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How have humans listened to and with environments, and what creative works may such listening prompt? This dissertation delves into these questions by focusing on Deep Listening, a meditative practice for expansive awareness associated with American composer Pauline Oliveros. Deep Listening has grown into an international network which has not received scholarly attention. In this dissertation, I trace its evolution from Oliveros’s early use of tape recorders, her group work with the ♀ Ensemble and Deep Listening Band, and establishment of the Deep Listening Institute and later Center for Deep Listening which support worldwide trainings, workshops, and publications. I also investigate Deep Listening’s multicultural influences, environmental foundations, and related traditions (including the Aboriginal approach of dadirri), all aspects underexplored in musicological literature.
Crucially, I study Oliveros’s collaborations with author Ione and dancer Heloise Gold who together established the essential but overlooked Deep Listening modalities of listening, dreaming, and moving. As a certified Deep Listening facilitator, I shed light on these vital modalities from my own experiences. I investigate how diverse beings – including humans, nonhuman animals, plants, and stones – are listened to and with, how listeners construct sonic experiences, and how select artists cultivate listening modes to advance recognition of the more-than-human world.
In addition to Oliveros, Ione, and Gold, this dissertation illuminates key figures shaping the ongoing Deep Listening enterprise, offering a much-needed perspective. Case studies based on oral history interviews center on Ximena Alarcón Díaz, Tina Mariane Krogh Madsen, and Kite, artists who represent diverse expansions in the Deep Listening community. Artist-researcher Alarcón Díaz incorporates migration experiences, performance artist Madsen highlights more-than-human collaborators, and multimedia artist Kite showcases an alternative approach through Lakȟóta-informed works. Revealing varied experiences of sonic worlds, each artist uses recording technologies and dreaming for connection with more-than-human beings.
Drawing on Western and Indigenous concepts of sound and listening, this dissertation engages scholarship in electroacoustic and experimental music, acoustic ecology, ecomusicology, phenomenology, and multicultural listening practices. By contextualizing and investigating Deep Listening in a fresh way, I exhibit how listening can encourage environmental awareness and deepen connections with ourselves, each other, and the more-than-human world.