Sonic Meditations by Pauline Oliveros
Reflect on your own experiences of listening — to sound, to others, to your environment, or to yourself. How does Oliveros’s idea of deep listening challenge the way you typically give attention?
Oliveros’s idea of deep listening challenges the rate of speed in which I listen to sound. When doing this deep listening, I realized how quickly I think about sound, how it’s not a conscious, intentional thought, but throughout this, it was slowed down and intentional. It gave attention to sounds that I have never paid much attention to. I was listening to the dryer right by my room, and I slowed down the sound and realized that my mind thinks of it as one harmonized sound, but it’s actually a variation of different things happening to create that sound. Like the humming of the dryer as well as the clanking of the clothes, and the spinning round and round, I’ve never paid attention to. I’ve realized that I really have no patience. I want quickness, and if something takes too long, my brain automatically tries to speed it up by distractions or dissociation.
In what ways might listening through your whole body, or approaching sound as a form of play and research, change your understanding of connection, communication, or creativity?
I’ve realized that our body is its own musical instrument and that listening to our body tells us a lot about the start of our mind. Like if we’re stressed or anxious, our bodies are tight and our breaths are quick. It helps me understand the connection with others, as if we give ourselves the chance to slow down and listen to just each other’s bodies. I believe that in our relationships, we can go to a deeper level, as it’s no longer about just knowing someone’s personality, but knowing how someone’s body reacts to different things. This has changed my mind on creativity, as we have become so immune to sound that we don’t even recognize it anymore until we intentionally listen and hear it differently. When you really listen, you start to unlock things that you’ve never noticed, and I feel knowing that allows you to create something beautiful with others, as you can help slow them down and allow them to experience this new feeling of just being able to take a breath and be mindful of what you’re surrounded by. This helped with the communication to my own body as I was finding a constant battle in my mind, as having ADHD makes things really difficult to sit through and stay focused on, but I actually find it nice for me to slow down my brain and notice things that I never have. To allow my body to be calm was to allow myself to have peace that I haven’t felt in a long time.
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