενεργός συμμετέχων,

whether we know it or not.

είτε το ξέρουμε είτε όχι.

I'm going to start today with nature, but before we do that,

Θα ξεκινήσω σήμερα με τη φύση, αλλά πριν το κάνουμε αυτό,

let's quickly listen to this snippet of an opera singer warming up.

ας ακούσουμε απόσπασμα μιας τραγουδίστριας της όπερας να ζεσταίνεται.

Here it is.

Ορίστε.

(Singing)

(Τραγουδώντας α καπέλα)

(Το τραγούδι τελειώνει)

(Singing ends)

It's beautiful, isn't it?

Δεν είναι όμορφο;

Σας την έφερα!

Gotcha!

Αυτός δεν είναι ακριβώς ο ήχος μίας τραγουδίστριας της όπερας να ζεσταίνεται.

That is actually not the sound of an opera singer warming up.

Αυτός είναι ο ήχος ενός πουλιού,

That is the sound of a bird

slowed down to a pace

του οποίου το λατινικό όνομα είναι Λούλουλα αρμπορέα,

that the human ear mistakenly recognizes as its own.

στα ελληνικά, ο δενδροστάρηθρος.

Είναι το τραγούδι του δενδροστάρηθρου που χαμηλώνει σε έναν ρυθμό

It was released as part of Peter Szöke's 1987 Hungarian recording

τον οποίο το ανθρώπινο αυτί λανθασμένα αναγνωρίζει σαν δικό του.

"The Unknown Music of Birds,"

Κυκλοφόρησε ως μέρος της ουγγαρικής ηχογράφησης του Πίτερ Ζόκες το 1987

where he records many birds and slows down their pitches

to reveal what's underneath.

"Η Άγνωστη Μουσική των Πουλιών,"

Let's listen to the full-speed recording.

όπου καταγράφει πολλά πουλιά και χαμηλώνει τη χροιά τους

(Bird singing)

ώστε να αποκαλύψει τι κρύβεται.

Ας το ακούσουμε σε πραγματική ταχύτητα.

Now, let's hear the two of them together

so your brain can juxtapose them.

(Τραγούδι πουλιού)

(Bird singing at slow then full speed)

(Το τραγούδι τελειώνει)

Τώρα, ας ακούσουμε και τα δύο μαζί

ώστε να τα αντιπαραθέσετε.

(Πουλί τραγουδάει σε αργή και μετά σε κανονική ταχύτητα)

(Singing ends)

It's incredible.

Perhaps the techniques of opera singing were inspired by birdsong.

(Το τραγούδι τελειώνει)

Είναι απίστευτο.

As humans, we intuitively understand birds to be our musical teachers.

Ίσως οι τεχνικές του τραγουδιού της όπερας εμπνεύστηκαν από κελάηδισμα.

In Ethiopia, birds are considered an integral part

Ως άνθρωποι, αντιλαμβανόμαστε ενστικτωδώς τα πουλιά ως τους καθηγητές μουσικής μας.

of the origin of music itself.

The story goes like this:

Στην Αιθιοπία, τα πουλιά θεωρούνται ένα αναπόσπαστο κομμάτι

1,500 years ago, a young man was born in the Empire of Aksum,

της προέλευσης της ίδιας της μουσικής.

Η ιστορία έχει ως εξής:

a major trading center of the ancient world.

Πριν 1500 χρόνια, ένας νέος άνδρας γεννήθηκε στην Αυτοκρατορία του Αξούμ,

His name was Yared.

When Yared was seven years old his father died,

ένα σημαντικό εμπορικό κέντρο του αρχαίου κόσμου.

and his mother sent him to go live with an uncle, who was a priest

Το όνομά του ήταν Γιαρέντ.

Όταν ο Γιαρέντ ήταν εφτά χρονών ο πατέρας του πέθανε,

of the Ethiopian Orthodox tradition,

one of the oldest churches in the world.

και η μητέρα του τον έστειλε να ζήσει με τον θείο του, που ήταν ιερέας

Now, this tradition has an enormous amount of scholarship and learning,

της Ορθόδοξης παράδοσης της Αιθιοπίας,

από τις αρχαιότερες εκκλησίες του κόσμου.

and Yared had to study and study and study and study,

Τώρα, αυτή η παράδοση έχει τεράστιο όγκο υποτροφίας και μάθησης,

and one day he was studying under a tree,

when three birds came to him.

