TED Radio Hour: "Soundtracks of Our Lives"

Host: Manoush Zomorodi
Original Air Date: December 12, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into the "soundtracks" that shape our existence—through songs, AI-generated music, the sound of our own voices, and even the sounds of nature. Host Manoush Zomorodi brings together musicians, technologists, and voice researchers to explore how sound influences emotions, identity, biology, and creativity. Whether it's a pop anthem, the growing influence of artificial intelligence in composition, or the animal-inspired songs of indigenous cultures, the show uncovers how what we hear and how we express ourselves can transform our understanding of ourselves and our world.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Emotional Power and Craft of Songs

Guest: Scarlet Keys, Musician & Songwriting Professor

• Song Structure and Emotional Hooks

  • Great songs make us “feel” by employing deliberate musical techniques. For instance, octave leaps (e.g., "Defying Gravity" from Wicked) and prosody—the supportive alignment of melody and lyric—create emotional resonance.
    • “Kind of the craft of songwriting is when you create a big leap, a big distance between notes. It creates a hook, and it creates something really memorable.” – Scarlett Keys (05:00)

• The Role of Melody and Tone

  • Melody acts as a “song’s tone of voice,” crucial in conveying emotion beyond lyrics. The choice of musical resolution—using stable versus unstable notes—helps listeners empathize with the singer’s state.
    • "How we say what we say is oftentimes more important than what we say." – Scarlett Keys (07:32)
    • She demonstrates this with an Adele parody, showing how note choice makes us believe or disbelieve the emotional truth of a line (09:23).

• Surprise and Symmetry in Songwriting

  • Memorable songs often subvert expectations. Even minimalist or flat melodies (e.g., Lady Gaga’s "A Million Reasons") can communicate emotional exhaustion or defeat through their structure.
    • “Just surprising our listener is a really great thing to do.” – Scarlett Keys (10:24)

• Music’s Effect on Health and Mood

  • Scarlett shares her personal story of using music as “medicine” through cancer treatment, highlighting research that music can boost mood, lower stress, and even strengthen the immune system.
    • “There's so much that happens to us when we listen to music that is beneficial. It boosts our immune system.” – Scarlett Keys (13:37)

AI and the Future of Personalized Music

Guest: Pierre Barrot, CEO & Co-Founder of AIVA

• AI as Creative Tool, Not Replacement

  • Pierre describes the evolution of his AI composer AIVA, inspired by the film Her—envisioning AI that can create "musical photographs" to capture unique moments.
    • “It pictured a very positive view of what AI could be in the future, could create these musical photographs that would inspire people, that would capture a shared moment.” – Pierre Barrot (19:52)

• How AI Music Works

  • Early systems learned from written scores; now, generative AI analyzes recordings and can instantly produce personalized tracks in diverse styles.

• Debates: Copyright, Originality, and Human Touch

  • Lawsuits over copyrighted training data raise ethical questions, but Pierre argues AI should empower, not override, human creators.
    • “The value of this technology was not to replace creators... but instead to create tools for people to be able to create music, to bring down the barriers of entry.” – Pierre Barrot (22:08)
  • AI is likened to the advent of drum machines, which expanded music rather than replacing musicians.

• New Use Cases and the "Soundtrack of Life"

  • AI music is ideal for education, interactive media, and crafting soundtracks for individual moments—potentially making everyone a creator.
    • “If you personalize music to that extent, I think you can really get more people excited about creating music and essentially turn everyone into a creator.” – Pierre Barrot (27:42)

The Voice: Our Most Personal Soundscape

Guest: Rebecca Kleinberger, Professor of Humanics and Voice Technology

• Why Our Voice Sounds Different to Ourselves

  • Explained through bone conduction, ear protection mechanisms, cochlear adaptation, and neurological filters. Our brain tunes out our own voice to prevent distraction.
    • “Your auditory cortex is actually barely active or way less active when you hear your own voice.” – Rebecca Kleinberger (34:17)

• Cringe and Vulnerability

  • Most people dislike hearing their recorded voices but actually rate their own (when disguised) more favorably than strangers’.
    • “Systematically, people score their own voice higher than other people's... But once you know it's your own voice, you have this kind of cringe.” – Rebecca Kleinberger (42:26)

• Revelations Beyond Words

  • Our voices reveal age, gender, health, hormonal state—even nose shape! We have a performance voice for public presentation and a more relaxed one for private life.
    • “Who we are in the world is our voice, but is a specific voice that we reserve for the world and for who we want to be in the world.” – Rebecca Kleinberger (41:32)

• Stuttering, Singing, and Innovation

  • The inner voice never stutters; Kleinberger’s research with "Mumble Melody" uses musical filters to trick the brain and improve speech fluency.
    • “If we can trick the brain to make it think that it's singing when it's actually speaking, we could help people who stutter reduce their disfluencies.” – Rebecca Kleinberger (44:55)

• The Primal Meaning of Voice

  • Beyond words, the voice is about sharing identity and presence—words are "just an excuse to have vocal interaction."
    • “What we share with each other through the voice beyond the word is really so much more important, is we share who we are.” – Rebecca Kleinberger (47:34)

The Natural Soundtrack: Ancestral Voices and Animal Song

Guest: Snow Raven, Indigenous Musician

• Listening as a Path to Connection

  • Growing up in Arctic Siberia, Snow Raven learned to "listen with imagination and become an animal," mimicking the calls of owls, cranes, and wolves as a form of communion with nature.
    • “Listening is one of the powerful gifts the universe has given humans to connect with nature.” – Snow Raven (49:39)

• Bringing Nature’s Sounds Into Music

  • Her singing channels animal essence and indigenous greeting rituals, underscoring the role of attentive listening for empathy and creativity.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Scarlett Keys, On Music and Emotion
  • “Music is always…for me, it’s always an emotional response. It can really change the weather instantly in my body, in my mood.” (05:57)
• Scarlett Keys, On Craft
  • "When you create a big leap...it creates a hook, and it creates something really memorable." (03:57)
• Pierre Barrot, On AI’s Role
  • “Technology expands the realm of possible, but it doesn't mean that everything that came before all of a sudden becomes obsolete.” (23:33)
• Rebecca Kleinberger, On Self-Perception
  • “It’s a marker for fluid identity. I think it’s a good way of thinking about it. So if we go back to this question, why don’t we like the sound of our own voice? It’s really… it’s a performance aspect, the vulnerability aspect.” (42:26)
• Snow Raven, On Listening to Nature
  • “The superpower of listening is that it leaves the room for imagination to dance with a sound.” (54:05)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Introduction / Theme Scene-Setting – 02:36
• Scarlett Keys: How Songs Move Us – 03:17–14:44
• Personal Story: Music as Medicine (Keys) – 13:13–14:44
• Pierre Barrot: AI and Personalized Music – 17:44–28:27
• Rebecca Kleinberger: The Science of Our Own Voice – 29:44–48:31
• Snow Raven: Learning from Nature’s Soundtrack – 49:29–54:40

Conclusion

Through expert voices and provocative stories, this episode of TED Radio Hour reveals how the sounds we create and experience—from chart-toppers to humming our own names, to animal mimicry—deepen our engagement with life and each other. In a future shaped by technology and tradition, the "soundtrack of our lives" becomes both a tool and a treasure—fueling empathy, connection, and self-understanding.