Pond Music

Pond Music

Ambience: Underwater sounds

Rothenberg: I make music with musicians that don’t happen to be human.

That’s David Rothenberg, a professor of philosophy and music at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, and a self-described “interspecies musician.” I’m Jim Metzner and this is the Pulse of the Planet.

I’m known for playing with white crested laughing thrushes, lyre birds, humpback whales, 17 year cicadas. Lately I’ve been playing along with the sounds of underwater pond creatures and underwater pond plants. Even in the most ordinary ponds, toss in an underwater microphone called a hydrophone, and you’ll hear an amazing world of sound.

When you hear a lot of repeating rhythmic sounds like dit-dit-dit-dit, these are actually plants involved in photosynthesis. They’re exchanging oxygen with the air. From underwater it’s like tiny bubbles you can’t see. Hard for me to believe when I learned that was the story.
Every once in a while you here these moments, these incidents, that give a sense that a living creature is doing something. Something happens and then stops. This is some kind of creature. Most often an underwater insect, sometimes a fish, could be a turtle. But by and large, these sounds remain unknown because they’re hard to figure out. You can’t see the creatures making the sounds when they’re making a sound. When you see the, take them out of the water, put them in a little dish to study and photograph, they’re mysteriously quiet most of the time. They know. They don’t want to reveal too much.

We’ll hear more pond music with David Rothenberg in future programs.
I’ve got a new book coming out. Check out details on our website, pulseplanet.com. I’m Jim Metzner and this is the Pulse of the Planet.

Pond Music

Meet an interspecies musician.
Air Date:05/04/2022
Scientist:
Transcript:

Pond Music Ambience: Underwater sounds Rothenberg: I make music with musicians that don't happen to be human. That's David Rothenberg, a professor of philosophy and music at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, and a self-described "interspecies musician." I'm Jim Metzner and this is the Pulse of the Planet. I'm known for playing with white crested laughing thrushes, lyre birds, humpback whales, 17 year cicadas. Lately I've been playing along with the sounds of underwater pond creatures and underwater pond plants. Even in the most ordinary ponds, toss in an underwater microphone called a hydrophone, and you'll hear an amazing world of sound. When you hear a lot of repeating rhythmic sounds like dit-dit-dit-dit, these are actually plants involved in photosynthesis. They're exchanging oxygen with the air. From underwater it's like tiny bubbles you can't see. Hard for me to believe when I learned that was the story. Every once in a while you here these moments, these incidents, that give a sense that a living creature is doing something. Something happens and then stops. This is some kind of creature. Most often an underwater insect, sometimes a fish, could be a turtle. But by and large, these sounds remain unknown because they're hard to figure out. You can't see the creatures making the sounds when they're making a sound. When you see the, take them out of the water, put them in a little dish to study and photograph, they're mysteriously quiet most of the time. They know. They don't want to reveal too much. We'll hear more pond music with David Rothenberg in future programs. I've got a new book coming out. Check out details on our website, pulseplanet.com. I'm Jim Metzner and this is the Pulse of the Planet.