Listening Questions from Pauline Oliveros

Created: Thu Feb 05 2026

A collection of exercises from Pauline Oliveros from Deep Listening: A Composer's Sound Practice and Sound Meditations. One of them is a series of 40 questions to reflect on your relationship to sound and listening.

1. What is your earliest memory of sound? How do you feel about it now? Not sure to be honest. Something I struggle with is memory, especially with my childhood. It's kind of odd because I studied music for four years at the Walkerville Centre for the Creative Arts in Windsor, Canada. And I don't remember the sounds from practicing the clarinet or performing with my mates.

I suppose a memory that's stuck with me as a kid is when I auditioned for a solo role in choir during elementary school. I might have been in grade 6 or 7 maybe. Shoutout to my music teacher then, Mr. Lauzon who recogizned that I was a shy kid and it actually took a lot of courage to go for it. What was the song? Maybe Little Drummer Boy or Silent Night? I forget, it was a Christmas Carol for sure though. Anyway, Mr. Lauzon was proud of me for making an effort and getting out of my comfort zone, even if I didn't get the part, looking back I'm also proud of little Peter.

What's interesting is that I don't remember the sound but I can remember the experience and how I felt. I wonder how I can cultivate a sense for sound and to have it be part of me. I think about how maybe

2. When do you notice your breath? When I take a deep breath to control my anxiety. When I run or exercise. When I used to play the clarinet. When I smoke. When I'm trying to calm myself down.

3. What is attention? Attention is when you actively take notice of a stimuli or input around you. This could be a shimmering light that caught your attention and you then decide to focus on it to understand maybe where this light is coming from or you attend to it to appreciate the aesthetic qualities.

Been slowly going through the SEP entry on Attention and it's more complex than we may make of it. Inspired by how telephones worked, Donald Broadbent thought how we processing information has a bottleneck since he suggested we have a capacity limtation on what we can perceive. Think about all of the stimuli that is around us, it would be incredible bothersome and annoying and perhaps choatic if we were perceiving every stimuli in our environment. Broadbent theorized that we have an attention that is large and wide receiving, on the automatic (which perhaps this points to how we can navigate the world) and then there's a smaller capacity that allows us to have selective attention.

Some other aspects to attention from an aesthetics point of view, is the debate on aesthetic attitude. Some thinkers have argued that we have a special kind of attention or state of mind when we attend an object aesthetically. However, George Dickie has debunked this myth and really we are either attentitive or inattentitive independent from our intetions or motivations on why we are attending to an object. Some references on this:

• IEP Entry on Aesthetic Attitude
• The Myth of the Aesthetic Attitude by George Dickie

According to Mohamed Khalid (a student of Oliveros I think?), stated attention can be defined in 5 ways:

There are five definitions of attention in the Encarta dictionary. The first is concentration: mental focus or serious consideration. The second is interest: to notice or take interest in. The third is appropriate treatment: care or tending to. The fourth is affectionate act: a polite, considerate or affectionate act. Finally, the fifth definition is military: a formal standing attitude assumed by members of the armed forces in drill and often when receiving orders, with feet together, eyes forward, and arms at the sides. (Deep Listening, p 50).

Instead just saying we are either paying attention or not, there are perhaps different levels to how we pay attention, similar to how Broadbent is theorizing an attention that is more automatic and one that is selective. But the one that is selective, what does this process look like?

4. Can you imagine composing or improvising a piece based on breath rhythms?

Yeah, now I want to try. Wondering how to go about it though. Inhale / exhale. Reminds me of Inuit throat singing. Maybe I'll try composing something in Strudel or GarageBand. But first I'll try visualizing on paper.

5. What sound reminds you of home?

• Cải lương, Vietnamese folk opera music.
• Karaoke
• Paris by Night
• More karaoke

6. Do you listen for sound in your dreams? What do you hear? How does it affect you?

• I feel like I rarely dream. And I don't know if I ever remember the sounds. It's usually the visuals that stick the most. But even then, the visuals fade away pretty quickly.

