Deep Listening Retreat at High Falls, New York, 2007.

(Photo image by Betsey Biggs)

I just attended the "Deep Listening" Retreat at High Falls, New York. It was taught by Pauline Oliveros, composer and founder of Deep Listening; Ione, author, director, and dream specialist; and Heloise Gold, choreographer, T'ai Chi and movement specialist. Their program was a deep immersion into listening through the whole day and night.

"Deep Listening...is learning to expand the perception of sounds to include the whole space/time continuum of sound--encountering the vastness and complexities as much as possible. Simultaneously one ought to be able to target a sound or sequence of sounds as a focus within the space/time continuum and to perceive the detail or trajectory of the sound or sequence of sounds. Such focus should always return to, or be within the whole of the space/time continuum (context)." (Pauline Oliveros, "Deep Listening, A Composer's Sound Practice," page xxiii)

For more information, please visit the Deep Listening Institute retreat web page.