thank you so much thank you all for
coming and most of all thank you to
Peter tonight is really a chance to have
a conversation not really an interview
but a conversation and I think it seemed
fitting for me to begin with the music
and really to ask it’s not a really very
basic question what is it about the
human animal that makes us make music
well I think we like to thump our chests
show off a little bit dance
try and find a mate I think there are
lots of reasons for making music let’s
think about finding a mate and you get
it tell it tell us more well when you’re
a shy and spotty boy if you’re in a rock
band the world opens up in mysterious
ways but I think it’s a deep thing that
looking at some of the creatures that we
share the planet with they seem to also
we use sound communication and not
was sent to a public school and it was
it was just on the cusp of softening but
it was still pretty unpleasant and
really music was a retreat you know I
used to go down in the record corner and
god–all Ming and I pick up these blues
and soul records and go down to the one
room where we were allowed to play music
and turn it up ah as loud as I could and
dance what is it that you think that
enables music to carry so much meaning
but it’s a time meaning that we find it
hard to define it just exists in its own
medium I guess it plugs directly into
the nervous system in a way that a lot
of other communications go through all
levels of filtering on
music you can feel it you know it hits
your your chest depending where the
frequencies are there are patterns there
that instinctively go in and and it’s I
said so I think it’s a sort of quicker
release but maybe not as precise a
weapon as a word you said
so it may be more emotional I think you
said in the context of a song that’s
particularly close to my heart I grieve
you said that that you said that you’d
felt that you’d added a song to your
emotional toolbox with that yeah well I
think it is like a box of pills that you
have your certain records certain songs
for delivering certain emotional
functions and and they may be to calm
you down to comfort you to to excite you
you know whatever whatever it is and I
think um well actually I hadn’t lost
either of my parents my wife had lost a
mum when I think I grieve came and and I
was thinking there aren’t really good I
mean there are lots of songs people use
funerals and when they lose people but I
didn’t really know of one that was
specifically about grief in that way and
so I thought give it a go it’s that
generally how songs start I mean that
you would literally think if there’s an
area of the emotional map that hasn’t
been covered and that interests you and
that and that you try and mine yeah yeah
that’s sort of how it went and in in the
emotional toolbox that you’ve built up
as a musician what what are the areas
that you feel you’ve been interested in
had been drawn to I think yeah what I
was talking about earlier about just
making a lot of noise getting excited
getting sexy getting men calm meditative
and transcendent do you know on in
another way and I think I was always
drawn
– church music in a way hymns were a big
influence on me
bits of classical but but it was the
soul people like Otis Redding and Nina
Simone but where they’re sort of the
grand figures of my and what was it that
drew you to them just what they could do
with with the voice and the storytelling
I mean certain songs I remember exactly
where I was in school when I first heard
that song I remember with hey Joe you
know which room I was in then and I was
in the back of my parents car when I
first heard the Beatles in Littlestone
on scene and that although you know it
it doesn’t sound at all revolutionary
now at the time love me do sounded more
revolutionary than punk music in its
time which people forget because you
sort of absorb all that stuff but but
just can I throw it back now cuz yeah I
think you’re going to start and you know
a good place to start is parents and I
always think you know because we’ve just
met at the school gate and this is
actually why we we’re here so I don’t
you know I know a little bit of I
laughed from this books and so on but
would you mind just describing what sort
of people your parents were which
elements of them here really whoever
inherited um yes or not inherited yes my
parents were first and foremost very
anxious people okay they were very they
were they were people who were
incredibly ambitious about everything
about life they were very excited by
life very dynamic people at the same
time very fragile people and I think a
lot of my career has been an attempt to
rescue them one of them is no longer
alive right and the other one is not
really interested in my rescue efforts
and such but I think sometimes as
children a lot of one’s career sometimes
is spent in
dialog with one’s parents and I think
