Quotes by Gordon Hempton

Gordon Hempton

“Acoustic ecologist” is basically a fancy name for someone who tries to become a better listener. Not just listening to those thoughts, ideas, and productions of human intention, but listening to places – whether it’s an urban environment, residential, industrial, or even the farthest corner of the world, in one of our last great quiet places where we can listen to the pure sounds of nature without any human-caused noise intrusions.

Listening

Trying

World

Acoustic ecology is the study of information systems: the shared acoustic environment and how species send and receive messages in this shared acoustic environment. What these messages mean – meaning, what are the consequences and the changes of behavior in any species. And it has as much to do with us individually and biologically as it does with the shaping of cultures and beliefs.

Belief

Culture

Mean

An acoustic ecologist is a listener who is aware that sound is information. It’s information because it’s created by events, events produce sound, and that sound has all kinds of data, if you will, that conveys what event occurred, what the materials were, whether it was sudden, slow, loud, in what direction. And because it is information, we can think of it as a message. The acoustic ecologist studies information systems that are both intentional and sometimes wild.

Kind

Study

Thinking

Healthy areas that are richest in information are those areas in the wild where we can get all the information that’s available to us within our human hearing range. The most valuable information throughout human evolution has been faint sounds. We tend to think in our modern world that if it’s loud, if it grabs our attention, it’s important. We get a lot of that in advertising. But in nature, it’s the faintest sound that’s important; it has determined, in the past of our ancestors, perhaps, if they will live or die. Faint sounds are the earliest clues of newly arriving information.

Healthy

Past

Thinking

How are we going to know what sounds are important before we’ve even heard those sounds? It’s an absurd question. The only thing we can say is that we’re going to base it on our past experience. In other words, modern listening doesn’t inform us of anything new. It simply keeps us in the past.

Important

Listening

Past

I believe that our distant nomadic ancestors came forward and survived because they could hear distant, faint birdsong as an acoustic navigational beacon, if you will, and by moving toward the birdsong, they were able to find places with shelter, food, and water, and a prosperous growing region. Indeed, birdsong is the number one indicator of habitats prosperous to humans.

Believe

Moving

Water

I used to hate the urban environment and the urban din. But I realize now that it’s really not that much different than living next to a waterfall for wildlife. Most wildlife – unless they’re specifically adapted – avoid being around a waterfall or whitewater streams and rivers because it jams their sense of surveillance. They are more vulnerable, and their message loses intelligibility. Now, the ouzel is able to overcome that in various ways. Back to the urban environment, we’re talking and delivering messages as if we weren’t next to a waterfall, and that’s a problem.

Different

Hate

Overcoming

I work in the same style as classic landscape photographers. You find the right perspective, and then you wait until the light is right. I do the same. I find the right location, and then I wait for the sound, the atmosphere to be right, and for the space to be revealed.

Atmosphere

Perspective

Waiting

I would say that to listen is to become aware. To become truly informed. You will discover whatever you do.

I’m in love with Earth. I truly am. And so listening is not work, to work toward a better future. It’s joy. To not be able to work toward a better future would be work. That would be tough.

Earth

Joy

Listening

Follow The Behaviour University in order to get the greatest quotes from the greatest people of all time so that you can tap into your own greatness.

Animal

Atmosphere

Belief

Believe

Bird

Busy

Culture

Cutting

Dangerous

Determine

Different

Difficult

Distance

Dumb

Earth

Effort

Environment

Environmental

Evolve

Eye

Fun

Hate

Healthy

Important

Incredibles

Joy

Kind

Listening

Long

Lying

Mean

Missing

Moving

Nature

Ocean

Overcoming

Party

Past

People

Perfect

Perspective

Pollution

Priorities

Problem

Quiet

Real

Religious

Sensitive

Simple

Sleep

The Future Blueprint

Tool

The Home Therapist: Anti Anxiety

Tool

The Autobiography

Tool

The Behaviour Diary

Tool

The Dating Diary

Tool

The Relationship Therapist

Tool

Quotes by Gordon Hempton

Gordon Hempton

I work in the same style as classic landscape photographers. You find the right perspective, and then you wait until the light is right. I do the same. I find the right location, and then I wait for the sound, the atmosphere to be right, and for the space to be revealed.

I would say that to listen is to become aware. To become truly informed. You will discover whatever you do.

I’m in love with Earth. I truly am. And so listening is not work, to work toward a better future. It’s joy. To not be able to work toward a better future would be work. That would be tough.

Get Social with TBU

Topics by Gordon Hempton

Popular Tools

The Future Blueprint

The Home Therapist: Anti Anxiety

The Autobiography

The Behaviour Diary

The Dating Diary

The Relationship Therapist

Menu

Menu