Among the many central concepts in Deep Listening, my work in the Deep Listening groups and conversations with Sharon Stewart and Kristin Norderval brought me to a few central themes which I believe can be very useful to illuminate in concert situations.

Group trust and community – the idea that a group comes together in an open and trusting way is essential to a good Deep Listening experience. Sharon Stewart told me that Oliveros was often trying to move people out of their comfort zones, and a feeling of trust is necessary for this to be able to develop. Many of the exercises are not everyday activities (in Deep Listening workshops I have said my name like a wild animal, ripped and thrown paper across a room, slapped my own butt, walked as slowly as possible across a room while singing my name as slowly as possible, and many more strange things).

Because of this, a sense of togetherness, community, and trust is necessary to allow people to participate as freely as possible. This is structured into the workshops in different ways, including having everyone sit in a circle (so that no one person is seen as a “leader” - Oliveros herself preferred the word “facilitator” to “leader” [https://www.redbullmusicacademy.com/lectures/pauline-oliveros-lecture]), and even in the introductory exercises such as the “Name Game”, described in further detail in the next chapter of this research.

I saw this feeling of trust go wrong in our first two Deep Listening workshops, when one participant did not feel connected to the activity being done by the group. This participant had signed up not knowing that the focus would be more on meditation than on music, and felt that the “environment of enormous positivity seemed fabricated”, that it felt like an “at home experiment”, and was personally strongly against meditation. The participant sat out for most of the exercises, feeling “frustrated”, but I was told by many others in the group that this also affected their feelings of comfort. Some people did not feel as free to experiment as they could have, because of the feeling that they were observed and judged.

The idea of group trust and especially community is one which can be brought out to great effect in a traditional concert. Musicians often do this in concerts by speaking to the audience, which is a first step to creating a sense of community.

Lifting of Judgment – in the Deep Listening workshops, we tried to remove all sense of judgment which we might give as individuals.

This meant in its simplest form that rather than looking at things as good or bad, we tried to focus on what happened instead. Rather than saying an exercise was performed “well”, we would instead try to raise our awareness of what happened. When someone in the group placed themselves in a vulnerable situation, it was implicitly understood that they would not be judged for that.

In a more complicated way, the Lifting of Judgment concept can be applied to the act of listening, performing, or composing itself. In one meditation, I was shocked at how quickly I would “judge” a sound by categorizing it through extra-sonic meaning. Understanding that the bang we just heard is a door slamming, or a tap-tap-tap are actually footsteps allows us to communicate and understand some aspects of sound more easily. But in the meditation I realized that the type of categorizations we make also make us blind to certain aspects of sound we might otherwise notice. How often do we actually stop to think about the pitch our footsteps make, or where the reflection is of the sound of these steps as we walk across a room?

Lifting of Judgment can be of great use to many concert goers. Young children are often the most open to hearing contemporary music, because they haven't fully developed their ideas of mental set.

Modes of Listening

In our first Deep Listening workshop, we heard that Oliveros defined four ways in which we listen to sound, which she calls “modes”. They are

• Focal listening – listening to all aspects of a single isolated sound (pitch, timbre, duration, loudness) in as much detail as possible. This can be done, for instance, if one is trying to focus on the sound of an oboe while listening to a Beethoven symphony, or trying to pick out the voice of your friend while having a conversation in a crowded restaurant.

• Global listening – giving equal attention to all sounds around you. We might do this, for example, while listening to Ligeti's “Atmospheres”, where it is impossible to pick out the individual sounds of instruments. In fact, much post 1945 music relies on our ability to listen globally. We might also listen globally if we are taking a walk on a dark night, and not sure if we are in danger. By giving all sounds equal attention, we can be aware of the sound of leaves crunching under our feet, hear the sound of a bird in the bushes, and still keep our ears open for the sound of a potential hidden attacker.

• Imagined listening – imagining a sound in detail that we have not yet heard. This can happen while reading a book – for example, if the author describes the voice of a character. As musicians we listen in this way almost constantly while practicing and performing. When I was a student, I was constantly asked by my teachers to “hear” the sound I would make before I played it.