και ο Γιαρέντ έπρεπε να διαβάζει, να διαβάζει και να διαβάζει,

One by one, these birds became his teachers.

και μια μέρα διάβαζε κάτω από ένα δέντρο,

όταν τρία πουλιά τον πλησίασαν.

They taught him music -- scales, in fact.

Το ένα μετά το άλλο, αυτά τα πουλιά έγιναν οι δάσκαλοί του.

And Yared, eventually recognized as Saint Yared,

Του έμαθαν μουσική--σκάλες, συγκεκριμένα.

used these scales to compose five volumes of chants and hymns

Και ο Γιαρέντ, τελικά αναγνωρίστηκε ως Άγιος Γιαρέντ,

for worship and celebration.

χρησιμοποίησε αυτές τις σκάλες συνθέτωντας πέντε τόμους με ψαλμωδίες και ύμνους

And he used these scales to compose and to create

an indigenous musical notation system.

για προσευχή και εορτασμό.

Και χρησιμοποίησε αυτές τις σκάλες για να συνθέσει και να δημιουργήσει

And these scales evolved into what is known as kiñit,

ένα γηγενή μουσικό συμβολικό σύστημα.

the unique, pentatonic, five-note, modal system that is very much alive

Και αυτές οι σκάλες εξελίχθηκαν σε αυτό που είναι γνωστό ως κάνιετ,

το μοναδικό, πεντατονικό, πέντε-συμβόλων, σύστημα τρόπου που είναι πολύ ζωντανό

and thriving and still evolving in Ethiopia today.

Now, I love this story because it's true at multiple levels.

και αναπτυσσόμενο και ακόμη εξελισσόμενο στην Αιθιοπία σήμερα.

Saint Yared was a real, historical figure,

and the natural world can be our musical teacher.

Λατρεύω αυτή την ιστορία γιατί είναι αλήθεια σε πολλά επίπεδα.

Ο Άγιος Γιαρέντ ήταν μια αληθινή, ιστορική μορφή,

And we have so many examples of this:

και ο φυσικός κόσμος μπορεί να γίνει ο μουσικός μας δάσκαλος.

the Pygmies of the Congo tune their instruments

to the pitches of the birds in the forest around them.

Και έχουμε τόσα παραδείγματα από αυτό:

Musician and natural soundscape expert Bernie Krause describes

οι Πίγκμις του Κόνγκο ρυθμίζουν τα όργανά τους

how a healthy environment has animals and insects

στους τόνους των πουλιών στο δάσος γύρω τους.

taking up low, medium and high-frequency bands,

Ο μουσικός και ειδικός φυσικού ηχοτοπίου Μπέρνι Κράουζ περιγράφει

πώς ένα υγιές περιβάλλον έχει ζώα και έντομα

in exactly the same way as a symphony does.

δέχοντας χαμηλής, κανονικής και υψηλής συχνότητας συγκροτήματα,

And countless works of music were inspired by bird and forest song.

ακριβώς με τον ίδιο τρόπο που συμβαίνει με τις συμφωνίες.

Yes, the natural world can be our cultural teacher.

Και απεριόριστα έργα μουσικής εμπνεύστηκαν από κελάηδισμα του δάσους.

So let's go now to the uniquely human world of language.

Ναι, ο φυσικός κόσμος μπορεί να είναι ο μουσικός μας δάσκαλος.

Every language communicates with pitch to varying degrees,

Οπότε πάμε τώρα στο μοναδικό ανθρώπινο κόσμο της γλώσσας.

whether it's Mandarin Chinese,

where a shift in melodic inflection gives the same phonetic syllable

Κάθε γλώσσα επικοινωνεί με τον τόνο σε διάφορους βαθμούς,

an entirely different meaning,

to a language like English,

where a raised pitch at the end of a sentence ...

(Going up in pitch) implies a question?

(Laughter)

As an Ethiopian-American woman,

I grew up around the language of Amharic, Amhariña.

It was my first language, the language of my parents,

one of the main languages of Ethiopia.

And there are a million reasons to fall in love with this language:

its depth of poetics, its double entendres,

its wax and gold, its humor,

its proverbs that illuminate the wisdom and follies of life.

But there's also this melodicism, a musicality built right in.

And I find this distilled most clearly

in what I like to call emphatic language --

language that's meant to highlight or underline

or that springs from surprise.

Take, for example, the word: "indey."

