Skip to main content

Listening Report to Pauline Oliveros – Ione

 

I listened to this piece by Pauline Oliveros in full volume to feel every single vibration of the sounds. The volume slowly rises and the elongated sounds made it mysterious and eerie at first. Little by little the music fascinated me and relaxed me. Somehow this time I thought of an underwater world. The light comes only faintly through the water’s surface and glittering particles float through the water. I imagined a submarine navigating slowly, almost in slow motion in the ocean. But it could also be the vastness of space. I think you could use the piece very well as background music for a documentary about new insights in space. You would be in a virtual spaceship and looking at different planets in the distance that you fly past, but you never really see them up close. Or you could also use it wonderfully as background music for a dream trip. As already mentioned, this could then play in space or in the ocean.

It also immediately reminded me of songs from the band Pink Floyd, which somehow always takes you into another dimension. But I could also perfectly meditate to this piece or just lie down somewhere to relax, because the way that the sounds are extended for so long kind of calms me down. You do not even notice how long the piece actually is, even though it does not vary much in the keys. But it definitely did not feel like almost 18 minutes to me. When it started to get a little quieter towards the end, I also needed a moment to come back to reality.

I cannot say exactly which instruments were used to produce these soothing sounds. But I am pretty sure I heard a didgeridoo. This song is fantastic to recover from a stressful day, because the variations of the notes seem to me like a singing bowl.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Listening Report on John Oswald: Plexure

 Sarah Kumar Dr. Bernd Herzogenrath The Future of (American) Music 06 Mar. 2023 Listening Report on John Oswald: Plexure According to John Oswald, “[a] plunderphone is a recognizable sonic quote, using the actual sound of something familiar which has already been recorded” (Lecture Slides 18). However, only if the source stays recognizable can it be called plunderphonics. In his album Plexure , several songs are played back and mixed together, thus creating a new sound. This is interesting because while the excerpts of songs that are used are recognizable or at least sound familiar to some degree, played backwards and mashed up as they are in Plexure , they create a new sound. Like on the cover of the album, on which a collage making up a man can be seen, the mixing of different songs played backwards gives a new feeling to something known. The way the songs are mixed makes them unintelligible. The meaning of the words of the original recordings are not able to be compr...
Post a Comment
Read more

William Basinski – The Disintegration Loops III

  The Disintegration Loops is a quartet of albums published in 2002 and 2003 by American avant-garde composer William Basinski. The pieces are made up of tape loop recordings that were played over time, with noise and crackles rising as the tape deteriorated. Basinski noticed this effect when attempting to convert his older recordings to digital format. The completion of the recordings coincided with the September 11, 2001 events, which Basinski witnessed and adds a deeper meaning to the composition. The composition is fascinating in many ways and makes the listener lose track of time. The tape loop recording had a very calming effect on me and put me in a trance-like state when I listened to it in its entirety. The tape loop is really soothing, so much so that I didn't even notice the loss of quality when I first listened to it. It makes you forget about time and allows you to really get into the piece capturing the calmness it exudes. You forget or don't really notice how i...
Post a Comment
Read more

Pierre Schaeffer - Étude pathétique

  Pierre Schaefer begins the piece with sounds produced by drums and similar percussion instruments. One hears the sound of an object spinning and then coming to a stop. I assume it is a circular object, like a cymbal or hi-hat of a drum kit, that spins until it comes to a stop. Sounds of a locomotive follow, continuing with a mixture of drums and spinning objects as well as voices. There are slight parallels here with another piece by Schaeffer, "etude aux chemins de fer," in which he has the musical piece consist of sounds of trains and locomotives. I also recognize an accordion and a violin playing rapidly, accompanied by human sounds that are not really decipherable. By combining all these background sounds and using human voices, Schaeffer creates an exciting atmosphere while listening to the piece, and the listener's auditory senses are constantly challenged to decipher all the details of the sounds. At times one could be reminded of a scene from a scary movie, at l...
Post a Comment
Read more