HTDE: The Friendliest Sound in the World, with Olympic medalist Molly Seidel

Speaker 1 This message comes from NPR sponsor Patagonia. As environmental progress stalls, Patagonia believes it's on businesses to step up.

Speaker 1 The company knows it isn't perfect, but it's proving businesses can make a profit without bankrupting the planet. Explore more at patagonia.com slash impact.

Speaker 2 Hey, Weightweight listeners, it's your judge and scorekeeper, Bill Curtis. We have another episode of How to Do Everything, hosted by WeightWait producers Mike Danforth and Ian Shillag.

Speaker 2 This week, Mike and Ian help a listener who wants to stop scaring people while she's going on runs. So they call an Olympian runner.
She'll know what to do.

Speaker 2 If you like what you hear, they won't live in this feed forever. So be sure to follow them at their own feed and enjoy the latest episode of How to Do Everything.

Speaker 4 Hey Sam, what can we help you with? So I'm calling about a question that I've been plagued with for many years now.

Speaker 4 I've been a runner since my teenage years and regardless of where I run, I run into this similar issue of if I'm coming behind someone who's either walking or running more slowly than I am, I get a little bit nervous about passing them without scaring them.

Speaker 4 And sometimes I'll stop my feet really loudly or try to clear my throat a little bit to see if they can hear me. But I would say at least half the time they don't.

Speaker 4 And then when I pass them, they act a little bit upset as if it were my fault.

Speaker 4 I don't like that.

Speaker 5 Is there a time you remember startling somebody that stands out in your memory?

Speaker 4 There was a time that I was running on a trail, which I feel like on a trail you should be especially aware of your surroundings. And I did a lot of throat clearing and trying to make some noise.

Speaker 4 ended up going around this person and just got a little

Speaker 4 they kind of jumped and then acted as if they were very very scared um and then i thought maybe there was a bear or something because the shock that they exhibited was much higher than i would have expected for just seeing another human being yeah

Speaker 5 have you ever had it saying where you're running and someone passes you and they indicate they're coming in a clever way or oh never never no because people don't pass me you're pretty fast we get it kidding kidding it raises the question what is the friendliest sound like if you were going to choose a sound okay what would be the friendliest sound you could possibly make to a stranger you were approaching from behind?

Speaker 4 I've got candy.

Speaker 4 Would that work?

Speaker 5 I don't think that's it.

Speaker 4 I have an 18-month-old child who says move in a very cute way. I think if I just had a recording of him saying moo.
Moo like a cow, moo.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 5 It is the first part of move aside, too.

Speaker 4 Move over.

Speaker 5 Yeah.

Speaker 6 Don't you feel like that's the solution, though? We should come up with like a surefire way to indicate your presence that is not threatening, that it's almost it's excited.

Speaker 6 You're like happy to hear that noise.

Speaker 4 All right.

Speaker 5 We're going to try and help out Sam in a couple ways here.

Speaker 6 Someone who passes a lot of people while running is Olympic bronze medalist marathoner Molly Seidel. Molly, is this something you've dealt with?

Speaker 7 Well, this is the problem too is because I've had a couple times where I've like really freaked people out and then I feel terrible because they literally will like jump and scream as if I've like tried to attack them as I'm like a

Speaker 7 barely above five foot tall woman coming up behind.

Speaker 5 I think also, tell me if this is true. Whenever I've watched the New York Marathon, when the elite runners go by, they're so much quieter than the normal people.

Speaker 7 Yeah, definitely a little bit less clomping and maybe not breathing quite as heavy. So yeah, it's, especially at night, it gets pretty easy to like unintentionally sneak up on people.

Speaker 7 I typically like to announce myself wherever I go. So when I'm coming up behind, I'm like, excuse me, Olympic bronze medalist coming up behind.

Speaker 6 Yeah, it does feel like maybe that's a use for your Olympic medal is that you could clang it as you run by people.

Speaker 7 Trust me, I like anything that plays on my own narcissism. So I feel like I could use that like a cowbell coming up behind people of just like clink it a little bit.
Yeah.

