What does Australia ‘sound’ like? New show lends an ear

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What does Australia ‘sound’ like? New show lends an ear

By Ben Pobjie

In 1977, NASA fired two identical golden records into space aboard the Voyager spacecraft. On these records were a cornucopia of various Earthly sounds meant to provide, for the benefit of any extra-terrestrial intelligences who might intercept the craft, a snapshot of what life on our planet sounded like: at least, what it sounded like in 1977. It included greetings in 55 different languages, the sounds of trains, planes and automobiles, morse code, human laughter, wild dogs, elephants, hyenas and Chuck Berry, among many others. It’s to be hoped all of these sounds are still around when the aliens finally get here.

It was this exercise in encapsulating a planet aurally that inspired Dr Ann Jones to come up with her latest TV project. The Soundtrack of Australia is an exploration of the sounds that would be placed on this country’s own golden records, if we wanted to communicate to the rest of the universe what it sounds like to live in Australia. For the good doctor, it was a concept long in the gestation.

Dr Ann Jones presents the two-part ABC documentary The Soundtrack of Australia.

Dr Ann Jones presents the two-part ABC documentary The Soundtrack of Australia.Credit: ABC

“I’ve been going on about natural sounds for a very long time in the ABC,” she admits. “Because my day to day job is in radio and podcasting, and in the nature sphere, so I did lots and lots of nature recording. And there’s just so many good stories about sound, in particular in Australia where we’ve got a suite of sounds that is so particular to our continent. So I’ve been going on and on and on about this and thank goodness the leaders at Catalyst were on the same page.”

It wasn’t necessarily an easy sell. Television is, after all, a visual medium, and sound is… well, sound. The number one challenge was, obviously, finding a way to couple the sounds of Australia with complementary vision so the eye could be caught as well as the ear.

“Making visual content about sound is actually a little bit difficult,” says Jones. “I think radio is a really creative medium, because we provide the sound and everyone fills in the visuals. But when you’re watching TV, people expect to be fed the visuals of what’s happening. It’s really hard, because the way that traditional docos work is, you don’t necessarily hear a sound without seeing what’s making it, and in the case of Australian wildlife, that’s actually really difficult. A lot of wildlife spotting, bird-watching, or even finding insects, goes off the sounds that they make, not a visual sighting. So it was a real challenge, but the Catalyst team were willing to take that leap.”

A dash of luck helped too. In the first episode of Soundtrack, there is a memorable scene wherein lyrebirds demonstrate their astonishing gift for mimicry – footage that seemed a long-shot when heading out to film. A wildlife documentary crew would normally spend weeks in the bush waiting for the shy fowl to show itself – time not available to Jones and her team.

Dr Ann Jones in the field recording The Soundtrack of Australia.

Dr Ann Jones in the field recording The Soundtrack of Australia.Credit: ABC

“We had one day to shoot them,” she recalls. “I had been telling the crew the whole time, ’we’re probably not going to see them, if you see them they’ll probably be running away from us. But these young lyrebirds were just so into practising. We got out of the car and it just was going off. Myself and the lyrebird expert were streaking through the forest trying to drag people along, because they generally only do it for a very short period of time. But I think those young fellas were particularly amped up on testosterone – practising to each other, practising their songs to sticks, just learning how to be a lyrebird. We all go through that awkward stage, don’t we?”

Soundtrack of Australia doesn’t just record the sounds of the nation: it also explores and explains just what sound itself ism memorably through some experiments involving the beatboxer and voice artist Tom Thum, whose vocal acrobatics help demonstrate the physical effects of sound. “He’s an absolutely wonderful bloke to work with,” Jones enthuses. “He put up with us all day doing all sorts of things to him.“

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These demonstrations were, again, crucial to providing memorable vision to go with the audio. “The idea of having this laboratory environment where we could demonstrate sounds using things like slinkies and fire and smoke and sand. trying to make people understand how powerful sound is, that it’s actually moving molecules around you, it’s just that you can’t see it.”

Jones is in the business of making people understand the power, not just of sound, but of science and knowledge in general. That same evangelical zeal that she showed when convincing the ABC to tune into the noises all around us is on display on screen as in all situations, whether identifying cicadas, learning the acoustic properties of the digeridoo, or studying the intricacies of the football chant, she exhibits infectious enthusiasm for her subject: a deep and unaffected conviction that all this is just so cool. It’s a bracing approach to a tricky task: making science entertaining without dumbing it down. Jones acknowledges the challenge, although is keen to share the credit around when it comes to meeting it.

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“That’s the tightrope we walk, I think. Obviously we want to have good, solid, research-based content, but we also want people to actually watch it. But I do find that a lot of the researchers and people involved in these programs with me have lots of fantastic stories and senses of humour that they bring to it. I think everybody has that light and dark within them with each story that we bring to the screen. Because there are sad stories, as well as stories that make you squirm, like when they put the camera down Tom (Thum’s) throat – but there’s also stories that are just complete joy.” It’s through that diversity of stories that Jones believes, like the practising lyrebirds, Australia finds its voice. “We get a full gamut of emotions in, even though it’s something that seems so oblique. It’s such a random thing, sound, but once you start unpacking it, it’s a key to so many stories around us.”

The Soundtrack of Australia is on ABC, Tuesday, 8.30pm.

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