Deep Listening is a composer’s sound practice devised by the legendary composer and thought leader, Pauline Oliveros (1932-2016). It is open to everyone and devised to serve and expand our well-being, especially for those drawn to music and sound. DL meetings provide a safe space for musicians and composers to reframe their experience of sound, music, and performance as a group. The music we create together does not employ reading written music or require playing any instrument. It only requires listening to the sounds and silences of outer nature, our inner nature, others, our environment, technology, and machinery. Deep Listening is a secular spiritual endeavor which opens and supports deep levels of connection to others, nature, and ourselves.
Find out more about this practice here.
I am grateful to be leading our group as its primary organizer and teacher. Our meetings are free to join, and donations are optional. There is no official membership or requirement to join a list. Meetings last 120 minutes and follow this structure:
- Warm-up : we get the blood flowing and re-orient our awareness with a little TaiChi and QiGong. No experience is necessary.
- Listening: this time includes Deep Listening guidance. It may take place outdoors and may include walking.
- Sounding: we perform Deep Listening pieces, sometimes called “Sonic Meditations”, by Pauline Oliveros and the global DL community, including those of our own. These scores, using only text, give instructions on how the group is to create the music. Traditional music reading is not used, so creating music together is open to everyone.
- Sharing: we talk about and optionally, share, our dreams with the goal of learning how to listen to them and within them. We also invite guests to bring us new ways to listen.
Our Deep Listening group is a part of a network of DL groups across the globe.
Deep Listening Meets at Timcua on the 3rd Wednesday of each month 7:00pm to 9:00pm
(more)
- is not quite a meditation session, though that’s pretty close
- is not Entertainment (though it can be entertaining)
- is not a time set aside to enjoy a performance of any kind on the stage. (though DL is enjoyable)
- does not have right and wrong notes
- is devoid of music reading or notation
- is a reframing of how we Listen to everything around us and within us: sound, emotions, feelings, memory, and dreams
- is created primarily for professional musicians and composers to give them a refuge from doing jobs to please an audience – and enlivening what brought them to music as a child
- is wordless singing, playing, banging or being silent while intently listening
- is the cultivation of a blank slate ‘child’s mind’ while listening the sounds of nature, city life and sonic art
- is like mindfulness meditation: a vehicle that wakes our awareness into ‘the now’
- is an exploration of the connection between our bodies and mind and where emotions fit into all of that
- is a monthly event, but has no scaffolded ‘curriculum’ or content: There are no disadvantages to first-timers.
- is where music and sound are byproducts of sonic meditations, and different every time
- is an ‘experience’: I lead what to do and why but the interaction and engagement only happens within each attendee
- experiences happen with us all in a circle
- The music the group creates together can often be incredible!