Speaker 7 and be like oh my gosh i'm so sorry my metal is so loud

Speaker 5 so i i run a little bit and i i have a baby that i push in a jog stroller and something i've encountered recently is there is a species of running male that cannot handle being passed by someone pushing a baby in a jog stroller I imagine being an elite female marathoner, you are constantly passing men who have a hard time with this.

Speaker 7 You are completely right. The species of man who hates being overtaken by a jogging stroller equally hates being overtaken by a woman.

Speaker 7 And so I've had many times, specifically on the River Path in Boston, of passing these alpha males.

Speaker 7 And then you start a subtle yo-yo effect where they then start sprinting in order to pass you again until they inevitably collapse in a heap.

Speaker 7 So yeah, I would definitely say it can be annoying sometimes, but it's also fun.

Speaker 6 Do they ever say anything to you at the very end? Like, you got me.

Speaker 7 No, they'll sometimes I am not even joking with this one. I had a guy.
who said out loud, I'm done with my run here. Like obviously not because we were at least two miles from any like

Speaker 7 realistic stopping or starting point, but just that he felt the need to have to say of like, oh yeah, I'm actually was planning on stopping here rather than just like throwing up because I've been going so hard.

Speaker 5 That back to Sam's question for a second. Is there anything really that you do, though? Like, sometimes, if I have my keys in my hand, I'll try and make a little noise.

Speaker 5 Is there, is there any like actual techniques that you try and keep from generally?

Speaker 7 I will try to call out, just calling out in some sort of way, I feel like, is the very polite thing to do.

Speaker 6 Do do they make running shoes with taps on them,

Speaker 7 like tap shoes, so that you can you're always sort of noise yeah you're like a noisy presence all the time i i feel like i would love a shoe like do you remember like the light up shoes oh yeah that you may have had as kids i feel like something like that but adding in a feature where it actually like says a recording or or does some sort of beat noise whenever you're going i feel like there could be a real market for that i mean we used to i had a cat growing up and we would put a collar with a bell on it so he wouldn't catch the birds i think a collar with a bell for any runner might be the way to go.

Speaker 6 That would be adorable. We're back now.
Then we're just back to the Olympic medal.

Speaker 7 Yeah, exactly. But maybe something like fancier, like a cute charm with a bell on it.
But then imagine.

Speaker 7 if people like you get a lot of those people together and then it would just be a deafening noise you can never talk to your running partners yeah for some people that'd probably be a benefit it'd be great be appreciated yeah oh my oh my gosh i'm so sorry i can't hear you over this bell yeah But please go on.

Speaker 7 Please keep telling me about your on-again, off-again boyfriend that you keep breaking up with.

Speaker 5 You know, this question,

Speaker 5 what is the friendliest sound? What is the sound that you could play that would be least likely to freak somebody out?

Speaker 5 We should see if we can give Sam and Molly, for that matter, a friendly sound they could play.

Speaker 6 Composer Mike Post seems like the perfect guy to help. Mike has a new album out.
It's called Message from the Mountains and Echoes of the Delta.

Speaker 6 But relevant to Sam's question, Mike composed this sound.

Speaker 6 Hello. Hey, is this Mike?

Speaker 4 Yep.

Speaker 6 Hey, it's Mike and Ian from NPR Colin. How are you?

Speaker 4 Well, I'm doing great. How are you guys?

Speaker 6 We're terrific. Where are you? Where are you on your journey?

Speaker 4 I'm in Southern California. I'm actually just...
trying not to get killed here on the 101 driving north to Santa Barbara to have lunch with

Speaker 4 Dick Wolf.

Speaker 6 That's, I guess, if we were to imagine what Mike Bost would be doing, that's what we would imagine you'd be doing.

Speaker 4 Well, yeah.

Speaker 5 Well, so we come to you because you wrote the theme to Law and Order, one of the great iconic themes.

Speaker 6 Thank you.

Speaker 5 And then,

Speaker 5 as we understand, Dick Wolf then comes back to you and wants something to mark transitions between scenes.

Speaker 4 Do I have that right? That's precisely correct.

