The experience of enlightened confusion, creative process and ‘gut churn’ that covered his own story as an National Public Radio co-host and producer to his radio show, Radiolab, were the subjects covered by Jab Abumrad in the Greet Hall of the Memorial Union on Monday.

The Voice

Abumrad began his lecture with a heightened element known as ‘The Voice.’ ‘The Voice,’ both physically meaning the words and sounds in which individuals speak along with the way writers use the word voice, such as, “Who are you? What is your point of view?” as explained by Abumrad.

Abumrad then told a story as to how this idea of ‘The Voice’ had originally come to him.

Displaying an audio recording from an old series by NPR called Lost and Found sound, Abumrad plays a lost tape from a colonel in the Vietnam War who used to record himself while he was on patrol.

The colonel, in his audio recordings would describe the environment around him and what he was thinking.

“I was alone in my room in the dark, and that dude was alone in the dark. So, we’re both entirely alone, but somehow through this medium, we can be across space and time. We were simultaneously alone but together,” Abumrad said.

This fascination with ‘The Voice,’ has followed Abumrad throughout his career. When he first began Radiolab, Abumrad described the conflict that he constantly faced when it was time for him to speak.

Abumrad asked how hard could it be to speak in a voice that is your own. He explained that when beginning with NPR, he would sometimes want to use the voice of Scott Simon, Joe Frank, Walter Cronkite or even Ira Glass.

“What does it actually mean to talk in your own voice? Like a voice, theoretically, is something that is yours. It’s yours and no one else’s,” Abumrad said.

Abumrad then began to speak on the power of the microphone, referring to the microphone that he uses to record his show. He talked about the emptiness that it initially creates, but that it is so much bigger than that.

“All the voices rush into that empty space and fill it for you before you even have a chance to fill it yourselves,” Abumrad said. Abumrad then asked the audience to emit their voice through a single tone.

The Thrust

Abumrad talked about what he referred to as ‘the thrust.’

“You need moments where you have these crazy ambitious ideas, but you also need moments where you realize those ideas aren’t good enough yet,” Abumrad said. “The negativity, which we tend to think of as a bad thing, actually might be kind of a ‘thrust.’”

He describes that this ‘thrust’ should sometimes cut the positivity and help link someone to further and different ideas.

The Gap and Oh! Moment

Abumrad spoke about an interview in his career that helped him evolve his way of thinking when it came to sound and what it means to get lost and found over and over again.

While interviewing a woman about the melodies that mothers hum to their young babies around the globe, a single sentence jumped out that opened his mind from what he described as a ‘gap’ to an ‘oh!’ moment.

“We were stuck in the gap. And then, we interviewed a music psychologist,” Abumrad said. “She said something that was just like a lightning bolt. She said, ‘You know its funny, I’ve noticed that these mothers, when they’re holding the baby, they don’t sing. It’s only when they put the babies down do they start singing.”

The music psychologist then said sound is touched at a distance. This single sentence is what Abumrad described as the quintessential words that opened up a million more questions to ask and find.

Offering some thoughts…

Abumrad then proposed two thoughts that he described as “Chasing the Antelope” and “Following the Odds.”

“So, back in the early days of NPR, or I should say Radiolab, I heard a story that has kind of become a mantra for me,” Abumrad said.

Abumrad then told this story about a man, Scott, who wanted to seek out why humans walked on two feet. This question that has been debated over and over again comes down to several key ideas. One of them is that humans walk on two feet to chase prey.

A reporter for NPR then sought out to find out if this could be remotely true. For 12 years, Scott chased a single antelope until the antelope died. This primitive action caused Scott to want to do nothing more than what Abumrad described as “eat sand and drink piss” in the desert because Scott had lost any hopes, dreams or wants that he once desired by participating in this chase.

Abumrad said this story helped him understand that you can’t just ask the question, but you must be the question. He described that when he is lost in the gap, he digs further.

Abumrad’s second thought, “Following the Odds,” explained what it means to have a 25 percent hope that something will turn out for the best and that one will get what they want.

He walked the audience through an interview in which he spoke to a poker player that ultimately changed his perspective on what he can do and is capable of.

This poker player described that if there is a 1 if 4 chance of winning, and people go all in at one time, they will lose three times but make back what they lost the fourth time when they finally win.

“I ask myself, ‘how many stories do I need to make an hour of Radiolab do I need to fill an hour of radio on the radio?’” Abumrad said.

Abumrad then explained how he now looks into at least 15 stories per every four stories that he is going to put on air.

Conclusion

Abumrad, not knowing how to end his lecture, concluded with the idea to see moments as fundamental.

“Maybe the single best thing I can say about navigating moments of uncertainty is just do it with someone,” Abumrad said.