Lear
PAULINE OLIVEROS - STUART DEMPSTER - PANAIOTIS
“A few years ago, I spent 3 hours in an ex-Soviet Union hangar outside East Berlin singing and playing guitar with some friends.”
We did it because the balloon that covered the abandoned structure made the most extended reverb we had ever heard. It was magical in its simplicity, and because of that long reverb, we walked out of the structure pretty dizzy. We just spent these few hours howling and singing the highest notes we could. Similar things happen when you walk into an empty church, and you can hear your voice or steps reverberate.
I'm sure every single person in the world played with church reverbs. It's so human and fun to do. If we think about it, I wrote (entirely unintentionally) some very simple statements about humankind's interaction with sound. I'm so humble!
This memory came to my mind after just 10 seconds of listening to Pauline Oliveros's work Deep Listening, a true masterpiece of instrumental music.
Pauline Oliveros was an American composer, accordionist, and central figure in developing post-war experimental and electronic music. She earned a BFA in composition from San Francisco State College, where she met her future collaborator, Stuart Dempster.
When she turned 21, she obtained her first tape recording deck. Subsequently, she became one of the original members of the San Francisco Tape Music Center, a significant resource for electronic music on the West Coast of the US during the 1960s.
Before recording Deep Listening, Oliveros spent many years as the director of Mills College's Center for Contemporary Music, then joined karate master Lester Ingber at UCSD, studying karate and collaborating in defining the attentional process as applied to music listening.
She then designed her Expanded Instrument System, an electronic signal processing system she used in performances and recordings. After serving as the Center for Music Experiment's director from 1976 to 1979, she left her position as full Professor of Music at the University of California, San Diego, in 1981, relocating to upstate New York to become an independent composer, performer, and consultant.
Together with Dempster and vocalist and composer Panaiotis, she formed the Deep Listening Band in 1988. Their work is based upon principles of improvisation, electronic music, ritual, teaching, and meditation—a perfect blend of Oliveros's previous experiences.
Precisely in the same way, I entered the East Berlin hangar with my friends, or as you play with the reverb of an empty church, the focus and music of the Deep Listening Band were based on listening and responding to environmental conditions.
The one-hour-long album Deep Listening and its opening track Lear in particular, is a must-have experience for instrumental music lovers and yoga and meditation enthusiasts, and It's a beautiful example of what happens when artificially or naturally created environments blend with harmony.
The album was released in 1989, and the inspiration behind it came when Oliveros descended 14 feet into the Dan Harpole underground cistern in Port Townsend, Washington. The trio decided to record some improvised music at the Fort Worden Cistern in Port Townsend, WA, on October 8, 1988. The album's recording consists of Oliveros playing the accordion and her Expanded Instrument System, Dempster on trombone and didjeridu, and Panaiotis on vocals and electronics. But the 2-million-US-gallon Cistern with its 45-second reverberation time is the real magical element of the compositions.
For many years, Oliveros dreamed of bringing an audience into the Cistern to make them experience what the band experienced while recording. For the 25th anniversary of the album, the dream became a reality. The Deep Listening Band performed at the Dunrobin Sonic Gym in Ontario, Canada, using the Cistern Simulation Technology, a Fort Worden Cistern acoustics simulation developed by Jonas Braasch, director of the Center for Cognition, Communication, and Culture at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