Speaker 4 At the 11th hour, just before the dub is finished, I've already completed all my work. Everybody's real happy with what I did.

Speaker 4 And he calls me up and says, hey, I'm going to date stamps, scene changes,

Speaker 4 and

Speaker 4 I need a sound to mark that. And I said, great, call sound effects, because I'm your composer.
I don't do sounds. I do...

Speaker 4 music, you know, and and you know, he and I are dear friends, so he goes, hey, come on, I need a favor. God, why do you, you know, come on? And I said, all right, all right, all right.

Speaker 4 So I got a bunch of samples of a jail door slamming and a guy hitting an anvil with a bulbing hammer and a bunch of men in Japan stomping on a wood floor and, you know, all these weird sounds.

Speaker 4 And, you know, it took us about five, six hours to come up with that ching, ching, dun, dun, dong, dong, ding, ding, whatever the hell you want to call it damn thing.

Speaker 4 And so I sent it over to the dub stage and Dick goes man it's just perfect i've never heard anything like that is exactly right and about a year later he sends me a note he goes you know isn't it funny all the great music you've written and on your tombstone will be done dun or ding ding or

Speaker 4 and he's whistle you know and you didn't even want to do it you stupid idiot you know and i went yeah he's right about that you know

Speaker 4 So yeah, that's how the sound came about.

Speaker 4 And, you know, I don't know if anybody cares or anything, but I was a runner for a long time, for 30 years. And, you know, I guess

Speaker 4 you could carry a little device on your phone. You could play back dun-dun, ching-ching, whatever you call that thing, you know.

Speaker 4 I guess you could do that, except I think that because of law and order and the darkness of the subject matter, I mean,

Speaker 4 I don't know if that would calm.

Speaker 6 It has the opposite effect. Yeah, I'm not not sure that would calm anybody.
I will tell you this.

Speaker 4 About the third or fourth year of Law and Order, the original, I got the sweetest, kindest note from a principal from a high school in Cleveland, Ohio.

Speaker 4 And she writes me this note, and she says, I'm writing this note to thank you from the bottom of my heart. I work in an urban environment.
It's a pretty tough school.

Speaker 4 And she goes, there's a lot of discipline problems. And she goes, when I have to call

Speaker 4 Johnny or Sarah to the principal's office she goes it was always over the intercom

Speaker 4 Johnny Jones please come to the principal's office and you know she goes since law and order I preface all those calls to the principal's office with

Speaker 4 and she goes

Speaker 4 She goes,

Speaker 4 my discipline problems have gotten exponentially better because it strikes fear into their hearts.

Speaker 4 Yes, right. I just, I cracked up.

Speaker 4 I thought that was one of the nicest notes I've ever received.

Speaker 5 Oh, that's amazing. So you mentioned that the dun-dun sound is, I think you said,

Speaker 5 like a prison door slamming.

Speaker 4 It's a bunch of different things put together, yeah.

Speaker 5 And I think you said a bunch of men jumping up and down in Japan.

Speaker 4 No, stomping on a hardwood floor in a gymnasium and a guy hitting an anvil with a hammer. Okay.

Speaker 5 So if we were to take a similar approach to composing a new sound for Sam, where

Speaker 5 we're going to get some samples of different sounds and we want it to be as friendly as possible,

Speaker 5 what... What are some sounds you might suggest to come up with a little sonic theme for Sam? Well, you know, one of the sweetest things to me, in my mind, you could do is birds chirping, right?

Speaker 5 Oh, okay.

Speaker 5 Or the sound of a little kid's bell on his tricycle tinking that sound.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 4 Right?

Speaker 4 Or simply, simply, hello.

Speaker 4 Okay. Mm-hmm.
Yeah.

Speaker 6 A soft greeting.

Speaker 4 Yes, a soft greeting, you know. Okay.
Laughter.

Speaker 5 Okay. A little laughter, that's good.

Speaker 4 Yeah, but on the other on the other hand, that's not so friendly when you're passing somebody. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 4 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 6 Let me ask you this question. My understanding is that is a song.
That sound effect or sound, that little five-second bit is actually a song. Is that right?

