Making Meaning from Sound

The main message of Julian Treasure’s TED presentation was that conscious and effective listening results in clear understanding.  This is the main point in his presentation which supports his proposal for more listening education in our schools.  I completely agree with his message.

Of the five exercises to improve conscious listening as suggested by Julian Treasure, I chose “silence for 3 minutes”.  I personally spend a lot of time listening to music so this is probably a good exercise for me.  When I am reading or very involved with homework I will often have total silence but I am not concentrating on the sounds.  I tried this exercise and I found myself also doing “the mixer” exercise because it is only quiet here, not completely silent.  I could hear the fan running and a clock ticking.

At this moment I am not certain this exercise will improve my life or ability to listen in the long term.  I am also not certain that I am immediately able to listen more effectively after the exercise.  In a way the silence exercise seems like meditation which I think could potentially have a positive effect.  However, the mixer exercise is a bit odd to me because if a listener was engaging in this activity during a speech they would be concentrating on other sounds and not the speaker.  I understand that it’s not meant to be exercised during a speech but I feel like practicing this could develop into a bad habit.

I agree with Julian’s main message, but I think I chose two of the weaker exercises.  The fifth exercise, RASA seems to be the strongest one in my opinion.  I think actively listening, showing appreciation, summarizing concepts, and asking questions can result in much better understanding.