A Year of Deep Listening is a 365-day celebration of the legacy of Pauline Oliveros, and what would have been her 90th birthday. The Center for Deep Listening at Rensselaer is publishing one text score per day—online and across social media platforms—beginning on Oliveros’ 90th birthday: May 30, 2022.

The scores have been offered by the community of listeners who have been touched by the philosophy and practice of Deep Listening. In addition to marking and celebrating Oliveros’ 90th birthday, this project is an attempt to explore what listening can make possible in the context of our current moment…

We are all ears!

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For someone who lives in a world of sound and with hidden long-term ‘unseen illness’, I often find myself trying to explain what it is like to be me. Sound has been a conduit that can do that and I have created several pieces to try to convey the pain that I often experience. Safe to say, it often doesn’t make for good listening. Such pieces are This Is What I Sound Like , Synapse and Life Mask

I have also for the past 10 years had a side project called Feminatronic, which aims to focus on self identifying female electronic artists and Pauline Oliveros is a giant amongst the pioneers of electronic music.

She described Deep Listening as a way of listening in every possible way to everything possible to hear no matter what you are doing. Such intense listening includes the sounds of daily life, of nature, of one’s own thoughts as well as musical sounds.

However, it’s one thing to create actual sound pieces using technology but could I express how I feel using just myself and what was around me, indoors or out? Could this be a shared experience? A sort of sound bath or musical therapy?

I am very honoured to say that my score for A Year of Deep Listening was accepted .

Taking Deep Listening practice as a guide, I challenged myself to create a score that anyone or group of people could try, to explore their inner feelings and/or pain/wellbeing and express them. In 100 words as prescribed by the call out. My aim in this short simple task is to enable listening deeply to ourselves, to try to understand, communicate and have empathy for those with unseen illness / disabilities.

A Year of Deep Listening
Call for Text Scores
April 2022

This Is How I Feel
This is What I Sound Like

Lone performer-

Sit or Stand

Inside or Outdoors

Concentrate on inner self, internal sounds and how you feel

Reproduce/ Express vocally

As a Group –

Sit or Stand

Inside or Outdoors

Concentrate on inner self, internal sounds and how you feel

Reproduce/ Express vocally together

Smaller Groups-

Sit or Stand

Inside or Outdoors

Concentrate on inner self, internal sounds, how you feel, the environment

Reproduce/ Express sounds vocally at same time or staggered