Doing for our personal "soundscape" what Marie Kondo did for our personal living space, Bernie Krause compiles what he's learned in a career in sound into a practical guide for how we can improve our well-being by fine tuning the auditory environments in which we live.
Our lives are riddled with sound: the cooing baby down the hall, an ambulance screeching by, white noise from the television. Unsurprisingly, the noisy environment in which we live has an immense impact on our concentration, alertness, and feelings of anxiety. Based on a lifetime of research, author and soundscape expert Dr. Bernie Krause shows us a series of techniques to harness our clamorous surroundings to live a happier, healthier, and more productive life.
The noise in our lives, that special category of the soundscape, is a debris field of arbitrary and often harmful signals vying for our attention but with nothing much to offer in return. And yet we haven't paid much heed to this toxic auditory space, partly because we are not aware how much we are negatively impacted by it. In order to manage the rubble that distorts and hinders our mind and well-being, we must first understand it.
In the vein of Marie Kondo's The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, readers will learn what sounds are pleasurable or harmful, the cultural disparities in sound barriers, the difference between human-created and natural sound, and much more. Thoroughly researched and accessibly crafted, The Art of Listening will help you learn how to gain control over your sonic experiences and live a more tranquil and enduring life.
