Book Description
Deep Listening: A Composer's Sound Practice offers an exciting guide to ways of listening and sounding. This book provides unique insights and perspectives for artists, students, teachers, meditators 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 teaches 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 the literature and on the worldwide web. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A meditation on listening
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.

Essentials of Oliveros' Excellent Teachings
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. ... Read more

Book Description

Sounding Out: Pauline Oliveros and Lesbian Musicality examines the musical career of the avant-garde composer, accordionist, whose radical innovations of the 1960s, 70s and 80s have redefined the aesthetic and formal parameters of American experimental music. While other scholars have studied Oliveros as a disciple of John Cage and a contemporary of composers Terry Riley, Lou Harrison, Gordon Mumma, and Robert Ashley, Sounding Out resituates Pauline Oliveros in a gynecentric network of feminist activists, writers, artists and musicians. This book shows how the women in Oliveross life were central sources of creative energy and exchange during a crucial moment in feminist and queer cultural history. Crafting a dynamic relationship between feminism and music-making, this book offers a queerly original analysis of Oliveross work as a musical form of feminist activism and argues for the productive role of experimental music in lesbian feminist theory.

Sounding Out combines key elements of feminist theories of lesbian sexuality with Oliveross major compositions, performances, critical essays, and interviews. It also includes previously unpublished correspondence between Oliveros and Edith Guttierez, Jill Johnston, Annea Lockwood, Kate Millett, and Jane Rule.

Book Description
collected writings 1985-95 by new music pioneer ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

listening for your voice
The title "Roots of the Moment" aptly characterizes the content of this book.Improvisation requires performing in the moment.Finding the root of each moment is part of a spiritual/philosophical quest of whichsound is essential. Readers familiar with "emotionalintelligence" will quickly realize the value of Oliveros' "DeepListening" program as a powerful vehicle for tapping into the creativepotential of emotional memory. "Roots" consists of: music"scores" or directions for improvisation by anyone (includingnon-musicians and children), graphic scores, poems, letters, and lectureson Deep Listening (e.g., sound and sounding, listening and hearing, powerand healing), technology, women's rights, anatomy and physiology oflistening, social commentary, among others. Not only is the contentinformative, but the format in which it is presented further illustratesOliveros' idea of improvisation.Multiple writings are presentedsimultaneously on each page, with some continuing for 10 pages and othersweaving into each other with different typefaces serving as keys for eachwriting---or is the linear presentation of ideas essential to the directexperience of reading descriptions of experience?The visual layoutencourages improvisation by the reader, merging and moving among thedifferent texts. "Roots of the Moment" illustrates Oliveros'unique sensitivity to listening and her commitment to facilitating thehealing power of sound in others.Performing, creating, and teachingaround the world, Pauline Oliveros is one musician, healer, educator,philosopher, and social commentator who walks her talk.Roots of theMoment is one book that will continually aid you, as an individual and incommunity, in listening and sounding creativity and healing. The onlysuggestion I have for the reprint is to provide the beginning and endingpage for each writing, thereby helping readers unfamiliar with the mosaicformat of the text. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Amazing Book!
This is about the best book on music and technology I've ever read! An Amazing Wonderful book! ... Read more

Book Description
A vivid dream of passage narrated by experimental composer Pauline Oliveros and realized through the exploratory photographs of Becky Cohen. The book carries us deeply and graphically into the world of ritual and meditation that is integral to Oliveros' life and art. ... Read more

Book Description
This digital document is an article from Notes, published by Thomson Gale on March 1, 2006. The length of the article is 2231 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Deep Listening: A Composer's Sound Practice.(Book review)
Author: Lance Brunner
Publication: Notes (Magazine/Journal)
Date: March 1, 2006
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 62Issue: 3Page: 715(4)

Article Type: Book review

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more