Pauline Oliveros (1932 - 2016)

## **Introduction**

**Pauline Oliveros was born on May 30, 1932, in Houston, Texas, and would be raised into a family that encouraged music deeply. By age 10 Pauline would start to play the accordion and later on would pick up the violin and horn. In the early 1950’s, Pauline would attend the university of Houston while studying music; she would go to San Francisco State College in 1957 to receive a bachelor’s degree in music composition. After graduating, Pauline would then spend years working independently performing and composing avant garde music while using new techniques on sound production. In the later years of her life, while teaching at the university of California, Pauline would shift her composition style from her study of Native American culture and East Asian Buddhism. These ideas would lead Pauline into adding in natural sounds like her own breathing. These pieces would come together and be names Sonic Meditations (1971). This work would become the foundation for her idea of Deep Listening.**

## **Work Analysis**

**Deep Listening Pieces (1989) is a series of works by Pauline Oliveros, Stuart Dempster and Panaiotis that were recorded in the Dan Harpole Cistern in Washington state. The environment created a deep echo effect that required Pauline and her group to listen in a different way. Pauline has been quoted saying that they “had to respect the sound that was coming back to us from the cistern walls and include it in our musical sensibility”. Pauline described the process underground as deep listening by how the experience had them not only listen to each other as they played but also hear the environment around them. Pauline describes listening as “giving attention to what is perceived” and hearing as “the physical means that enables perception”. To put it shortly, Pauline and her group created their music while working with the environment around them that would shape their sound; it accounts for every sound that is made during the musical process. This idea embodies the whole album but best example comes from the last song titled Nike. The piece starts with percussive sounds that immediately project off the cistern walls, creating an long lasting echo. While the natural echo of one percussive instrument continues, another joins in; this continues until there is a texture of many different sounds echoing off each other in the cistern. Vocal yelps and claps also add to the atmosphere. After the ambient beginning, the piece begins to show a structured form as horns start to play and push the piece forward; these too also drone on like the beginning.**

**https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U\_\_lpPDTUS4**

## **Comparisons**

**With these being so different to composer we’ve studied in class, I have no real reference to point to besides  some artists today. Dhani Harrison, son of George Harrison from The Beatles, has put a recent album out that plays with the idea of echo chamber type sounds and layering it.**

## **Observations**

**Deep listening makes it more about the experience than about the music being made. For me to get the most from the music, I had to close my eyes and listen deeply to how everything went together. The echoing from the cistern made every instrument feel as if it was being imprinted into the environment, making it feel natural when the next sound played on top of it.**

## **Works Cited**

**https://www.britannica.com/biography/Pauline-Oliveros**

**https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=\_QHfOuRrJB8**