that I think that all this thing about
wisdom and knowledge etc I think I am
trying to provide them with the stuff
that I felt they might have needed in
the more distressed moments of their
lives how would you describe them
individually individually my father was
just feel guilty about the audience um
I’m grateful because if they’re here for
you well uh very quickly they’re here
Friday okay okay that’s the audience
know can I ask this question okay okay
so my my father was was a refugee from
Egypt he came to Switzerland where I was
born with nothing and was really a
traumatized person
met my mother who was Swiss they got
married and I think what they wanted
above all was security and stability but
my father was he went into business but
really his heart was in literature he
wanted more than anything to write and
to think what he did every weekend was
to to read and to think about philosophy
and theory etc and though he never
talked to me about it at all I think
again children will watch their parents
it’s not so much what they say it’s what
they do and I think that a lot of my
life has been an attempt to do what
maybe he never got a chance to do and do
it with him even though he’s dead and
for him so there’s a lot of
transgenerational effort and your mum my
mother she was but she is a very
energetic capable practical woman from
whom she nothing is ever too much of a
challenge for her and I think I learnt
the idea that one just goes for things
and they were you know my mother
especially she was not afraid of life
and I learned a lot from that a courage
really basic courage if things went
wrong she would pick herself up and go
and I learned a lot from that
but um tell me that
well my parents no no I that’s a fair
exchange yeah okay good good we had
but steering it back to music for a
moment for a moment Peter your music has
meant so much to me I started listening
to your music when I was maybe 12 13 and
I went backwards back to the early
Genesis forwards and followed you really
all the way and I can remember where I
was when I first listened to various
things we’re going to play a clip from
red rain not yet in a second but I
remember being at school
in the winter and it must have been a
red rain was out in hmm don’t know you
know better than me anyway it was it
should I can I can remember the room and
listening to it some of the feelings I
was very interested in a quote you said
you once said that music can be like an
axe in a frozen sea which is a quote
from Nietzsche which is a wonderful very
dramatic quote and acts to a frozen sea
which really suggests the idea of it are
emotions what what does it just to you
that we look away a lot of ourselves and
there are certain instruments when
they’re finely tuned that can break them
open let’s come back to that but first
let’s just hear a little clip from red
we’re we’re a therapeutic organization
we can talk about psychotherapy in a
minute but some of the lyrics there
defenses down the trust of a child no
more denial I mean this is this is from
the toolbox of of therapy tell us more
well I guess after my first marriage
broke up I did about six years of
therapy and so some of that got absorbed
and I think I was probably a sucker for
all that anyway just yeah that I’ve
probably learned asthma as much from
that sort of encounter and I was
encouraged or pushed into sort of group
therapy which was the last thing I
wanted to do was expose myself in a
group but I actually it was enormous ly
powerful look the word defense comes up
within your music and and some things
you’ve said I think fear is undervalued
probably it’s a big element and you know
bravery is quite often a flipside of
fear or just fear well channel but so I
think maybe that’s part of my journey is
learning to be less afraid and I think
there are very few things old age has
going for it but maybe that’s one of
them and what had been the fears what
are the fears that were overcome um I I
had my fears I think but inadequacy of
all sorts I think probably but but it’s
you know I was never very good
academically with sport and then not
going to university you know I was not
sure of myself in conversation with
people who seem to be smarter than me
and gradually as I got older you know
I’ve become much less afraid of other
people and the more I challenged myself
to do the things that I’d actually liked
it because I I do think again so
flicking it back again
because you know you’re a philosopher
I’m a musician but in truth we’ve got
away with pretty much doing anything we
want to do I’m calling it work right
then yeah you know and that’s partly a
function of of them getting a little
more comfortable with you your fear I
know as a writer people say you know
where did the ideas come from in a way
it’s a tedious question in a way it’s a
very central question but I think it