Speaker 4 Well, it's not a song, but it is a piece of music. And if if you're asking do I get paid or a royalty every time any piece of music plays,

Speaker 4 yeah, every ti every time any piece of my music is played, even one second of it, there's a small little royalty that's that's paid through a performing rights organization.

Speaker 4 I happen to be a BMI writer. So, yes.

Speaker 6 Fantastic. So does that.

Speaker 4 There is there is a royalty. Yes.

Speaker 6 So Mike, does that then, that five-minute piece, does it have a name on the that's registered at BMI?

Speaker 4 Yes, we call it a card stand.

Speaker 4 Oh, that's kind of boring. It does it have like a cool name?

Speaker 4 No, it has a cool name on a t-shirt. It has a cool name when people, you know, talk to me about it.

Speaker 4 Or Ching Ching because I'm making a little money on it. But, so, yeah.

Speaker 5 Well, Mike, thank you so much for talking to us about this. This has been so much fun.

Speaker 4 I'm glad to do it.

Speaker 4 You know, I'm a big fan of what you guys do radio-wise. That's for darn sure.

Speaker 5 All right, here we go. We're going to take these sounds.
We have birds chirping. You say tricycle bell.

Speaker 6 Some kind of laughter.

Speaker 5 So, Sam, or anybody out there who's running and wants to warn somebody you're passing in a friendly way that won't freak them out, we give you

Speaker 4 this.

Speaker 4 Hello. Mark Arthur.

Speaker 6 And then here again, just because we want to see what it sounds like, here it is again, but this time with 100 men in Japan stomping on a wooden floor.

Speaker 4 Hello.

Speaker 6 If you have a question you'd like us to answer, you can email us at howto at npr.org.

Speaker 5 And at this point also, we have probably solved questions you have. You just haven't heard the episode.
So we would encourage you to go backwards through our catalog.

Speaker 5 Maybe you have a song in your head, you can't get it out. We've addressed that.

Speaker 6 Or maybe you're zippers down, or you see somebody who's zippers down and you want to know how to tell them that. We can help you with that.

Speaker 5 So, step one: listen to everything we've ever done. And if you still have the problem you have, send us your question at howto at npr.org.

Speaker 8 This message comes from NPR sponsor CNN. Stream Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown Prime Cuts Now, exclusively on the CNN app.

Speaker 8 These rarely seen, never-before-streamed episodes dig deep into the Parts Unknown archives with personal insights from Anthony Bourdain and rare behind-the-scenes interviews about each season.

Speaker 8 Anthony Bourdain, Parts Unknown, Prime Cuts, now streaming exclusively on the CNN app. Subscribe now at cnn.com/slash all access.
Available in the U.S. only.

Speaker 1 This message comes from NPR sponsor Patagonia. As environmental progress stalls, Patagonia believes it's on businesses to step up.

Speaker 1 The company knows it isn't perfect, but it's proving businesses can make a profit without bankrupting the planet.

Speaker 1 Out now is Patagonia's 2025 Work in Progress Report, a behind-the-scenes look into its impact initiatives from quitting forever chemicals and decarbonizing its supply chain to embracing fair trade.

Speaker 1 Explore more at patagonia.com slash impact.

Speaker 8 This message comes from Charles Schwab. When it comes to managing your wealth, Schwab gives you more choices like full-service wealth management and advice when you need it.

Speaker 8 You can also invest on your own and trade on Thinkorswim. Visit schwab.com to learn more.

Speaker 3 This message comes from NPR sponsor SAP Concur.

Speaker 3 Latora Jackson, Senior Manager of Finance Projects at HRecure, shares how SAP Concur Solutions helped them automate outdated procedures so employees could focus on purposeful work.

Speaker 9 Literally, employees would receive a mailed invoice from our suppliers, put it in an approval folder, and walk it around to about three different desks.

Speaker 9 The great thing with Concur Invoice, it provides automatic workflow.

Speaker 9 The AI technology for the invoice reading has made it seamless and almost touchless for our accounts payable team to be more efficient in what they're doing.

Speaker 9 We're now able to have team building and decision-making input from that team that we normally didn't have the time to receive before.

