Start Listening

how a recorder, even a phone, can help

“I have been training myself to listen with a very simple meditation since 1953, when my mother gave me a tape recorder for my twenty-first birthday. The tape recorder had just become available on the home market and was not as ubiquitous as it is today. I immediately began to record from my apartment window whatever was happening. I noticed that the microphone was picking up sounds that I had not heard while the recording was in progress. I said to myself then and there:

‘Listen to everything all the time and remind yourself when you are not listening.’

I have been practicing this meditation ever since more or less successfully. I still get the reminders after forty-six years. My listening continues to evolve as a lifelong practice.”

-Pauline Oliveros, in Quantum Listening, first published in 2010, available in a lovely little book, more publication are here

I have been walking my neighborhood, sitting on my front porch, and exploring places with my phone out. Not because I am reading the news, but because I am using the delightful Merlin app. Perhaps you know it. You can record and identify birds using the interface which translates bird voices to visualizations to bird species names. Not being a birder and only casually knowing the names of my bird neighbors, I have nonetheless become a bit obsessed with this listening activity. Bird listening has become the anchor point of creative research for a public art project I am creating for a meadow park (more on that in a future post.)

Pauline Oliveros’ work and words have become a guiding influence on my creative practice. I have so much more to learn and practice through her teachings around Deep Listening.

What occurred to me, as I was reading the above words in Quantum Listening, is how the recorder was the spark for her revelation about listening. Likewise, recording birdsong and seeing it rendered visually and connecting it to specific birds has been a spark for me. The action of listening is opened up by the action of recording. I experienced this feeling before, when I had the opportunity to be an Artist in Residence at Jack Straw Center. I learned some field recording techniques and was amazed at how my attention shifted when I was holding a microphone, wearing headphones. The technology, rather than distancing me from my surroundings, truly amplified them. Even without a great microphone, headphones, or other equipment, the phone and app can function in this way. By amplifying my awareness of the birdsong, I suddenly notice and really listen. This is hopeful. And even more so, once practicing listening in this way, I continue to do it even without the device, tuning my senses outwards.

I will continue to bring what I am learning about and through Deep Listening to this writing space to share with you all. For the paid subscribers, I will be including some listening activities in “Start Making and Sensing” prompts that will go out once a month. Stay tuned and take care.