Home / Quotes / Quote by Pauline Oliveros

Quote by Pauline Oliveros

“The base skill is listening: how I'm listening to the material, how I'm listening to the space. With electronic sound, it's a similar situation of how to produce it and place it so that it works in a space. The first consideration is adopting the space and having work that resonates in the space.”

Quote by Pauline Oliveros

Author

Pauline Oliveros

Pauline Oliveros, born on May 30, 1932, was an influential composer and musician from the United States. Her work spanned a wide range of genres, including electronic music, experimental music, and improvisation, and had a profound impact on contemporary music. more

You May Also Like

“I have a variety of ways that I make music, but I'm working with the Thingamajigs in a particular way, which is: They are bringing to me their performance skills and their unusual instruments, which I'm relishing. They're really beautiful. The other thing is improvisation - these players improvise and they do it very beautifully, as a matter of fact.”

Way Matter Facts Beautiful Player Particular Skills Performances Instruments Variety Unusual Improvisation Matter Of Fact Very Beautiful Really Beautiful

Author:Pauline Oliveros

“I try to influence this improvisation in two ways. One is by centering on reflections, in both senses of the word: acoustic reflections as well as visual reflections from a mirror or surface, and then reflecting on the material in a contemplative way. The other influence is listening to the tails of the sounds that you make.”

Way Trying Wells Two Sound Influence Materials Listening Reflection Mirrors Surface Senses Visuals Tails Reflecting Two Ways Improvisation Acoustics Contemplative Centering

Author:Pauline Oliveros

“I'm thinking of the audience as being ambient, meaning not sitting focused but being in the space and exploring it while listening to the players.”

Thinking Space Audience Player Listening Sitting Focused Exploring Ambient

Author:Pauline Oliveros

“I thought that it would be interesting to have a mirror and grab a light and shine it around in different ways. It's an analog to the acoustic reflections that we're going to be trying to activate as well.”

Way Trying Wells Different Light Would Be Interesting Reflection Mirrors Shining Different Ways Acoustics Activate Analog

Author:Pauline Oliveros

“There are these sounds that come from outside that work really well if you're listening. If you're not listening, if you're blocking them out, then you don't get it. You don't get the merger of what the players are doing with everything, listening to everything.”

Ifs Wells Sound Player Listening Block Mergers

Author:Pauline Oliveros

“It was around the end of the '60s, when I began to compose sonic meditations. Before that I was doing a lot of reflecting on myself, and listening to long tones.”

Long Ends Meditation Listening Tone Reflecting

Author:Pauline Oliveros

“I would play a long tone on my accordion, or I'd sing one, and I would note how it felt - what it did with my mental space. These were meditations that I did.”

Long Play Felt Space Meditation Notes Tone Accordions

Author:Pauline Oliveros

“When I composed the first sonic meditation, I realized that I was composing the direction of attention.”

Firsts Attention Meditation I Realized Composing

Author:Pauline Oliveros

“I got very interested in attention and awareness and how to achieve certain states through understanding this.”

States Certain Understanding Attention Achieve Awareness

Author:Pauline Oliveros

“I wrote my sonic meditations and started using them with students. I took a bunch of UCSD students out to Joshua Tree and we did the sonic meditations on the boulders.”

Meditation Tree Students Bunch Boulders

Author:Pauline Oliveros