Customer Reviews

Deep Listening: A Composer's Sound Practice

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Pauline Oliveros has devoted more time and effort to understanding how listening effects the life form than anyone else I have encountered. From the moment I met her some forty-plus years ago and we became both friends and colleagues, Pauline shared with me her profound interest in how environmental sounds affected both her musical performance, her composition, and her sense of self. This 'listening beyond hearing' led her to expand her understanding of how focused sound perception can function as a gateway into the moment, into the Now. Inasmuch as all sound occurs only in the present moment, it can function as a natural path to the meditative experience, taking us from focused listening (concentration and one-pointedness) to the wider, relaxed state of Deep Listening, as she has named it.

This book contains the summation of the author's Deep Listening experience in her research, composition, performance, workshops, retreats and classes. It includes as well some fascinating essays and quotes from her students. All in all, this compilation will serve as a valuable guide not only to musicians and composers, but also to anyone interested in a coming to a deeper understanding of themselves and their interaction with their sonic environment.

Boy, is this not what I expected. Having heard some of Oliveros's music as well as that of other artists available at the Deep Listening web site, I had not realized how much of her approach to the practice of Deep Listening involved straight-up New Age notions. This book offers descriptions of Tai Chi or Yoga (or whatever) practice--eg, the Swimming Dolphin ("...Repeat the same motion opening the next chakra, then the third chakra...then the eyes, the third eye, and then extend the arms upward with palms open gathering energy from the universe."), or the Dragon Tail ("The floating palm is sensing and gathering energy as it passes each energy center"). There is emphasis on posture for meditation ("Imagine a golden thread shooting out of the crown of your head to a distant star"), practices like The Heart Chant ("Can you imagine that the heart energies are joining together for healing yourself and others?"), and so on. Though there are passages about mindful attention to music and the soundscape, they are, for me, overwhelmed by the material on yoga, meditation, and New Age practices. No criticism is intended--it may be for you or not, but I felt that a more explicit description was needed here of what sort of book this is.

This book has some really insightful content about our relationship to sound. The rest of the book, which has long descriptions of meditative practices, is not very informative. The practices aren't significantly different from what you might find in other approaches to meditation, and it's hard to understand how they relate to the author's art.

Deep listening by Pauline Oliveros, is by far the most unusual book I have read concerning the art of listening. It is less a work on composition or methods of sound making, and more a holistic search for inner tranquility in order to hear the noise all around you. Although coming from the sound artist perspectice and probably less interested in reading a detailed work on sound practice, or a manual for producing art sound. I was a little disappointed at the lack of narrative in the book, it presents methods of meditation rather than methods of recording the sound around you. The most interesting article in the book, was the documenting of recording an outdoor experience by TJ Szewczak, this was fascinating and insightful, his description of recording the length of a river and the various changes in the sound space as he followed the course of its length is perhaps a result of being aware of the practice of deep listening. Perhaps her book highlights the possibilities of what one could learn if they attended the seminars or retreats on Deep Listening. Otherwise I think you have to be of a certain mindset to read a book on ways of meditation, which I feel this book is.

This is focused material for a focused readership interested in the underpinnings and exercises in Oliveros' Deep Listening approach to meditation and music. This slim volume collects the apparently small amount of written material that Deep Listening has produced with respect to actually preparing oneself or a group for deeper and broader awareness of and involvement in the soundscape, and applying these listening techniques to music and all aspects of life. In specific, there are some brief philosophical essays by Oliveros, listening exercises and composition challenges, and reports by workshop attenders and Deep Listening practitioners. I read the book in preparation for attending a performance by the Deep Listening Band, and while I was sympathetic to the aims and goals, I was disappointed that decades of professional work had been summarized in such a cursory and haphazard way. The performance, by the way, by Pauline Oliveros (accordion, electronics), Stuart Dempster (trombone, electronics), and David Gamper (keyboards, electronics), was transcendent and left me in an altered state.