The latest Tête-à-Tech gathering at the Macktez office on December 4th, 2025 marked the end of the series’ second year with a conversation focused on the intersection of music, ecology, and acoustics. Noah Landow (Founder and CEO at Macktez) sat down with Dr. Lisa Ann Schonberg (composer, percussionist, and ecological sound artist) to talk about her forty-year history with drums, traversing standard percussion into the world of “cryptic” natural sounds.
Lisa’s path to the drums was actually a bit of an accident. As a kid, she had her heart set on the saxophone, inspired by Clarence Clemons of the E Street Band, but by the time she got to the sign-up list in school, they were all gone. “It’s the most fortunate thing because I love the drums and it’s dictated my whole life,” she noted. By her 20s, she knew she was a “lifer,” even as her parents started wondering when she might switch to a more traditional track.
One of the most interesting parts of the night was hearing Lisa talk about how she “listens” to things most of us ignore. She uses contact microphones to pick up vibrations through surfaces, allowing her to hear the movement of ants or the resonance inside a mushroom, which she calls “cryptic sound”.
“I’m always curious about what sounds might be happening that I can’t hear and it’s exciting. I feel a kid-level curiosity about this hidden world of more-than-human communication.”
When she’s composing, she often treats these nature recordings like another member of an ensemble. She’ll listen to the pattern of an insect and then write a drum rhythm that complements that sound. Other times, she composes using generative processes where the sounds themselves interact with technology to create music. She’s careful not to call the insects “collaborators,” instead, she focuses on honoring them by documenting exactly where they were and what plant they were on.
The conversation touched on how spaces themselves affect how we hear. Lisa recalled her time at RPI in Troy, NY, where the old buildings were so drafty that the wind would make the entire structure “sing”. That sensitivity to sound is why she now wears noise-canceling headphones on the subway, not necessarily to listen to music, but to protect her ears from the “fatigue” of train noise.
Before the night ended, Lisa shared a piece of advice that she’s lived by for 30 years of teaching: don’t wait for “expert” status to start.
“When you start drumming, you pick up the sticks, you sit at the drum set — you can from that moment call yourself a drummer… I really don’t agree with that notion of being an expert in order to take ownership of that title.”
It was a great reminder to stay curious about the world around us, whether we’re tapping on a steering wheel or listening to the pipes creak in our own homes.