• Remembered listening – imagining a sound in detail that we have heard before. For instance, the sound of one's alarm clock, the voice of a loved one, or the sound of an oboe solo in a Beethoven symphony. As musicians we use this mode of listening often while playing – if I remember how my colleague has played a certain motive earlier in the piece, that will help me create a musical narrative when I have to play that motive later on. We also use this mode of listening when listening harmonically – if I can hear backwards even 1 or 2 seconds to how harmony has been developing, I will be more aware of how to create tension in the notes I am playing.

Throughout 2022, I set up and participated in a series of six Deep Listening workshops, led by certified Deep Listening facilitator Sharon Stewart. It is important to note that certification from the Deep Listening Institute is required in order to lead and facilitate a Deep Listening session. Sharon Stewart is herself certified, and worked with Oliveros... She is also one of the core teachers at the Deep Listening institute.

Four Deep Listening sessions took place in the winter and spring of 2022. Because of Covid, the last two sessions had to be moved to the fall of 2022. The size of our groups fluctuated between 9 and 15 people in each session.

Oliveros outlined the Deep Listening practice very clearly in her book “Deep Listening: a composer's sound practice” [Oliveros Deep Listening]. However, I believe it will be useful to describe some of the experiences we had in our workshops in which I participated in 2022, with a special focus and description of the first workshop. Sharon Stewart described it as “an evolving practice”, and is therefore not a static set of exercises which take place in the same way each time. Indeed, some exercises which we did (such as the “name game”, described below), were not mentioned by Oliveros in her book “Deep Listening”.

Additionally, the group's, and people's individual experience can change drastically in different situations, and the reactions I documented in our workshops can be valuable in demonstrating how different people react to the practice, as well as providing insight into how our listening can change in different settings.

Overview 10 March 2022 - 7:30pm Den Haag

Name Game – Say your name as spoken by a friend who hasn't seen you for a long time. Say your name combined with a sound you find deeply relaxing

At the beginning of almost every session, we started with a variation on this “Name Game”, which invited us to say our names in different manners. In this way we were able to introduce ourselves to the group and break the ice, as well as start focusing on how we listen and communicate through sound. Since the instructions were always very simple, everyone could participate easily.

Welcome and introduction to the themes – Joe Puglia

I was initially surprised by the informality of the workshops, and was asked myself to give an introduction to the group, even though I had no previous experience with Deep Listening. I spoke of my upcoming research, how this connected with my goals as a musician, and what I hoped to learn from the Deep Listening experience together.

Welcome and introduction to Deep Listening workshops – Sharon Stewart

• Short overview over the lifework and quotes from Pauline Oliveros

  • P. xxiv Deep Listening a Composer's Sound Practice

  • P. 139 Software for People

  • P. 163 Software for People

    Sharon often used the first minutes of our Deep Listening workshops to read some quotes from Oliveros' writings.

• Developing Receptivity through exploration of full body and environmental listening 

• Community interaction and learning through nonverbal exchanges

• Silence as a point of departure and return for creativity (emerging forms) and sonic rituals

• Lift of Judgment: LOJ! For self and the creative process

  Rather than immediately “getting down to business” with meditations and exercises, I found it interesting that the workshops were structured to leave room for “normal” presentation and conversation. Sharon introduced some basic concepts and took on the role as “facilitator” (Oliveros herself preferred the name “facilitator” to “leader”) https://www.redbullmusicacademy.com/lectures/pauline-oliveros-lecture]

Bodywork exercises:

• Energizing the body

• Arm swings and wrap and slap

• Two hands reach to heaven

• Opening the 5 gates

Each session began with bodywork as its first group activity. I found that it helped me to be more comfortable throughout the two hour session. Psychologically, it also altered my perception of what the workshop would be. Coming in to a “Deep Listening” experience, I was primed to focus almost entirely on sound, but the bodywork reminded me that Oliveros was searching for building an awareness of our total experience, and using sound as a way in to that awareness.

My own brief experience with Qi Gong led me to find many similarities with the bodywork exercises we did in Deep Listening and the Qi Gong exercises I was exposed to in the past. Oliveros was a longtime practitioner of Tai Chi and Qi Gong. Heloise Gold, a friend of Oliveros who was instrumental in the beginnings of Deep Listening, still practices and leads Tai Chi retreats, and Oliveros states that the movement parts of the Deep Listening practice come from Heloise Gold [http://www.heloisegold.com/tai-chi.html, https://www.redbullmusicacademy.com/lectures/pauline-oliveros-lecture]

Listening Meditation: Global & Focal listening / Remembered & Imagined sounds

In this exercise we spent two minutes focusing on each of these four “modes” of listening. In discussion with participants after the sessions, I was told especially by some non-musicians who participated that the listening meditations were the most interesting and useful parts of the session.

