In Oliveros project, architecture is used
in order to play with sounds. In the underground concrete water storage tank,
sound waves can travel for hundreds and hundreds of meters. While recording,
the people on site were basically sitting in a musical medium. Therefore, those
people were so to speak able to physical feel the music not only auditory but
from within. The vibration and bass basically have permeated their bodies. In
addition, the people on site were genuinely surrounded by music. The unique acoustic
quality led the sound to reverberate over a long time. Although the music is
entirely (and originally) generated from acoustic instruments, the created
music sounds similar to an electronic crafted new age meditation music. I can
only imagine how the whole atmosphere must have felt: surreal, mystique and
also kind of creepy. The eternal echo really supports the mystical character.
Oliveros
states herself that deep listening is her life practice. For her, deep
listening is a philosophy: “Deep Listening is listening in every possible way
to everything possible.” This obviously draws a connection to John Cage’s
approach of sound and silence. Which is why she is also referred to as “female
John Cage” in the field of experimental tape music at that time. Oliveros
approach sheds light onto the individual experience of listening regardless of
the type of music or even daily sounds.
Another
point I want to make how influential Oliveros actually was and still is for
electronic tape music. While listening to some of her pieces on YouTube, I came
across the video “Pauline Oliveros & Deep Listening | Women In Electronic
Music” of the channel Sounds Good. In this video the creator also talks
about Oliveros point of view regarding “women composers.” As a student of the
field of gender studies, I consider it extremely important to listen to those
who are affected by (gender) stereotypes; therefore, I find it extremely
interesting what Oliveros had to say about the topic. If I understand
correctly, she prefers a shift away from the identity of the composer, in this
case a woman (“’women composer’ as seen as its own category of musician”
(compare YT video), to a strict focus onto the music. She intended that this
would help to emphasize the actual new ideas within the music community. I
personally think that this information was additionally helpful to me in order
to contextualized the course information even further.
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