Reading Response 3

The article I selected to read was that of Pauline Oliveros entitled "Deep Listening: Bridge to Collaboration." I opted to read this article because of my interest in music and creating things that are new. I began reading and my attention was grabbed by her explanation of her collaboration experiences and her views on them.

The essay talked about the importance of collaborating and the mutual listening that needs to be achieved in order for the collaboration to be successful. She then went on to talk about her meditation of Deep Listening where you listen to everything all the time and remind yourself when you are not listening. Listening is much more important to her than reading or writing notation. Phenomenal musicians are listening to each other and in turn learning of new techniques and sounds which is causing boundaries of genres to dissolve and give birth to new styles and sounds. She also went on to talk about Sonic Meditations. Sonic Meditations are ways of listening and scores are transmitted orally rather than with conventional musical notation.

I am very interested in these concepts that Pauline discussed as a musician and an artist. Her ideas of learning by listening seem way stronger than that of reading out of a book. Not that books are bad, it is just that actually learning by first hand experience seems way more interactive and effective to me. Plus, without notation or script, improvisation is pushed often creating more originality and understanding. I also feel a lot is being missed in day to day life by just filtering out noises rather than embracing each sound. I plan on utilizing these concepts much more frequently having read these articles.