reflects just how mysterious you know
most people find it where does the song
come from you really want to be wide
open wide awake and able to steal absorb
borrow and feed off anything that
interests you you know I think again
I’ve said this before but it should be
like dogs in a park you sniff something
interesting and you jump on it and some
of your songs have taken decades to be
assembled yeah and presumably they’re
you’re you’re picking up many things
from many dogs the way that it’s a big
part exactly um well also you know I’m a
may be afraid of the final commitment
and I love detours and distractions and
you know and I’ll always go off on a
tangent rather than finishing my
homework one of the things about your
music is that it’s always brought a lot
of solace it somehow seems very attuned
to the vulnerability of the listener and
contributes a kind of a hand held out to
them and imaginary hand and there’s no
song of yours that does this more
powerfully than don’t give up which I
think has literally saved people from
jumping off roofs I think so it seems
that it’s really surprised me here you
know because it felt it was actually
begun after seeing Dorothea Lange or
Lange I’m not sure pictures of the
American depression and but it’s ended
that way you know I think because you
know particularly of the sort of emotive
way that Kate sings and
and seems to be offering hope when there
is very little a lot of people yea used
it and I mean it’s extraordinary
let’s hear a short clip from don’t give
I can take an honest
love bridge
these are sort of archetypes in a way
right this is yes mum
the mother yeah I guess in a way and
yeah I didn’t sort of it his mum but I
thought of it more as sort of partner
who’s that’s saying a lot about me isn’t
it well sorry go but maybe you know
maybe we all marry your mum and well
should be that I’ll get them in trouble
if I say that but anyway but it’s sort
of nourishing
yeah comfort I guess what Freud calls
the eternal feminine let’s see right um
little did everyone on that um I’ve been
watching lots of clips of you with in
front of giant audiences it in a way
it’s hard to reconcile with the person
he had never got a fairly large audience
but we’re talking tens of thousands it
might be performing front of what’s who
do you become when you’re doing that how
do how do you access that that part of
your different part of you I I think
you’ve just got to buy it and believe it
and I learned very early on that if
you’re sort of shy and apologetic people
will switch off very quickly so you have
to pump yourself up and and then give
them something they may not like it but
then they can’t ignore it and so so
that’s what I do there’s also some
wonderful moments that you must have
felt when the whole crowd an anonymous
crowd comes together and sort of becomes
one and barriers fall away between
people this is what was what Nietzsche
thought music should be doing yeah
uniting us now I know it sounds fanciful
but I think it’s a real phenomena and
people know it when they feel it and
you know wherever when you get that it’s
a magical thing and you know you can
share it maybe with musicians but once
you’re sharing with the audience and
they actually giving you the fuel on
which you’re running you know people’s
we you don’t get any satisfaction from a
show a concept that you feel is just
going to roll the engine regardless of
what you the audience do so for many
years I would try and think of things
that would engage the audience in
different ways you know singing from the
farthest seat from the stage were
walking through the audience coming in
with drums or lights or but I think that
sort of barrier can be broken through
and it’s much more powerful when there’s
some mutual exchange going on nothing
that’s been central to life is
collaborations you’ve collaborated apps
more than any other musician British
musician maybe I needed to more than any
other musician why why do you say that
no I I think I’ve been smart enough you
know to work with very good people what
we’ve got a clip of one collaboration
you did few peers on quite a lot of one
of your albums Sinead O’Connor yeah what
drew you to her voice um I thought it
was very powerful emotional sort of from
the gut feeling and that’s what I loved
about it let’s let’s horrific lip from
in the blood of eating sassy
brought so tightly in your hair and all
the while the distance grows between you
and me I don’t know
understand
I’ve been fascinated to learn of these
attempts of communicating with other
life-forms on the planet I mean I think
we share the planet with with
intelligent life you know we’ve looking
for it out there but we’ve got plenty
here and eventually I thought well I’d
love to see if some way of them
connecting through music and I called a
couple of places and the language
