Abstract
This chapter focuses on the Deep Listening philosophy, which was founded by avant-garde composer Pauline Oliveros as a result of her lifetime career that started in the 1950s. One of the features that make Deep Listening very interesting for this book is that Pauline was an excellent improviser and accordion virtuoso and that she viewed improvisation as a core creative act and not just as a form of interpretation of a composer’s score. While free improvisation can liberate the participants from slavishly adhering to the preconceived directions of a composer, it requires a thorough set of listening skills that methods like Deep Listening foster.
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Notes
- 1.
Pauline and I discussed this at the 2012 Bang on the Can Festival at the Wintergarden in New York City [247] after we were caught by surprise how many commissioned pieces did not reflect the immense reverberation of the venue. The majority of the often very rhythmic pieces only worked in the first few rows while all important features were washed out in the center and back of the venue.
- 2.
Constructivism is a theory founded by Jean Piaget stating that knowledge is actively constructed by the learner and not just received through the environment [216]. The theory of radical constructivism [108] goes further by assuming that the “real world” might be just a concept that only exists within our mind.
- 3.
Carol“Ione” Lewis, Pauline Oliveros’ partner often discussed this during her dream workshops. She also wrote two handbooks for Deep Listening dreamers [134, 135].
- 4.
In 1935, Erwin Schrödinger postulated that an atom could have different states, called quantum states that are uncertain to the observer. The only way to determine the actual quantum state would be to interfere with the atom, which would have consequences on its state. To illustrate this phenomenon using a macroscopic example, Schrödinger published a thought experiment in which a cat is placed in a concealed cage [243]. Within the cage is a poisonous device triggered by an atomic decay process. Since the decay of an atomic is a stochastic process, one can only speculate if the cat had been killed at a given time or not. Unless the observer opens the cage, the cat remains at the observed ambivalent state of being dead and alive at the same time because both states are described by a probability distribution. Similarly, one can treat the human brain as a concealed system that can only be probed introspectively or by interrogating others. Both methods, however, will affect the performance of the observed brain.
- 5.
It has meanwhile been confirmed scientifically by Schneider and Wengenroth [240] that different areas of the auditory cortex are excited depending on whether the listeners applied global (holistic) or focal (spectral) listening.
- 6.
The time/frequency bins are scaled logarithmically to decibels in this particular case.
- 7.
Gestalt means shape/form in German.
- 8.
Compare the Juilliard String Quartet [141] recording for a reverberant setting that produces a much more fused sound image.
- 9.
Personal communication during our rehearsal at the Stone with Triple Point, February 26, 2012.
- 10.
http://deeplistening.org/site/content/dreamfestival2013 [last accessed, May 23, 2018].
- 11.
Take, for example, the depiction of chants of early Christian groups when captured beneath the Roman colosseums ahead of combats with wild animals in the Hollywood movie Quo Vadis (1951). A more recent example has been described by Colijn [59].
- 12.
Personal communication, August 5 or 6, 2007.
- 13.
The term informal is used here for music practices without a formalized music framework.
- 14.
This was accomplished using the multidimensional INDSCAL scaling method.
- 15.
Personal communication, Oct. 6, 2013. The concert was recorded and later released as a CD [74].
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Braasch, J. (2019). Deep Listening. In: Hyper-specializing in Saxophone Using Acoustical Insight and Deep Listening Skills. Current Research in Systematic Musicology, vol 6. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15046-4_4
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