Growing
ears
Losing sounds?
A memory can be locked away in a sound you'll never hear again.
The chirping of birds in your garden,
the music your parents made,
the hum of their car engines, the whir of a coffee machine, the songs of meadow birds,
the clinking chain of your bike, the gentle hiss of a cassette deck, the rhythmic tapping of a keyboard, the voice of a loved one singing, the mewing of your cat, the sniffing of your dog, the whispers of the Wadden Sea,
the zip of a tent, the croaking of frogs—
these sounds weave the fabric of our lives.
Yet, we live in rapidly changing times, moving from crisis to crisis. With each crisis and its solutions, the soundscape around us shifts. Some sounds grow like crickets, which were once rare in my childhood but have now become common, thanks to ecological changes and warmer summers. And we welcome new sounds, like a pair of Nile geese chattering on a rooftop in spring. But as we gain new sounds, we also lose others—the overwhelming buzz of bees,
the haunting call of the godwit (or "grutto" in Dutch), a meadow bird now fading into extinction along with its song.
( use headphones for best effect)
Human sounds, too, are disappearing, swept away by rapid innovation. I remember the chaotic melody of a modem connecting to the internet; now, Wi-Fi hums silently. Old clocks ticking have vanished from our homes, and some church bells have gone quiet. But it’s not just that we’re losing sounds—the ones that remain are being muted. As our population ages, higher tones fade from our hearing, taking with them the songs of birds. But deafness isn't the only factor.
This winter, I visited Balloërveld, one of the "silent reserves" in the northern Netherlands. I tried to record the natural sounds there, but I couldn’t escape the drone of traffic in the distance.
Sound pollution drowns out natural sounds—the laughter of children, the songs of birds trying to compete with the noise.
This loss of sound impacts our well-being, both scientifically and intuitively. To protect ourselves, we retreat into our headphones, tuning into our own curated soundscapes of music or podcasts, distancing ourselves from the world around us and choosing streamed content over the experience of the present moment.
Do we still value the "now" in the same way we used to? Do we cherish it for the memories it will create? We take countless photos, but sound is different—it’s harder to capture, requiring patience. Yet a single sound can transport us back to a place, evoking smells, images, and emotions. Someone once told me, "Light travels fast, but sound goes deep."
Sound is deeply connected to our emotions and long-term memory. It’s no coincidence that when we’re in an elderly home, suffering from dementia, they play music from our past. But what about the sounds that constantly surround us? What about the birds of our past?
Recently, I visited a meadow bird farm in northern Groningen. I took a tour on a wagon behind a tractor, the air filled with bird songs. A man sat next to me, silently crying. When I asked if he was okay, he said, "It’s like it was before—they’re finally back." He had grown up on the same road as the farm and had witnessed the decline of the countryside. It was as if he was reliving his childhood, hearing a sound that used to be everywhere but has since disappeared. We humans need to become aware of this and share forward.
Our goals is that people become aware of there sounds, to learn to listen and to value them, to make sound recording a meaningful activity so that they can remember. We want people to become actively aware of the changing soundscapes and the effects of noise pollution, enriching their world with meaning. to bring forward the space within.
( use headphones for best effect)
Continue to: the space within
contact- about - friends - media- events-home