Research Lab which was then an Atlanta
zoo savage Rhambo have been working with
bonobo apes said come on down
so when about five times and for me it
was a life-changing experience and led
to another project which we’re trying to
get slowly going when we’re not trying
to do it slowly but it’s good the
interspecies internet to try and allow
other minds other than human minds
access to the Internet and give them the
sort of tools that we have and see what
they would do with them and how they
would express themselves so it’s that
again sounds a little fanciful but we’re
very serious about it and we have you
know great scientists
there’s Diana Reiss Neil Gershenfeld MIT
and Vince Cerf who was one of the
founders of the Internet and his
particular interest is that he’s thinks
that it’s ridiculous that we would be
the only intelligent life at the cosmos
so he expects us to meet aliens one day
and if we’ve had no practice learning to
communicate with other species we’re
starting at a disadvantage but literacy
is this rooted in the idea that music is
a universal language is that where it
starts yeah I mean it’s um I mean what
had happened with the bonobos then a
couple of people so given them
percussion instruments that wasn’t so
interesting for me and I thought maybe
we could encourage them to sit at the
piano keyboard and
and then you know they did what a
three-year-old would do first and then I
asked through sue if they could try
playing just one finger and panbanisha
you sadly we’ve now lost but she decided
to interpret that as two fingers but
you’ll see maybe you would let’s let’s
look at the clip and we can what happen
I’m in the room next door which is the
so I’m just improvising about six foot
and she hadn’t had practice on a piano
so this was you know I think within the
first day that she was exposed to a
keyboard and it’s clear you know
particularly to musicians that she’s
listening really well intently and
making distinct choices you know and
just that in itself is was mind-blowing
and and she knew you know like with any
improvisation you can feel whether it’s
good or not connecting and she knew that
too so on her keyboard in front of her
she hit the good sign because she knew
she’d done a good job that time it’s
amazing we’ve only scratched the surface
I don’t feel too bad about this because
you know with someone like me too you
can only scratch the surface Peter thank you so much my pleasure
coming and most of all thank you to
Peter tonight is really a chance to have
a conversation not really an interview
but a conversation and I think it seemed
fitting for me to begin with the music
and really to ask it’s not a really very
basic question what is it about the
human animal that makes us make music
well I think we like to thump our chests
show off a little bit dance
try and find a mate I think there are
lots of reasons for making music let’s
think about finding a mate and you get
it tell it tell us more well when you’re
a shy and spotty boy if you’re in a rock
band the world opens up in mysterious
ways but I think it’s a deep thing that
looking at some of the creatures that we
share the planet with they seem to also
we use sound communication and not
was sent to a public school and it was
it was just on the cusp of softening but
it was still pretty unpleasant and
really music was a retreat you know I
used to go down in the record corner and
god–all Ming and I pick up these blues
and soul records and go down to the one
room where we were allowed to play music
and turn it up ah as loud as I could and
dance what is it that you think that
enables music to carry so much meaning
but it’s a time meaning that we find it
hard to define it just exists in its own
medium I guess it plugs directly into
the nervous system in a way that a lot
of other communications go through all
levels of filtering on
music you can feel it you know it hits
your your chest depending where the
frequencies are there are patterns there
that instinctively go in and and it’s I
said so I think it’s a sort of quicker
release but maybe not as precise a
weapon as a word you said
so it may be more emotional I think you
said in the context of a song that’s
particularly close to my heart I grieve
you said that that you said that you’d
felt that you’d added a song to your
emotional toolbox with that yeah well I
think it is like a box of pills that you
have your certain records certain songs
for delivering certain emotional
functions and and they may be to calm
you down to comfort you to to excite you
you know whatever whatever it is and I
think um well actually I hadn’t lost
either of my parents my wife had lost a
mum when I think I grieve came and and I
was thinking there aren’t really good I
mean there are lots of songs people use
funerals and when they lose people but I
didn’t really know of one that was
