Listening to the Abyss · by Roger Payne

The first time I ever recorded the songs of humpback whales at night was off Bermuda. It was also the first time I had ever heard the abyss. Normally you don’t hear the size of the ocean when you are listening, but I heard it that night. It was a bit like walking into a dark cave, dropping your flashlight, and hearing wave after wave of echoes cascading back from the darkness beyond, realizing for the first time that you are standing at the entrance to an enormous room. The cave has spoken to you. That’s what whales do; they give the ocean its voice, and the voice they give it is ethereal and unearthly.

I once spent all night in New York’s Cathedral of Saint John the Divine recording musician Paul Winter playing an ancient threnody on his saxophone. We were set up in the well-lit transept with Paul standing at the entrance to the bat-black nave, the extent of which was lost in impenetrable darkness. I didn’t realize that the nave of that cathedral is the longest in the world until Paul played his first note and the nave roared back at him, half-burying him in a deluge of echoes. He seemed like some shepherd come to the mouth of a cave to beg an amnesty with his horn, who every time he played a note was drowned out by the roars of the dragon within. It is the same with the abyss. As you sit in your boat, lightly borne on the night sea, watching the weather and the stars and the sails, it all seems so simple, regular, ordinary, and you have no thought of how far beneath you the abyss extends. But then you put on headphones, and after a while a whale starts to sing, and the echoes from the abyss come tumbling and roaring back, and suddenly you are aware of the vastness of the mystery that underlies your boat.

“... then you put on headphones ... and suddenly you are aware of the vastness of the mystery that underlies your boat.”

Humpback whales adopt a head-down posture when they sing—might that allow the flow of blood to their heads to better perfuse their brains, helping them to remember their long and dauntingly complex songs? When you swim up next to a singing whale through the cool blue water, the song is so loud, so thundering in your chest and head, you feel as if someone is pressing you to a wall with their open palms, shaking you until your teeth rattle. When you swim close enough to touch the singer you doubt whether you will be able to stand the intensity of the sound. But you can.

The singer usually detects such an approach first,and when he does (I say “he” for it is the males that sing), he stops singing and slowly turns toward the intruder. At this point the entire ocean seems to be rearranging itself, and you are washed willy-nilly this way and that by the currents he stirs in his turning. 

At such moments I have been made to feel smaller than I have ever felt otherwise. But such a feeling is a good thing for human beings to experience periodically, particularly when it is generated by some other nonhuman species, some fellow traveler on our mutual planet.

But although your heart may be trying to beat itself out through your chest, the singer means you no harm. He appears simply curious to see what it is that has taken it upon itself to interrupt his reverie. The disconcerting part is that he sometimes investigates such interruptions rather closely before going on his way.

SOURCE

Payne, R. (1995). Among Whales. Scribner: 145–146

FURTHER READING & LISTENING

Payne, R. (1995) Listening to the Abyss. National Wildlife Magazine, October/November: 58

Roger Payne TEDxBeaconStreet Talk: Attend the Whale Song

Songs of the Humpback Whale, recorded by Dr. Roger S. Payne (Youtube)

Website Roger Payne

Thanks to Irena Radmanovic for pointing out this source.