Deep Listening. An Introduction.

What Deep Listening Is | The theory & an intro to the practice from LA Times Writer Randall Roberts.

I differentiate to hear and to listen. To hear is the physical means that enables perception. To listen is to give attention to what is perceived both acoustically and psychologically.

- Pauline Oliveros

Experimental composer Pauline Oliveros created a method of intentionaly focused listening called Deep Listening in 1988. It refers to something you've probably done a million times before, at some point of your life if not now; lending "radical attentiveness" to a full legnth album, really listening to it instead of happening to hear it.

In his LA Times article The Lost Art of Deep Listening..., writer Randall Roberts provides a brief introduction to Oliveros' practice & theory, asking us when we last listened to our favorite album from start to finish, & inviting us to listen with intention like we were "watching a movie or reading a novel."

at the onset of COVID lockdowns & social distancing, this was a welcome introduction. Something new to do & perhaps a suppliment to my practice of Vipassana meditation (another practice rooted in listening). I was only weeks out of a 10 day course, things were all falling into place.

In addition to these new & of the moment factors, there was the fact that as I read Roberts' article I remembered & sort of mourned something that used to come naturally to me & now just didn't. I listen to music, but that's rarely done as an event.

From around kindergarten to some point in college I'd know all of the lyrics to all of the songs on any CD I was lucky enough to have (sometimes gifted, sometimes "borrowed"), ditto for downloads later on, I used to know the corresponding track numbers to each title, & I used to be able to hear the song that was set to be the next single on an album, simply because it would always be my favorite "new song" by an artist.

But I've lost this along with loosing the time & attention span, & prioritization of music that came along with this particular way of spending time. What else has been lost?

Experiment One, inspired by a "Happy Birthday, Frank Ocean" tweet seen on October 27th.

For a very long time I had only ever heard this full album screwed & chopped. A friend from Houston made the mix. I would absolutley isten to it today.

I was living in Flushing, my first apartment ever. I'd just returned from a semester off college, largely spent in Chicago. Before that I'd spent half a year in various locations around Europe.

There are songs & playlists I can mark all of those times with, but this album stands in a slim grouping of full album memories.

It shaped days, & moved me conciously & subconciously, as music tends to do; music has started riots, set the tone for film genres, & contributes to both wellness & creativity in ways confirmed by science.

What will practicing & learning about Deep Listening do for me? As a creative & as an individual?

I gathered scensory accoutrment including leftover pasta (fried like New Jersey Italians taught me to do), incense purchased from a man on the beach, a smoke, a step outside & onto the patio... & decided to slip into the role of scientist, listener, & maker of something truly multi-disciplinary.

Reflection

A first deep listen to Frank Ocean's debut album Channel Orange sparked questions as familiar lyrics fell onto new ears, newly or more fully informed about the artist & his personal life.

Why see the world, when you got the beach?

- Frank Ocean

Hearing how he told us before he told us that he was gay man ("Sierra Leon", "Forrest Gump," "Bad Religion"), & how Ocean, like myself, likely grew up around or later found himself adjacent to a sort of wealth that sparks points of view detached from what we are told is most people's everyday logic ("Suite Life", "Super Rich Kids"); how new experiences lived can mean the difference between recieving something as a story told, or as a proclimation made.

There's a new weight to old messages. The spoken interlude"Not Just Money" feels like a glance into not only old lives & lifestyles lived firsthand, but also lived by more of your friends than you might have known if it for the right conversations...

There's social commentary that feels linked to firsthand knowledge in the song "Crack Rock", & the begining of track four plays low tones of a snippet of the instrumental for track two. Ideas for other projects come to mind & I write them down, wondering if this is taking away from the process (in Vipassana, you write nothing for the 10 days of practice, but you tend to remember things better & can come back to the idea when the time comes... or at least, that has been my experience as a result of two different 10 day courses or sits).

It took three days for me to write this to conclusion. I started & stopppe. Gave the album additional listens. One while doing the writing, the others while attempting to do nothing more.

- Ashley J.

P.S.

It felt like something like this have a reccomended reading section. The linked articles & videos provide a more in depth understanding of many of the themes raised & references made. I hope you'll check them out, & (of course) give the album a listen. & just in case the linked video of Stravinsky talking about the riot at Rite of Spring's premier opening was a bit too slow, here's a breakdown from TED, on riotus music.