Listening Questions from p. 52-54 “Sonic Images” in Software for People (1972)

• Can you find the quiet place in your mind where there are no thoughts, no words and no images?

• Can you imagine that you are in a very quiet, comfortable place, with plenty of time, with nothing bothering you? Can you imagine that you are in tune with your surroundings, and in the distance, beautiful sound is moving closer to you? What is that sound? What happens to you?

These questions built on the meditative atmosphere, led to further meditation, and also highlighted what Sharon had earlier described as “Silence as a point of departure and return for creativity”. With each question we were invited to reinterpret the meaning we gave to the silence around us.

Journaling and circle sharing: one word in the pot

For me this was the most interesting moment of the session. We were all invited to give one word to the group which described our experience. It was at this point that I realized just how different listener's experiences can be. We were all present for the same activities, were given the same guidance, and were listening to the same sounds. But people's experiences were drastically different. Among the words which were offered were: “Grateful”, “White noise”, “Fax Machine”, “Crackers”, and “Frustrated”. I realized that this translates perhaps too well to our work as performers - no matter how hard we work and what we do on stage, the role of the listener is the most important thing in determining the effect that the concert has.

BREAK 10 min

At this point in the session we had been going for more than an hour, so a break was necessary to give new energy to the group

• Taoist Facewash

  After the break we often started with an exercise which involved physical activity. This was sometimes only a physical exercise itself (such as the Taoist Facewash), other times it was a Deep Listening score which we combined with motion, such as the Extreme Slow Walk.

  The Taoist Facewass was done for only a few minutes, it is described in Deep Listening: A Composer's Sound Practice [Deep Listening]

• Warm up the palms of the hands by rubbing them together. Place the palms of the

• hands over the face and rub vigorously up and down. Each variation is done 9 or 36 times each.

• Rub the sides of the nose with the index fingers 36 times.

• Rub the brow with the thumbs alternating 36 times.

• Rest the thumb knuckles on the cheekbones and rub around the eye sockets with the

• knuckles of the index fingers 9 times...

• Mouth wipes: Palms of the hands alternately brush the lips 36 times. Throat

• pulls: Pull the throat alternately with each hand 36 times....

• Ear area: Using the index fingers flick them so that the cerebellum receives 9 thumps.

• Make a V between the index and third fingers and rub the ears 36 times. Cup the hands

• over the ears and thump 9 times.

• Stick the index fingers in the ears and do a corkscrew motion then flick the fingers

• outward three times.

• Click the teeth together 18 times.

• Massage the gums with the tongue.

• Swallow saliva down to the dan t’ien or energy center below the navel.

• Zina's circle (also reversing direction with double claps)

This exercise is described in Deep Listening: A Composer's Sound Practice [Deep Listening]:

Stand together in a clrcle, with eyes closed facing the center. One person is designated, the transmitter. After observing the breathing cycle, individually, gradually join hands. Then slowly move back so that all arms are stretched out and the size of the circle increased. Next stretch the arms towards center and move in slowly, finally move back to the normal sized circle, with hands still joined, standing so that arms are relaxed at sides. Return attention to breathing. When the time seems right, the transmitter starts a pulse that travels around the circle, by using the right hand to squeeze the left hand of the person next to her. The squeeze should be quickly and sharply made, to resemble a light jolt of electricity. The squeeze must be passed from left hand to right-hand and on to the next person as quickly as possible. The action should become so quick that it happens as a reflex, before the person has time to consciously direct the squeeze. Simultaneously with the squeeze, each person must shout hah. This shout must come up from the center of the body (somewhere a little below the navel) before passing through the throat. There must be complete abdominal support for the voice. When the first cycle is complete, the transmitter waits for a long time to begin the next cycle. When the reaction time around the circle has become extremely short, the transmitter makes the cycles begin closer and closer together until a new transmission coincides with the end of a cycle, then continue trying to speed up the reaction time. If attention and awareness are maintained, the circle depending on its size, should be shouting almost simultaneously.

Variations:

1. Reverse the direction of the pulse using the left hand to transmit and the right hand to receive.

2. Reverse the direction of each cycle.

3. Each person chooses which direction to send the pulse. The transmitter continues to control the beginning and ending of a cycle.

[https://activities-index.github.io/1971/11/01/10ZinasCircle.html] [Also published in Sonic Meditations]

However, due to Covid restrictions, we did not hold hands, instead, we did a variation on the piece making a clapping sound with our hands hitting our thigh.

• Sound Cycles (stationary)

Sound Cycles is a piece by Stan Hoffman and is printed in Deep Listening, A Composer's Sound Practice. This was the first score that we did in the workshop which could be considered a piece of music, performable in a traditional concert setting. The instructions for the piece are:

Preparation
Each participant chooses a sound to make during the piece. Always use the same
sound throughout the piece. Sit in a large circle.
Leader
Stand just inside the circle of participants holding a small gong or hand bell. Begin the
piece by striking the gong twice and then walking slowly around the circle. The next
two times you pass the point from which you started, strike the gong once. When you
arrive at the starting point again, strike the gong three times to end the piece.
Participants
First cycle—Alone: intend to sound separate from any other sound. Second cycle—
Dialog: intend to sound immediately before or after another sound. Third cycle—
Together: intend to sound along with another sound, sustaining your sound for a long
time.
Suggestions and Variations
The first cycle works best if there are not too many people attempting to sound alone.
If you have a lot of participants you can either have only some sound during the first
cycle or perhaps double the number of cycles, assigning different participants to
different alone cycles.
The group could agree on some theme or guideline for selecting sounds. When this
piece was first done at the Deep Listening retreat in Washington (June 1995), the
participants were given written parts which specified a sound (for example: deer, sun,
sky, and everyone’s favorite fern), how many times to sound during each cycle, and
whether to sound alone, in dialog, or together. This is a good way to handle larger
numbers of participants. It also increases concentration because you don’t know ahead
of time what the intentions of the other participants are as to when to sound or with
what intention.

[From Deep Listening – A composer's sound practice]

We performed Sound Cycles with the following sounds:

• A sound that brings out the acoustic resonances of the room

• A sound to soothe your inner child

• A sound to call a dog

• A sound to serenade a bat

• A sound that brings you deep inner relaxation

• A sound that gives you chills

A sound from the future

• Extreme Slow Walk with “Singing the Soles” – vocalisation of the sound you imagine emerging from your soles as they touch the ground

  The Extreme Slow Walk is an exercise which has its roots in other meditative activities – some first-time participants of the workshop recognized the exercise from other contexts. The Extreme Slow Walk is described by Oliveros as follows:

  Moving as slowly as possible, step forward with the heel to the ground first, let

the weight of the body shift along the outside edge of the foot to the small toe and

across to the large toe.

As the weight of the body fully aligns with that foot then begin the transition of shifting

to the other foot.

Small steps are recommended as balance may be challenged.

Maintain good posture, with shoulders relaxed and head erect.

Use your breathing.

The challenge for this exercise is that no matter how slow you are walking, you can

always go much slower.

We combined this exercise with what Sharon called “Singing the Soles” – a vocalisation of the sound you imagine emerging from your soles as they touch the ground

• Closing Circle: Gesture Toward the Group

  Rather than the end of the first half of the session, where we were asked to contribute one word, here we were asked to end the entire session with one physical gesture towards the group. It could be any motion which we considered relevant to the situation.

This was the first session we did as a group, and because of this there was a little more focus on meditations and bodywork than in later sessions. But even so, I was surprised at the balance between meditations, physical work, and what could be considered an actual musical score. In the entire first workshop, only Sound Cycles could be considered anything near to a traditional score, in that it could be performed on a stage. Some of the other activities, such as the Taoist Face Wash, or Listening Meditations, could be done in a concert hall setting, but would be very out of place in a traditional concert. Other activities, such as the Extreme Slow Walk, would be impossible to do in a concert hall because of the amount of motion involved. And some of the more “musical” group work we did, such as Zina's Circle, could be done with any small group of people, but because of the strucutre of the activity and the necessity for it to be done by everyone, it would be impossible to translate into a concert hall setting.

Noticed that all of the group work and meditations prepare people for the sound scores we do

Meditations crucial for allowing people to hear more, and not only be involved in instructions for sound scores.

This is why they are so cautious about playing a piece of Oliveros and calling it Deep Listening – preperatory work involved to open our ears.