[Picture: Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times 2015]

Pauline Oliveros was an accordion player and pioneer of electronic music and sound exploration. Notably, she dedicated her life to refining and crafting the art of deep listening. Her innovative practices, including Sonic Meditations and Deep Listening, transformed music and sound into a tool for healing, expanded consciousness, and activism. Oliveros believed in the power of listening to foster compassion and create spaces for personal and communal healing, particularly for women and marginalized groups.

In response to the traumatic events of the 1960s, including the Vietnam War and the assassination of Robert Kennedy, Oliveros began to retreat inward. She would often play one note on her accordion. ¹ She described her private music-making during this time as soothing and transformative, offering respite from the chaos of the world. This inward exploration eventually inspired Sonic Meditations, a series of text-based scores designed for collective sound practices.

Introduced in 1971, Sonic Meditations aimed to promote “expanded consciousness” and “humanitarian purposes; specifically healing.” (Sonic Meditations)

These meditations are intended for everyone: “No special skills are necessary” – Pauline Oliveros. I highly recommend trying do these exercises yourself! The beautiful thing about her text-based Sonic Meditations is that they are unique to each person, and it is up to your interpretation. She leaves very open-ended exercises for you to do, and the whole point is to become more aware of your body and your surroundings:

The following may become possible with these sonic meditations: “Heightened states of awareness of expanded consciousness, changes in physiology and psychology from known and unknown tensions to relaxations which gradually become permanent. These changes may represent a tuning of mind and body”

-Pauline Oliveros in Sonic Meditations

These works are simple yet profound, encouraging participants to connect with their bodies, their environment, and each other. One meditation invites participants to “take a walk at night. Walk so silently that the bottoms of your feet become ears,” emphasizing mindfulness and sensory awareness. The meditations range from “teaching yourself to fly” to “listening to a sound until you no longer recognize it.”

“Healing can occur in relation to [sound making, sound imaging, listening to present sounds, and remembering sounds] when:
1) individuals feel the common bond with others through a shared experience
2) when one’s inner experience is made manifest and accepted by others
3) when one is aware of and in tune with one ‘s surroundings
4) when one’s memories, or values, are integrated with the present and understood by others.”

Pauline Oliveros in Sonic Meditations²

According to the New Yorker, Oliveros incorporated movement practices like Tai Chi and Kinetic Awareness into her meditations, grounding her work in bodily and spiritual awareness. She collaborated with dancer Elaine Summers to develop sensitivity to bodily signals, a technique that became integral to her meditative practices.

Her meditations were designed to be more than musical exercises; they were intended to be transformational and therapeutic, enacting lasting changes in the body and mind. Oliveros believed that “healing can occur… when one’s inner experience is made manifest and accepted by others,” and her works sought to create a space where this could happen. A large part of healing is collective listening and finding a safe space where you can express yourself. Pauline Oliveros made this happen with her sonic meditation groups.

In the early 1970s, Oliveros formed a women-only group to explore her Sonic Meditations, a deliberate choice to create a safe space for women who had long been marginalized in music. This group reflected her commitment to feminist activism and the empowerment of women through sound and listening.

At the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival, a feminist gathering, Oliveros led thousands of women in a “Tuning Meditation,” fostering a collective experience of healing and solidarity.³ Such events emphasized the role of music and listening in creating spaces apart from oppressive cultural norms, allowing participants to heal and empower one another. Tuning your body is a way to show that your body is an instrument, and you can refine it and practice different movements and breathing exercises to keep it maintained and balanced.

Here is a 360 video of Pauline Oliveros’s Tuning Meditation at the Met Cloisters:

Oliveros created the term Deep Listening in 1989 to describe her improvisations with trombonist Stuart Dempster and vocalist Panaiotis. They made an album named Deep Listening and later, The Ready Made Boomerang (1991). Both of these albums were made in an underground cistern (a reservoir for water) which has a 45 second reverberation time.⁴

“The cistern space, in effect, is an instrument being played simultaneously by all three composers” – Pauline Oliveros in the Deep Listening album notes.

I highly recommend listening to her album! The music is truly otherworldly and relaxing. When you listen, try practicing active listening—remove any distractions and focus entirely on the music.