Now, if there are Ethiopians in the audience,

they're probably chuckling to themselves,

because the word means something like "No!"

or "How could he?" or "No, he didn't."

It kind of depends on the situation.

But when I was a kid, this was my very favorite word,

and I think it's because it has a pitch.

It has a melody.

You can almost see the shape as it springs from someone's mouth.

"Indey" -- it dips, and then raises again.

And as a musician and composer, when I hear that word,

something like this is floating through my mind.

(Music and singing "Indey")

(Music ends)

Or take, for example, the phrase for "It is right" or "It is correct" --

"Lickih nehu ... Lickih nehu."

It's an affirmation, an agreement.

"Lickih nehu."

When I hear that phrase,

something like this starts rolling through my mind.

(Music and singing "Lickih nehu")

(Music ends)

And in both of those cases, what I did was I took the melody

and the phrasing of those words and phrases

and I turned them into musical parts to use in these short compositions.

And I like to write bass lines,

so they both ended up kind of as bass lines.

Now, this is based on the work of Jason Moran and others

who work intimately with music and language,

but it's also something I've had in my head since I was a kid,

how musical my parents sounded

when they were speaking to each other and to us.

It was from them and from Amhariña that I learned

that we are awash in musical expression

with every word, every sentence that we speak,

every word, every sentence that we receive.

Perhaps you can hear it in the words I'm speaking even now.

Finally, we go to the 1950s United States

and the most seminal work of 20th century avant-garde composition:

John Cage's "4:33,"

written for any instrument or combination of instruments.

The musician or musicians are invited to walk onto the stage

with a stopwatch and open the score,

which was actually purchased by the Museum of Modern Art --

the score, that is.

And this score has not a single note written

and there is not a single note played

for four minutes and 33 seconds.

And, at once enraging and enrapturing,

Cage shows us that even when there are no strings

being plucked by fingers or hands hammering piano keys,

still there is music, still there is music,

still there is music.

And what is this music?

It was that sneeze in the back.

(Laughter)

It is the everyday soundscape that arises from the audience themselves:

their coughs, their sighs, their rustles, their whispers, their sneezes,

the room, the wood of the floors and the walls

expanding and contracting, creaking and groaning

with the heat and the cold,

the pipes clanking and contributing.

And controversial though it was, and even controversial though it remains,

Cage's point is that there is no such thing as true silence.

Even in the most silent environments, we still hear and feel the sound

of our own heartbeats.

The world is alive with musical expression.

We are already immersed.

Now, I had my own moment of, let's say, remixing John Cage

a couple of months ago

when I was standing in front of the stove cooking lentils.

And it was late one night and it was time to stir,

so I lifted the lid off the cooking pot,

and I placed it onto the kitchen counter next to me,

and it started to roll back and forth

making this sound.

(Sound of metal lid clanking against a counter)

(Clanking ends)

And it stopped me cold.

I thought, "What a weird, cool swing that cooking pan lid has."

So when the lentils were ready and eaten,

I hightailed it to my backyard studio,

and I made this.

(Music, including the sound of the lid, and singing)

(Music ends)

Now, John Cage wasn't instructing musicians

to mine the soundscape for sonic textures to turn into music.

He was saying that on its own,

the environment is musically generative,

that it is generous, that it is fertile,

that we are already immersed.

Musician, music researcher, surgeon and human hearing expert Charles Limb

is a professor at Johns Hopkins University

and he studies music and the brain.

And he has a theory

that it is possible -- it is possible --

that the human auditory system actually evolved to hear music,

because it is so much more complex than it needs to be for language alone.

And if that's true,

it means that we're hard-wired for music,

that we can find it anywhere,

that there is no such thing as a musical desert,

that we are permanently hanging out at the oasis,

and that is marvelous.

We can add to the soundtrack, but it's already playing.

And it doesn't mean don't study music.

Study music, trace your sonic lineages and enjoy that exploration.

But there is a kind of sonic lineage to which we all belong.

So the next time you are seeking percussion inspiration,

look no further than your tires, as they roll over the unusual grooves

of the freeway,

or the top-right burner of your stove

and that strange way that it clicks

as it is preparing to light.

When seeking melodic inspiration,

look no further than dawn and dusk avian orchestras

or to the natural lilt of emphatic language.

We are the audience and we are the composers

and we take from these pieces

we are given.

We make, we make, we make, we make,

knowing that when it comes to nature or language or soundscape,

there is no end to the inspiration --

if we are listening.

Thank you.

(Applause)