Speaker 9 So it was almost like a retraining of the brain on job functionality and opportunities that they have here at HRQR.

Speaker 3 Visit concur.com to learn more. This message comes from HyperFixed, a radiotopia podcast.

Speaker 3 In each episode, host Alex Goldman sets himself on a listener's unsolvable problem and explores the hidden systems that created that problem in the first place.

Speaker 3 Subscribe to HyperFixed, wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 5 Well, we want to check in on the You Guys Fast. That is a thing we just started where we are trying to excise you guys and hey guys from our vocabularies.

Speaker 6 We invited you all to do this with us and we've heard from a ton of people who are joining us who've already started doing it and even have some tips.

Speaker 3 Hello.

Speaker 4 Hello, Carol. Yes.

Speaker 6 We're just calling to check check in on you on the You Guys Fast. How are you doing with that?

Speaker 4 Well I've actually been trying to avoid it for years. It still pops up because my family uses it, but for the most part, I try not to.

Speaker 6 Yeah, so what solutions have you come up with?

Speaker 4 I generally say friends.

Speaker 4 I am a choir director by profession, so I often say singers instead.

Speaker 6 Oh, sure. Oh, that's nice.

Speaker 5 I would try that. Just, I mean,

Speaker 5 I have no involvement with any choir, but just approaching a group of people and saying, hey, singers, that's that feels good.

Speaker 4 Yeah, everybody sings, everybody has a voice. Yeah.

Speaker 5 I will say we heard from a couple of you.

Speaker 5 Lawn, for instance, said we need to solve real problems instead. Basically, this is why are we doing this?

Speaker 3 Which,

Speaker 5 fair point.

Speaker 1 There are bigger problems in the world.

Speaker 5 We are incapable of solving them.

Speaker 5 Hello. So, Joe, you wrote in about your journey with with you guys.
Can you tell us about it?

Speaker 4 Yes. So when I was in the Army with email communications, I noticed that people are using all con,

Speaker 4 which stood for all concerned. And I really liked that.
So I adopted that to it. All con.

Speaker 4 Yes, we're all concerned. Okay.
That's really cool.

Speaker 6 I'm just trying to think if we could use that in

Speaker 6 our work emails, how much effort it would take to get everybody on board.

Speaker 4 I'm going to try it. All right.

Speaker 5 Lynn wrote in. She said, I have not said you guys in the years since my son's friend from high school transitioned.
She pointed it out to me after I addressed the group of friends as guys.

Speaker 5 Since that, I've chosen to use folks. I like the casual and friendly sound of it.

Speaker 4 Oh, thank you, Lynn.

Speaker 6 Hi, this is Steve. Hey, Steve, how are you? Good.
We're calling to check in on you and your you guys fast.

Speaker 4 Well, that's great.

Speaker 6 Have you, Steve, had any incidents where you've slipped and it's bitten you?

Speaker 4 Yes, yeah. And I've been called out

Speaker 4 a few times by the, you know, mainly by my family. Yeah.
You know, and they say, hey, I thought you weren't going to say that anymore.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I mean, once you, we're finding this too. Once you kind of declare that you're doing this,

Speaker 5 you really have a spotlight on you.

Speaker 4 Yeah, that's true. And you notice it so much more when other people do it now, too.
I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and we have missionaries in our area.

Speaker 4 We had a couple of young men, 20-year-olds, that were missionaries in our area, and they said it so much, and it was so obvious to me that I actually pulled them aside and gave them a little talk on, you know, why I don't use that, and maybe they ought to think about using a different term also.

Speaker 4 Yeah. And it actually went over really well.

Speaker 5 Wow.

Speaker 6 You are a missionary for you guys, or for anti-you guys, I guess.

Speaker 4 I guess so. Yeah.

Speaker 6 Steve, when you pulled those two aside, did you say to them, hey, you guys?

Speaker 5 Here's Eunice from Philly. Eunice has some ideas of what you might replace you guys with.

Speaker 1 Hello, everybody.

Speaker 4 Hello, party people.

