David Rothenberg
on Interspecies Music
"Hear bird sounds as music and there is always some mystique to enjoy. Hear the whole world as music and you’ll find we live inside a plethora of beautiful sounds. How many other creatures are out there waiting for the chance to jam?”
This is how David Rothenberg sees, feels and hears the world.
After graduation, he travelled across Europe playing jazz clarinet. The song of a hermit thrush reminded him of a Miles Davis solo. That’s how he found his calling: writing and performing on the magical bond between humanity and nature. That’s how he earned himself the “interspecies musician” nickname.
A Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Music at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, musician and philosopher David Rothenberg released 40 recordings and wrote Why Birds Sing, Thousand Mile Song, Bug Music, Survival of the Beautiful, and many other books. Books that stand as proof of Nature’s creative, immutable power of improvisation. Complex, yet delicate works of beauty that help us see the world as a musical place, full of rhythm, wonder, harmony and joy.
He has performed or recorded with Pauline Oliveros, Peter Gabriel, Suzanne Vega, and the Karnataka College of Percussion. But, also, with one of the world’s longest-living insects, the ones with the longest beats in the world of synchronized animal sounds: cicadas.
David shares with us precious lessons learnt from these enchanted creatures: “The very existence of these cicadas is a true thing of wonder. Their genus isn’t named Magicicada for nothing. They spend 17 years in a subterranean world. It’s time to crawl up to the surface and emerge. Let’s celebrate their rise from the darkness of years spent waiting, as we find our own human way back to the light, climbing up from despair toward the sky, letting it be known that we too have, finally, arrived.” Performing with them meant combining all human forms of knowing: “music, science, pure speculation and sheer feeling.” A more profound way to listen: “When we perform live with the cicadas, we become humble members of an orchestra of millions.”
As David advises, “add your own small voice to the millions; it’s a profound experience. Human sounds must fit into and around the callings of nature if we are ever to construct a surer, more promising way to survive on this complex and beautiful planet.”
Go out, join the cicadas in their celebrations, and read David Rothenberg’s answers for #inspirators!
Thank you, David, for being an Interspecies Musician!
#INSPIRATORS QUESTIONNAIRE
Name: David Rothenberg
Company / Institution: New Jersey Institute of Technology
Title: Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Music
Website: www.davidrothenberg.net
LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-rothenberg-0ab4558/
Country of origin: USA
Country you currently live in: USA
Your personal definition of Regeneration:
Building something new based on the firm foundation of traditions.
Main business challenge you face:
As an educator, trying to keep students interested in thinking deeply in a world of endless distractions.
As an artist, trying to find the best possible audience for what I create.
Main driver that keeps you going:
Believing that I still have something unique to say, something that no one else is saying.
The trait you are most proud of in yourself: Not giving up. Almost every project I complete only happened after so much rejection.
The trait you most value in others: The ability to pay attention, and to do what they say they will do.
Passions & little things that bring you joy: Paying as much attention to what the senses offer, all around me.
The #inspirators who determined you to take the regenerative path:
John Cage
Arne Naess
Pauline Oliveros
A hint or starting point for companies or professionals that are taking the first steps in the regeneration journey: Figure out what you really want, and what the most valuable work you could do for your community and for the planet is.
Most used and abused clichés about sustainability that bother you:
Saying that just about anything is sustainable in order to sell more products.
An honest piece of advice for young people who lose hope:
Humanity has survived so many crises before, we will survive this one. But only if YOU become part of the solution.
Books that had a major impact on you:
John Cage, Silence
Richard Powers, Generosity
Rene Daumal, Mount Analogue
Geoff Dyer, Out of Sheer Rage
Gabrielle Zevin, Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow
Max Fisher, The Chaos Machine
Patrick Raddon Keefe, Empire of Pain
Must-reads for any Regenerative professional:
Jonathan Porritt, The World We Made
Justin Gregg, If Nietzsche Were a Narwhal
Kalle Lasn, Meme Wars
Movies / Documentaries you would watch all over again:
All That Breathes
Grizzly Man
Rip: A Remix Manifesto
Nightingales in Berlin
Lucky People Center International
Blogs / Websites / Podcasts etc. you visit frequently:
Ezra Klein Show
Song Exploder
Aldaily.com
Emergencemagazine.org
Music that makes you (and your heart) sing:
Ornette Coleman
Tom Waits
Leonard Cohen
Judith Berkson
Radka Toneff
Craig Taborn
Regina Spektor
Places you travelled to that left a mark on you:
Konitsa, Greece
Coursegoules, France
Røros, Norway
Associations, business clubs, tribes you belong to – and why:
The Explorers Club
Fulbright Association
SciFoo
Sustainable Development or Regeneration courses, trainings, or certifications that really teach us how to have an impact:
The conferences of Nicole and Alexander Gratovsky
Brave Earth in Costa Rica (I’m doing one in January 2024)
Alfred Tolle’s Wisdom Together
Reasons to feel optimistic about our future in 2030:
When under pressure, humanity rises to the occasion and can radically change.
Reasons to feel pessimistic about our future in 2030:
Polarization due to prejudice.
Misinformation.
Too much time online and not enough in-person contact with real people and communities.
Regenerative Leadership qualities much needed today:
Better listening, more collaboration between people who disagree, less dogma.
The #inspirator you are endorsing for a future edition of the newsletter is:
Nour Haririi
Quote that inspires you:
“You cannot rehearse for the unknown.”
(Wayne Shorter)
Your own quote that will inspire us:
