Deep Listening: A Composer’s Sound Practice

“Hear with your ears, listen with your heart,” was one guiding principle of Pauline Oliveros, the pioneering sonic artist who lived from 1932–2016. Her other mantra was “Listen to everything all the time and remind yourself when you are not listening.”

This book provides scores for such exercises. Deep Listening: A Composer's Sound Practice offers an exciting guide to ways of listening and sounding. It provides unique insights and perspectives for artists, students, teachers, mediators and anyone interested in how consciousness may be effected by profound attention to the sonic environment

Deep Listening is a practice created by composer Pauline Oliveros in order to enhance her own as well as other's listening skills. She taught this practice worldwide in workshops, retreats and in her ground breaking Deep Listening classes at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Mills College. Deep Listening practice is accessible to anyone with an interest in listening. Undergraduates with no musical training benefit from the practices and successfully engage in creative sound projects. Many report life changing effects from participating in the Deep Listening classes and retreats.

Oliveros is recognized as a pioneer in electronic music and a leader in contemporary music as composer, performer, educator and author. Her works are performed internationally and her improvisational performances are documented extensively on recordings, in literature and on the worldwide web.

Read more about the fascinating work of Pauline Oliveros in this New Yorker article by Kerry O'Brien