Speaker 4 Oh, there you go. Or my wife teaches pottery, so she uses hi potters.
That's her approach. Oh, I like that one.

Speaker 6 And here's Ari. Ari has even more ideas.

Speaker 4 So I like to approach a conversation with like people I'm casual with. I might say team.

Speaker 4 to be like, oh, like, hey, team, how's it going? Like, sort of that soccer coach vibe. I like to be overly formal on purpose sometimes, like by saying, oh, compatriots, esteemed colleagues.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 6 Well, thank you, Ari. Thanks for all these ideas.

Speaker 4 This is great. Yeah.
Thanks for thanks for the work you guys do and thanks for making a great show.

Speaker 5 We consider you a true compatriot.

Speaker 4 Thank you.

Speaker 5 So we're going to keep we're going to keep trying.

Speaker 5 Let us know if you're doing this. Let us know when you fail.
We'll let you know when we fail.

Speaker 6 Hina, is your mic open? Hina, how have you done?

Speaker 9 I've done pretty bad. I've done

Speaker 6 say, yeah, I've done a lot of...

Speaker 4 I go back to my texts and edit it, and then it would say edit it underneath, and everyone knows that it used to be you guys, and then I changed it to like you all, and I think that I'm making my life a little harder.

Speaker 5 It's possible in those edited texts, Hina called us something worse.

Speaker 5 that she then edited to you all and she's covering it up as if it was part of the You Guys Fast, when really it was something very offensive.

Speaker 6 She's on a, yeah, what is the opposite of a fast? Rampage.

Speaker 4 Yeah, she's on a you rampage.

Speaker 5 Well, that does it for today's show. What we learned today, Mike.

Speaker 6 Well, I learned that that sound, the dun-dun sound from Law and Order, is actually a bunch of sounds smashed together.

Speaker 5 One of which is a hundred men in Japan stomping on a wooden floor.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 6 How is that an effect that is just like available for use?

Speaker 6 And what are those men doing now?

Speaker 5 Was that the peak of those men's life? Is law and order a thing in Japan? Do those men know how woven they are into the fabric of our culture?

Speaker 6 Do you think that those people are like with their friends or with their family? And they're like, hold on, hold on. Listen, this is it.
This is me. This is me right here.

Speaker 5 Or a bug walks by. They stomp it.

Speaker 6 do people on the street recognize them i know that stomp wait a minute do that again

Speaker 6 how to do everything is produced by hina sravastova technical direction from lorna white

Speaker 5 our intern is mark arthen mark

Speaker 6 i can't say enough about the work you did this week Yeah, Mark, we really appreciate everything, everything you've done.

Speaker 5 That's why some of you, when you heard the sound we made for Sam, you may have heard Mark Arthen's name underneath it and wondered, what was that? That was not mentioned.

Speaker 5 Well, we went back in because there is no happier sound than the name Mark Arthen.

Speaker 6 You can send us your questions, send them to us at howto at npr.org. We promise we read all our emails obsessively.
It's honestly, it's weird.

Speaker 5 I'm Ian.

Speaker 6 And I'm Mike.

Speaker 4 Thanks. Thanks.
Thanks.

Speaker 3 Support for this podcast and the following message come from Humana. Employees are the heartbeat of your business.

Speaker 3 That's why Humana offers dental, vision, life, and disability benefits designed to help protect them. Award-winning service, expansive networks, and modern benefits.
That's the power of human care.

Speaker 3 To learn more about Humana's plans for companies of all sizes and benefits budgets, visit humana.com/slash employer.

Speaker 8 This message comes from Vital Farms, who works with small American farms to bring you pastor-raised eggs.

Speaker 8 Farmer Tanner Pace shares why he chose to collaborate with Vital Farms when he brought pastor-raised hens to his small Missouri farm.

Speaker 10 Probably the best thing about being a Vital Farms farmer is working with a group that is not just motivated for one thing.

Speaker 10 They're motivated for the well-being of the animals, for the well-being of the earth. They care about it all, you know, and that means a lot to me.

Speaker 8 To learn more about how Vital Farms farmers care for their hens, visit VitalFarms.com.