What Is the “Sound” of Letting Go

By Gregory Warner

As an audio producer and podcast host, I’m always thinking about how to bring abstract ideas down to the level of sound and story. When I was invited to produce a three-minute audio documentary (yes, I know that sounds like an oxymoron, but I used to make even shorter pieces for NPR, and you’d be surprised how much you can say in three minutes) on this theme of Letting Go, I immediately thought about my wife's experience with tinnitus. Hers was not the story of tinnitus that I usually encounter, and though it was an unusual thing for me to make a piece that was so personal, playing this audio piece in a live setting in late October at the IMI festival in Austin, TX, I was frankly amazed and overwhelmed at how many people came up to me and told me their own tinnitus tale. Everyone’s experience is so individual, so personal, and yet so relatable. I’d love to dig in more into this topic in the future and learn more from what people who suffer from tinnitus have to teach us all. (Three minutes was hardly enough.) I’m grateful to Audio Flux and the Independent Media Initiative for making this work possible.

Read my Substack post for more details about the audio contest that gave rise to this piece, and more about my audio work here.