specifically about grief in that way and
so I thought give it a go it’s that
generally how songs start I mean that
you would literally think if there’s an
area of the emotional map that hasn’t
been covered and that interests you and
that and that you try and mine yeah yeah
that’s sort of how it went and in in the
emotional toolbox that you’ve built up
as a musician what what are the areas
that you feel you’ve been interested in
had been drawn to I think yeah what I
was talking about earlier about just
making a lot of noise getting excited
getting sexy getting men calm meditative
and transcendent do you know on in
another way and I think I was always
drawn
– church music in a way hymns were a big
influence on me
bits of classical but but it was the
soul people like Otis Redding and Nina
Simone but where they’re sort of the
grand figures of my and what was it that
drew you to them just what they could do
with with the voice and the storytelling
I mean certain songs I remember exactly
where I was in school when I first heard
that song I remember with hey Joe you
know which room I was in then and I was
in the back of my parents car when I
first heard the Beatles in Littlestone
on scene and that although you know it
it doesn’t sound at all revolutionary
now at the time love me do sounded more
revolutionary than punk music in its
time which people forget because you
sort of absorb all that stuff but but
just can I throw it back now cuz yeah I
think you’re going to start and you know
a good place to start is parents and I
always think you know because we’ve just
met at the school gate and this is
actually why we we’re here so I don’t
you know I know a little bit of I
laughed from this books and so on but
would you mind just describing what sort
of people your parents were which
elements of them here really whoever
inherited um yes or not inherited yes my
parents were first and foremost very
anxious people okay they were very they
were they were people who were
incredibly ambitious about everything
about life they were very excited by
life very dynamic people at the same
time very fragile people and I think a
lot of my career has been an attempt to
rescue them one of them is no longer
alive right and the other one is not
really interested in my rescue efforts
and such but I think sometimes as
children a lot of one’s career sometimes
is spent in
dialog with one’s parents and I think
that I think that all this thing about
wisdom and knowledge etc I think I am
trying to provide them with the stuff
that I felt they might have needed in
the more distressed moments of their
lives how would you describe them
individually individually my father was
just feel guilty about the audience um
I’m grateful because if they’re here for
you well uh very quickly they’re here
Friday okay okay that’s the audience
know can I ask this question okay okay
so my my father was was a refugee from
Egypt he came to Switzerland where I was
born with nothing and was really a
traumatized person
met my mother who was Swiss they got
married and I think what they wanted
above all was security and stability but
my father was he went into business but
really his heart was in literature he
wanted more than anything to write and
to think what he did every weekend was
to to read and to think about philosophy
and theory etc and though he never
talked to me about it at all I think
again children will watch their parents
it’s not so much what they say it’s what
they do and I think that a lot of my
life has been an attempt to do what
maybe he never got a chance to do and do
it with him even though he’s dead and
for him so there’s a lot of
transgenerational effort and your mum my
mother she was but she is a very
energetic capable practical woman from
whom she nothing is ever too much of a
challenge for her and I think I learnt
the idea that one just goes for things
and they were you know my mother
especially she was not afraid of life
and I learned a lot from that a courage
really basic courage if things went
wrong she would pick herself up and go
and I learned a lot from that
but um tell me that
well my parents no no I that’s a fair
exchange yeah okay good good we had
but steering it back to music for a
moment for a moment Peter your music has
meant so much to me I started listening
to your music when I was maybe 12 13 and
I went backwards back to the early
Genesis forwards and followed you really
all the way and I can remember where I
was when I first listened to various
things we’re going to play a clip from
red rain not yet in a second but I
remember being at school
in the winter and it must have been a
red rain was out in hmm don’t know you
know better than me anyway it was it
should I can I can remember the room and
listening to it some of the feelings I
was very interested in a quote you said
you once said that music can be like an
