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May 20, 2022
David George Haskell's Playlist for His Book "Sounds Wild and Broken"
In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
Previous contributors include Jesmyn Ward, Lauren Groff, Bret Easton Ellis, Celeste Ng, T.C. Boyle, Dana Spiotta, Amy Bloom, Aimee Bender, Roxane Gay, and many others.
David George Haskell's Sounds Wild and Broken is enthralling exploration of the sounds of the natural world, one of those books that changes how you experience your surroundings.
The New York Times wrote of the book:
"Haskell’s own joy of discovery makes it irresistible to tune in . . . [he] is spot on that sensory connection can inspire people to care in ways that dry statistics never will . . . Haskell’s previous books [...] suggested the emergence of a great poet-scientist. [Sounds Wild and Broken] affirms [him] as a laureate for the earth, his finely tuned scientific observations made more potent by his deep love for the wild he hopes to save."
In his own words, here is David George Haskell's Book Notes music playlist for his book Sounds Wild and Broken:
We live amid a world of sonic wonders, both human and more-than-human. In Sounds Wild and Broken I celebrate the diversity of the world’s sounds and trace the stories of these sounds both back into deep time and, with some help from science and speculation, into the future.
This is a book first and foremost about listening. Listening both in the moment and into the past. When did the Earth first start to sing? Where does human music fit into the many “musics” of the world, including bird and insect song? How is noise a source of environmental injustice and what might we do about it? Along the way, my own listening was enriched by these recordings.
“The Edge of Time: Palaeolithic bone flutes from France & Germany” by Anna Friederike Potengowski and Georg Wieland Wagner
This is music as it might have been 40,000 years ago. Anna Friederike Potengowski plays replicas of bird flute and mammoth ivory flutes. The originals are the first known musical instruments, unearthed from Palaeolithic caves. In her playing, we hear how instrumental music might have sounded in those reverberant spaces of long ago. I visited the caves as part of the research for the book and this I find this music very moving – a transportation into the roots of creativity in our species.
“Bad Guy” by Billie Eilish
Witty lyrics and the changes in tempo, duh!, poke fun at herself and us. Most of all I love her conspiratorial voice: perfect for the earbud listening-world we’ve created. Music always responds creatively to the space in which it is played and plastic-in-ears demands sung whispers. I trace the co-evolution of music and space through much of the book, from rainforest birds to ancient caves to modern performance halls. Eilish owns the modern end of that story.
“Rhapsody in Blue” by George Gershwin, played by Anthony McGill
One of the more terrifying and beautiful experiences of music was hearing this at the Bravo! Vail festival as ash come raining down from forest fires in the neighboring mountain valley. As the world burns, music rings out. Is this a symptom of the insouciance of the rich, entertaining ourselves as climate change ravages the land? Or a defiant creative expression of beauty in the face of great brokenness? The sounds of the world bring these questions to the fore. What role should art play in a world in crisis?
“Solo Whale” humpback whale recorded by Frank Watlington
The first track on the iconic 1970 Songs of the Humpback Whale produced by Roger Payne. The whale’s many-textured sounds echo from the sea’s surface and underwater canyons, adding a sense of spaciousness to the cries, whistles, rumbles, and sweeps in the song. This album opened many human ears and hearts to the wonders of sound in the ocean and contributed to the eventual banning of many forms of whaling. Yet, we now pump into the oceans so much noise from shipping, sonar, and seismic exploration that we’ve created a living hell for many sea animals. Listening to this song, I marvel at the rich vocal culture of marine mammals and mourn what we’re doing to them.
“Listening in the Wild” by Leah Barclay and Lyndon Davis
A beautiful contemporary exploration of underwater and terrestrial sounds from the Sunshine Coast of Australia. This piece draws my imagination into the richness of the sounds of the ocean world. I was very lucky to attend one of Leah Barclay’s live “listening” events in Australia. She mixes live feeds from underwater microphones with composed music and sound sculpture. Here, Barclay integrates the soundscapes of migrating humpback whales, dolphins and reefs with Kabi Kabi stories of place from Lyndon Davis. A great example of deep listening.
“Fire in my mouth” by Julia Wolfe
While working on Sounds Wild and Broken I attended the premier of this remarkable piece by one of America’s great composers. I was astonished at how Wolfe integrates human voices, orchestral music, and unconventional sounds like scissors snapping shut or books slamming onto the floor. The piece focuses on the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire and its aftermath and is a powerful exploration of injustice and resistance. Through the long months of lockdown, when I was writing much of the book and unable to attend live music, the memory of this concert – and some online recordings – gave my ears and heart much needed food.
“Wood Thrush – Forest Flautist” by Lang Elliott
One of America’s most gorgeous bird songs, recorded by the peerless Lang Elliott. When these birds have winged south for the winter, I pull up these recordings to get a shot of aural renewal. The song reminds me that humans need the beauty of other species to be whole and grounded. The migratory nature of the wood thrush also teaches me about interconnection – these birds stitch together the ecologies of forests in the eastern US with their overwintering habitats in Central America.
“Nightingales in Berlin” by David Rothenberg and collaborators
Philosophy in action. Creativity at interspecies boundaries. Rothenberg invites human and nightingale companions to make new music. The human and bird players riff off of each other’s sounds. This project expands the idea of what “music” is and can be, honoring the musicality of our avian cousins and inviting humans to listen more carefully.
“The Road to Lisdoonvarna” Traditional
For example: this arrangement by S. Bergeron and J. Sorrell for Apollo’s Fire
Violin lessons were a shocker. My partner, a professional violinist, introduced me to the instrument as I was writing the book. The Road to Lisdoonvarna is one of the tunes that taught me how playing the violin is like a dance. Your fingers and arms quite literally skip and leap, activating the whole body. This is totally different from my previous experience of music making with fretted instruments like the guitar or the abstractions that are piano keyboards. By tucking up against the jaw bone, the violin also sends sound directly into the skull, a process that is very much like what our 400-million-year-old ancestors experienced. In a fiddle tune, we dance into the deep past.
David George Haskell is the author of Sounds Wild and Broken: Sonic Marvels, Evolution’s Creativity, and the Crisis of Sensory Extinction. His previous books, The Forest Unseen and The Songs of Trees are acclaimed for their integration of science, poetry, and rich attention to the living world. A Guggenheim Fellow and Professor at The University of the South, he lives in Sewanee, TN, and Atlanta, GA.
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