10 works that will begin your journey into deep listening

In 1988 Pauline Oliveros, Stuart Dempster and Panaiotis descended into the Fort Worden Cistern in Port Townsend, Washington with their instruments (accordion, trombone, didjeridu, vocals) and started playing, recording the result.

Inside that echoic chamber, their instruments bounced and reverberated the sound in a way they’d never experienced (the reverberation decay was 45 seconds), changing the way they responded and listened. The echo itself had become another ‘instrument’ in their band, and this changed everything.

The recording was released as an eponymous album, the trio calling themselves the Deep Listening Band, and they went on to release more music, change formation and collaborate with many musicians and artists over the years.

The deep listening experiment was a culmination of Oliveros’ own personal journey into making and listening to music and sound. Starting out as an electronic music pioneer in the 50s, Oliveros was part of the San Francisco scene of composers, artists and poets. Moving away from that scene to work at the University of California in San Diego, Oliveros retreated into her own world of sound. She began to sing, experiment with extended drones on her accordion and start performing with small groups of women, combining music and sound with breath and movement. These frequent organised sessions of experimentation eventually resulted in the collected texts called Sonic Meditations and is, as Oliveros states, “the basis of deep listening”.

First published in Source magazine in 1971, the texts were a collection of exercises for people to perform in groups and alone and were intended to expand consciousness, improve awareness and most importantly work as a system of healing. The first publication coincided with Oliveros public coming out as a lesbian publicly, hoping her revelation would encourage others to be in tune with and true to themselves, to be heard and to listen to others with understanding and compassion.

Oliveros wanted to teach the difference between hearing as an objective, physical and measurable response and listening, a subjective, personal and mysterious response. With practise and cultivation of the senses anyone can do it. Deep listening isn’t confined to music or even created sounds and song either, but extends into the wider world to include the sound of a dripping tap, distant hums of machinery or vehicles, animals, birds, the rustle of wind in the trees. And while the key works associated with deep listening are generated electronically, electronic production or the use of drones is far from a criterion.

Oliveros dedicated her life to the practice and teaching of deep listening, going on to trademark the term, write books, perform talks, hold workshops, retreats and create a dedicated institute. However, the concept itself is never prescriptive. Oliveros was only ever trying to facilitate creativity, deeper awareness and a better understanding of ourselves and others. Composer, trombonist and activist Monique Buzzarté believes that, “Deep listening is found in all aspects of creative work, across all genre boundaries and artistic disciplines.”

With this in mind, here are 10 works to start your own listening discoveries which are by no means definitive, because after all, deep listening is utterly personal, experiential and ever-changing.