axe in a frozen sea which is a quote
from Nietzsche which is a wonderful very
dramatic quote and acts to a frozen sea
which really suggests the idea of it are
emotions what what does it just to you
that we look away a lot of ourselves and
there are certain instruments when
they’re finely tuned that can break them
open let’s come back to that but first
let’s just hear a little clip from red
we’re we’re a therapeutic organization
we can talk about psychotherapy in a
minute but some of the lyrics there
defenses down the trust of a child no
more denial I mean this is this is from
the toolbox of of therapy tell us more
well I guess after my first marriage
broke up I did about six years of
therapy and so some of that got absorbed
and I think I was probably a sucker for
all that anyway just yeah that I’ve
probably learned asthma as much from
that sort of encounter and I was
encouraged or pushed into sort of group
therapy which was the last thing I
wanted to do was expose myself in a
group but I actually it was enormous ly
powerful look the word defense comes up
within your music and and some things
you’ve said I think fear is undervalued
probably it’s a big element and you know
bravery is quite often a flipside of
fear or just fear well channel but so I
think maybe that’s part of my journey is
learning to be less afraid and I think
there are very few things old age has
going for it but maybe that’s one of
them and what had been the fears what
are the fears that were overcome um I I
had my fears I think but inadequacy of
all sorts I think probably but but it’s
you know I was never very good
academically with sport and then not
going to university you know I was not
sure of myself in conversation with
people who seem to be smarter than me
and gradually as I got older you know
I’ve become much less afraid of other
people and the more I challenged myself
to do the things that I’d actually liked
it because I I do think again so
flicking it back again
because you know you’re a philosopher
I’m a musician but in truth we’ve got
away with pretty much doing anything we
want to do I’m calling it work right
then yeah you know and that’s partly a
function of of them getting a little
more comfortable with you your fear I
know as a writer people say you know
where did the ideas come from in a way
it’s a tedious question in a way it’s a
very central question but I think it
reflects just how mysterious you know
most people find it where does the song
come from you really want to be wide
open wide awake and able to steal absorb
borrow and feed off anything that
interests you you know I think again
I’ve said this before but it should be
like dogs in a park you sniff something
interesting and you jump on it and some
of your songs have taken decades to be
assembled yeah and presumably they’re
you’re you’re picking up many things
from many dogs the way that it’s a big
part exactly um well also you know I’m a
may be afraid of the final commitment
and I love detours and distractions and
you know and I’ll always go off on a
tangent rather than finishing my
homework one of the things about your
music is that it’s always brought a lot
of solace it somehow seems very attuned
to the vulnerability of the listener and
contributes a kind of a hand held out to
them and imaginary hand and there’s no
song of yours that does this more
powerfully than don’t give up which I
think has literally saved people from
jumping off roofs I think so it seems
that it’s really surprised me here you
know because it felt it was actually
begun after seeing Dorothea Lange or
Lange I’m not sure pictures of the
American depression and but it’s ended
that way you know I think because you
know particularly of the sort of emotive
way that Kate sings and
and seems to be offering hope when there
is very little a lot of people yea used
it and I mean it’s extraordinary
let’s hear a short clip from don’t give
I can take an honest
love bridge
these are sort of archetypes in a way
right this is yes mum
the mother yeah I guess in a way and
yeah I didn’t sort of it his mum but I
thought of it more as sort of partner
who’s that’s saying a lot about me isn’t
it well sorry go but maybe you know
maybe we all marry your mum and well
should be that I’ll get them in trouble
if I say that but anyway but it’s sort
of nourishing
yeah comfort I guess what Freud calls
the eternal feminine let’s see right um
little did everyone on that um I’ve been
watching lots of clips of you with in
front of giant audiences it in a way
it’s hard to reconcile with the person
he had never got a fairly large audience
but we’re talking tens of thousands it
might be performing front of what’s who
do you become when you’re doing that how
do how do you access that that part of
your different part of you I I think
you’ve just got to buy it and believe it
and I learned very early on that if