“Deep Listening is listening in every possible way to everything possible to hear no matter what you are doing. Such intense listening includes the sounds of daily life, of nature, or one’s own thoughts as well as musical sounds. Deep Listening represents a heightened state of awareness and connects to all that there is. As a composer I make my music through Deep Listening.“

–Pauline Oliveros⁵

Oliveros’s work shows that listening can be an act of collective healing and activism. Her meditative practices sought to counteract societal noise—both literal and metaphorical—and create spaces for connection, empathy, and healing. By encouraging people to listen deeply to themselves and each other, she inspired respect and care, fundamental principles for any social or environmental change. There is space in silence, and there is space in the world around us. Pauline Oliveros teaches us to take space, ground ourselves, and learn from each other through listening.

In Pauline Oliveros’s words, “To create an atmosphere of opening for all to be heard, with the understanding that listening is healing.” This ethos remains at the heart of her legacy.⁶

As composer Annea Lockwood reflected, Oliveros’s teachings remind us that listening is essential: “To deeply listen to one another, to fully hear other phenomena on the planet; from that comes respect and caring. This is healing, and fundamental.”⁷

If you are interested in learning more about her pieces, please view: Pauline Oliveros’s Compositions.⁸

Pauline Oliveros also engaged in poetry: The Earth Worm Also Sings.

This poem was about how our universe is connected through sound. Taylor McClaskie, a musicologist, writes about finding comfort in Pauline Oliveros’s poem: “remembering that my sonic self is a part of a larger sounding and listening cosmos has provided comfort in days of disconnection and isolation. Listening to the world around me, to the sounds of chirping birds, to the slam of car doors on the street, to laughter coming from my neighbor’s apartment, connects me to my place.” ⁹

Pauline Oliveros also delivered a terrific TED Talk on the life-long practice of deep listening:

Increased “awareness of soundscape can lead to the possibility of shaping the chaotic sounds of technology and of urban environments. Deep Listening designers can enhance the quality of life, along with artists, composers, musicians, and all people who care about sound.” – Pauline Olivers in the Ted Talk

Deep Listening becomes increasingly relevant today, with the increasing noise from the internet and social media. I recommend that you turn off your electronics and try practicing Deep Listening for yourself.

Footnotes:

1. O’Brien, Kerry. “Listening as Activism: The ‘Sonic Meditations’ of Pauline Oliveros.” The New Yorker, 9 Dec. 2016, www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/listening-as-activism-the-sonic-meditations-of-pauline-oliveros.
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2. Oliveros, Pauline. “Sonic Meditations” Smith Publications
   https://www.soundportraits.info/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Oliveros_Pauline_Sonic_Meditations_1974.pdf ↩︎
3. O’Brien, Kerry. “Listening as Activism: The ‘Sonic Meditations’ of Pauline Oliveros.” The New Yorker, 9 Dec. 2016, www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/listening-as-activism-the-sonic-meditations-of-pauline-oliveros. ↩︎
4. Williger, Jonathan. “Deep Listening” 10 Feb. 2020.
   https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/pauline-oliveros-stuart-dempster-pan-deep-listening/ ↩︎
5. Deep Listening: The Story of Pauline Oliveros. https://thestoryofpaulineoliveros.com/ ↩︎
6. O’Brien, Kerry. “Listening as Activism: The ‘Sonic Meditations’ of Pauline Oliveros.” The New Yorker, 9 Dec. 2016, www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/listening-as-activism-the-sonic-meditations-of-pauline-oliveros. ↩︎
7. Shanken, Edward & Harris, Yolande. (2017). A Sounding Happens: Pauline Oliveros, Expanded Consciousness, and Healing. Organised Sound. ↩︎
8. Oliveros, Pauline. https://paulineoliveros.us/compositions.html ↩︎
9. McClaskie, Taylor. “Internal and External Connections through Listening: Finding Comfort in Pauline Oliveros’s ‘The Earth Worm Sings.’” 6 July. 2021. https://humanitiesmoments.org/moment/internal-and-external-connections-through-listening-finding-comfort-in-pauline-oliveross-the-earth-worm-sings/ ↩︎