TED Community » Julian Treasure

More About Me

I'm passionate about

transforming the world's sound and listening, my wife and children, making and listening to music, the Dolomites, conscious living.

An idea worth spreading

Sound affects! In modern living we have promoted the eyes to rule the senses, and become used to suppressing sound – but it still affects us all. Regaining our conscious listening is a vital task because noise creates ill health (a million years of healthy life lost each year in Europe alone according the WHO) and antisocial behaviour. If we teach our children how to listen consciously and mindfully then in a generation we can transform our world to a place that sounds beautiful. Now that is a prize worth having.

Talk to me about

sound, conscious listening, speaking opportunities, sound and brands, music, voice, language, generative sound, marketing, franchising The Sound Agency, partnerships, TED, Ambifierâ„¢

People don't know that I'm good at

drumming - I've played since I was 15, still play every week; and golf - when I get time to play at wonderful Sunningdale.

My TED Story

I came in 2003 and loved having by brain scrambled by a series of brilliant talks, having permission to go up to and talk to over 1,000 fascinating and extraordinary strangers (that's what the TED pass means, and many of the strangers are now friends) and taking away stuff that changes my life and my work, Next was the inaugural TED Global in Oxford in 2005 because all the Monterey events landed on my daughter's birthday... until 2008, when I was overjoyed to be back and to experience a vintage TED, the last at Monterey. I attend TEDGlobal on a regular basis, and am back in the US in 2012 and 2013... you cannot have too much TED! I'm honoured to have three talks on TED.com, and overwhelmed to reflect that more than four million people have watched them online. TED has been responsible for so much good in my life. I cherish it.

Comments

• TEDCred score: +274 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.

• A reply on Talk: Julian Treasure: The 4 ways sound affects us

  Jan 5 2012: Absolutely Matthew, and thanks for you kind words above. Murray Schafer coined the word soundscape to be the auditory equivalent of landscape, but I do use it to describe all of the sound around you in a given space. The trick is to design that, just as we design with colour, shape and light, instead of leaving it to be just a by-product of what's going on.

• A reply on Talk: Julian Treasure: 5 ways to listen better

  Jan 4 2012: Joao, I don't agree that teaching a skill is imposing knowledge. In the case of listening as a form of mindful awareness, it's rather opening a door to fresh perspectives and giving people more scope to express and appreciate diversity. What saddens me is that we teach a lot of knowledge as you say but fail to even discuss the practice of consciousness and awareness.
• +1

  A reply on Talk: Julian Treasure: 5 ways to listen better

  Jan 4 2012: Great point, Chris. Along with playing music in groups, formal debate is a great gymnasium for learning to listen well.

• A reply on Conversation: TED Speaker Julian Treasure: What would a conscious listening world be like – and how do we get there?

  Oct 16 2011: There is a Google group I formed called Teaching Listening. Please do join it and contribute to the discussion.

• A comment on Conversation: TED Speaker Julian Treasure: What would a conscious listening world be like – and how do we get there?

  Oct 16 2011: Lovely idea. Worth fighting for also, with only a tiny proportion of the Earth not polluted by overflights or toher man-made noise.

• A reply on Conversation: TED Speaker Julian Treasure: What would a conscious listening world be like – and how do we get there?

  Oct 16 2011: I would be happy to discuss this Sergio. My wife is Italian, so I speak a little (ma sto imperando sempre!). Drop me an email at julian.treasure@thesoundagency.com.

• A reply on Conversation: TED Speaker Julian Treasure: What would a conscious listening world be like – and how do we get there?

  Oct 16 2011: Yes Mike, that is a huge part of this. Whether it's cause or effect of conscious listening matters little... the beneficial outcome seems to be universally accepted in this TED conversation and all the comments from my talk. This is the cause for optimism: it appears that there is a massive untapped desire for better listening. I am planning a project for 2012 to take this movement much wider, possibly another book: my current book Sound Business focuses on using sound well in business, which is the other half of the equation in my overall vision, to create a world that sounds beautiful.

• A reply on Conversation: TED Speaker Julian Treasure: What would a conscious listening world be like – and how do we get there?

  Oct 16 2011: Thanks for the kind words Amir. I have trained in speaking and presenting of course... I encourage others to train their voice if they are to speak compellingly, so it would be inconsistent not to do it myself. I work with a lovely voice coach called Randolph Matthews (a fine singer and thinker about sound who has a gig coming up soon if anyone's in the London area). I haven't ever come across 12 frequencies of ocean waves, but I do aim to be very conscious when on stage (or indeed all the time) and to use this lovely instrument we have all been given as mindfully as possible.

• A reply on Conversation: TED Speaker Julian Treasure: What would a conscious listening world be like – and how do we get there?

  Oct 16 2011: Exactly, which is how listening positions can be so important. By playing with those filters we can actually alter our perceived reality.

• A reply on Conversation: TED Speaker Julian Treasure: What would a conscious listening world be like – and how do we get there?

  Oct 16 2011: Wonderful description of the locked up beauty we can access by listening to old people. Surely along with teenagers they are among the least listened to people on the planet – and yet they have so much to share. I agree with your concern: in the talk I mention the relatively new paradigm of 'personal broadcasting', which requires no listening at all and goes hand in hand with the 'me-first' materialist culture we've managed to entrench and amplify with every successive generation. Hence 'sodcasting' in all its forms.