WEEK 1: THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEEN LISTENING & HEARING

I listen to music almost constatly when I’m alone, and with streaming, I’m very aware of the passive nature of my listening; I press play on something — a playlist, an album, a song — and I clean my room or make my dinner or get on the bus. I’m trying to be a more active listener and to take my time with an album before I form an opinion; before I save it to my library or switch to something else. But, I also know that my feelings about a song or an album depend totally on context. Pauline Oliveros says, “To hear is the physical means that enables perception, to listen is to give attention to what is perceived both acoustically and psychologically.” She goes on to say that hearing turns a range of vibrations into sounds, while listening is a “constant interplay with the perception of the moment compared with remembered experience.” It makes me think of how a song can make me feel one way, while someone else could have a totally different experience in listening to it. Our lived experiences, which in this case could be what music we were introduced to growing up, or if a song was introduced to us by someone special, or any other specific context in which listening was influenced
Another part that stuck out to me was her ideas about deep listening being used as a way to “shape chaotic sounds.” The clip she played at the end of the video, at first, struck me as jarring. I closed my eyes and listened, imagining the simulated cistern and the environment it was based on. The reverb and echo made the sounds feel dark and unsettling, but then again, I watched this video sitting at my kitchen table with headphones in while my roommates made their dinner. I am curious what reaction I would feel hearing it again in a sound-proof theater, with no outside noises to distract me.