Unheard Wonders: Rewiring Your World - 25th August 2026
When was the last time you listened to something unfamiliar?
I have been listening to the same song catalog for over 20 years! Sometimes that's comforting. I want the familiar. I want to know the lyrics and sing my heart out. Yet hearing something unfamiliar asks us to sit up and listen. It does something to our brains. Wakes us up. Stimulates.
I have been changing this up by exploring a songwriting app called Suno. Mixing genres together: operatic, progressive, soulful, country, experimental, world music, metal, shoegaze and others.
Taking my lyrics and choosing which sounds went well with the story of them. Testing things. Finding what I liked. What I found interesting was liking multiple versions of the same lyrics in completely different soundscapes.
A song that started in a pop, singer-songwriter tone could become an aggressive, angry anthem. Or howling, operatic storytelling. Something darker or heavier could have a cheerful melody.
One line, sung in the pop version, felt like a friend having a conversation. The same line in the metal version felt like a lover pleading his last case.
The same lyrics could stay almost exactly the same, but when I changed the sound around them, suddenly they meant something different to me.
Maybe that is why we love theatre and songs so much. They can bring out feelings we may not openly express.
The app relies on the detail of the prompts, so if I wanted something different I had to create a different prompt. Explore other genres. Mix them together. Change the beat, the instruments, the influences.
It opened my ears up to what felt fresh and new.
And using sound for inspiration helped bring out other creative ideas, as well as giving some experiences and feelings an outlet.
Could changing what you listen to change more than your mood?
That same curiosity turned inward, toward my own voice, away from testing sounds outside me, and into the sound I could make myself.
A particular freedom that takes me out of thought and completely into feeling is singing. I notice that it gives me a chance to express myself through sound. Certain tones seem to say so much without words. It can feel wonderful, like flying or dancing with air.
A few years ago I took a Sound Healing with Voice course. We learned vocal toning, mantras and ways sound could help us connect more deeply with our bodies. When singing mantras, there is a focus to it. The body feels the rhythm, the words carry the meaning, together it is meditative.
And during a week-long retreat with Qigong Master Mantak Chia, we practised the Six Healing Sounds.
That particular practice was very calming for me.
It brought together body, movement, sound and visualisation all at once. There was so much to focus on that I didn't really have any desire to observe what anyone else was doing. I was listening internally, to the sound, the movement, the visualisation and the felt sense.
I could feel the vibration of the sounds in different areas of my body. Elongating the breath. Doing the movements. Bringing attention to a particular area.
Like a mechanic listening to an engine.
At first it was hard to know what I was listening for within myself.
Over time, I began to notice things.
Sometimes one area would feel better and then I would notice another. At first that was frustrating. Then it began to feel more like layers.
The Healing Sounds became an opening to connect with my body in a new way.
I didn't go looking for stories. I went in by listening first.
What was there to be listened to?
I can see now how sound has begun to rewire my world. Not just as a figure of speech, when the brain meets something unfamiliar, it has to build new pathways to process it (research on music and neuroplasticity). That's the wonder hiding in the unheard: every unfamiliar sound is a small act of rewiring already in progress. Through it I have explored my creative processes, felt things buried deeper within, learnt how to communicate with my body in ways I hadn't been aware of before and felt connection to places and people.
I wasn't just listening to music. I was hearing a language without words.
A change of scenery can revive us. A holiday. Somewhere different. New surroundings, new pathways to navigate.
Maybe sound can do something similar.
Somewhere in you, something is idling, waiting to be listened to. The way an engine tells you what it needs, if you know how to hear it.
H ∴
If this stirred something for you, my Autumn RSA cohort begins this September. We explore the patterns, choices and shifts that shape how we move through change.
Explore the Autumn RSA cohort →HERE