you’re sort of shy and apologetic people
will switch off very quickly so you have
to pump yourself up and and then give
them something they may not like it but
then they can’t ignore it and so so
that’s what I do there’s also some
wonderful moments that you must have
felt when the whole crowd an anonymous
crowd comes together and sort of becomes
one and barriers fall away between
people this is what was what Nietzsche
thought music should be doing yeah
uniting us now I know it sounds fanciful
but I think it’s a real phenomena and
people know it when they feel it and
you know wherever when you get that it’s
a magical thing and you know you can
share it maybe with musicians but once
you’re sharing with the audience and
they actually giving you the fuel on
which you’re running you know people’s
we you don’t get any satisfaction from a
show a concept that you feel is just
going to roll the engine regardless of
what you the audience do so for many
years I would try and think of things
that would engage the audience in
different ways you know singing from the
farthest seat from the stage were
walking through the audience coming in
with drums or lights or but I think that
sort of barrier can be broken through
and it’s much more powerful when there’s
some mutual exchange going on nothing
that’s been central to life is
collaborations you’ve collaborated apps
more than any other musician British
musician maybe I needed to more than any
other musician why why do you say that
no I I think I’ve been smart enough you
know to work with very good people what
we’ve got a clip of one collaboration
you did few peers on quite a lot of one
of your albums Sinead O’Connor yeah what
drew you to her voice um I thought it
was very powerful emotional sort of from
the gut feeling and that’s what I loved
about it let’s let’s horrific lip from
in the blood of eating sassy
brought so tightly in your hair and all
the while the distance grows between you
and me I don’t know
understand
I’ve been fascinated to learn of these
attempts of communicating with other
life-forms on the planet I mean I think
we share the planet with with
intelligent life you know we’ve looking
for it out there but we’ve got plenty
here and eventually I thought well I’d
love to see if some way of them
connecting through music and I called a
couple of places and the language
Research Lab which was then an Atlanta
zoo savage Rhambo have been working with
bonobo apes said come on down
so when about five times and for me it
was a life-changing experience and led
to another project which we’re trying to
get slowly going when we’re not trying
to do it slowly but it’s good the
interspecies internet to try and allow
other minds other than human minds
access to the Internet and give them the
sort of tools that we have and see what
they would do with them and how they
would express themselves so it’s that
again sounds a little fanciful but we’re
very serious about it and we have you
know great scientists
there’s Diana Reiss Neil Gershenfeld MIT
and Vince Cerf who was one of the
founders of the Internet and his
particular interest is that he’s thinks
that it’s ridiculous that we would be
the only intelligent life at the cosmos
so he expects us to meet aliens one day
and if we’ve had no practice learning to
communicate with other species we’re
starting at a disadvantage but literacy
is this rooted in the idea that music is
a universal language is that where it
starts yeah I mean it’s um I mean what
had happened with the bonobos then a
couple of people so given them
percussion instruments that wasn’t so
interesting for me and I thought maybe
we could encourage them to sit at the
piano keyboard and
and then you know they did what a
three-year-old would do first and then I
asked through sue if they could try
playing just one finger and panbanisha
you sadly we’ve now lost but she decided
to interpret that as two fingers but
you’ll see maybe you would let’s let’s
look at the clip and we can what happen
I’m in the room next door which is the
so I’m just improvising about six foot
and she hadn’t had practice on a piano
so this was you know I think within the
first day that she was exposed to a
keyboard and it’s clear you know
particularly to musicians that she’s
listening really well intently and
making distinct choices you know and
just that in itself is was mind-blowing
and and she knew you know like with any
improvisation you can feel whether it’s
good or not connecting and she knew that
too so on her keyboard in front of her
she hit the good sign because she knew
she’d done a good job that time it’s
amazing we’ve only scratched the surface
I don’t feel too bad about this because
you know with someone like me too you
can only scratch the surface Peter thank you so much my pleasure
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