7. The distinguished historian, William H. McNeil, has recently argued in his book Keeping Together in Time that “coordinated rhythmical activity is fundamental to life in society". Can you imagine tracking a rhythm pattern in your daily life and writing about it?

• Dance being the most obvious
• Performing music with other people
• I suppose the first two are not daily activities unless it's part of your life/job/career
• Typing has a rhythm. How fast (tempo), how long we linger before the next word (silence), the force at which we hit the key (volume/loudness)
• Doom scrolling...unfortunately that is part of everyday rhythm. This can be tracked by time of day, and then the rhythm at which I scroll.
• But what about coordinated rhythmical activity? As of right now, since I'm doing my masters, I go to school everyday, mon-fri where I see my classmates do the same. We are on the same schedule. The fact that we are doing this together adds to the commaderie.
• Of course...eating breakfast, lunch and dinner. Having again a rhythm to the day that is shared with others. Having a communal meal.

8. Can you imagine a rhythm pattern for the rhythm circle with your own form of notation?

• I supposed I would do iconography that would be mapped in some sort of linear fashion like a music sheet. I wonder how this could be escaped, to not be linear, how could it be spatial instead to encompas that time and sound are connected to space. Sure, there's the 2D space of a music sheet, but spaitally in 3D is what I mean.

9. Can you imagine composing or improvising a piece for voices using attention patterns?

10. What is sound?

• The objective, vibrations (sound waves) that get converted into electrical signal in our ears.
• Then we sense the sound.
• After, the brain interprets the sound where we make a perception of the sound.

11. What is listening?

• The active attention to sense sound.

12. What action(s) is usually synchronized with sound?

• I sometimes close my eyes if I want to focus on a sound, especially if it's someone talking, and if they're talking not in my native language.

13. When do you feel sound in your body?

• Loud bass
• Scratching on a surface that makes a screetching sound. That I feel to my bones, and my brain?
• When there's repetitive thumping sounds and I'm trying to focus, then I get a headache.

14. What sound fascinates you?

• The key of e flat for some reason. Just makes me feel a certain way, kind of melachonic.
• Sound of water.
• White noise at night when I want to sleep.
• Not sure if I can describe this sound, but something that's like an xylophone that has a round sound to it, not harsh, kind of friendly, kind of cute?
• Signal signs that direct people like cross walks.

15. What is a soundscape?

• All of the sounds of a place that is audible to us from a specific location. Think this would also need to encompass the sounds from various times of the day if we are attaching it to a place.

16. What are you hearing right now? How is it changing?

• I'm currently at la HEAD and I hear my typing on my laptop, the cars outside the street, it's a bit drizzly and raining today so you can hear the cars against the asphalt, it produces a specific kind of sound, a bit like white noise. I hear my snifflying because I'm sick. It's late in the day so everyone has left. I hear my cough. I can also hear an airplane going by. If I really concentrate, I can hear the rain outside. Maybe I hear the wind. Another plane, really?

17. How many sounds can you hear all at once?

• In this moment? Maybe just a few.
• In a busy environment, I don't know...maybe something to test when I'm at la jonciton, which isn't a busy area but a good experiment to try out.

18. How far away can you hear sounds?

• I guess it depends on the environment and the object that's producing the sound. Right now, pretty far with the airplane in sky, assuming that it's leaving the Geneva airport.

19. Are you sure that you are hearing every thing that there is to hear?

• Probably not. I turned on music now so in the foreground it's the song Work by No Na. I'm also trying to power through these questions so my attention is not 100% dedicated to listening.

20. What more could you hear if you had bigger ears? (or smaller)

• Would I only have bigger ears or would my brain also be able to adapt to the amount of sounds coming in? I suppose at some point it would be chaotic, or our brain would be able to filter sounds. Actually, this reminds me of a Unexplainable episode on sound, and how we already do this. It would be insane for us to take in all stimuli so our brain filters out only was is necessary for us to operate, sense, and function in our environment.
• Bigger ears - maybe hear lower sounds?
• Smaller ears - maybe hear higher pitch sounds?

21. Can you hear more sounds if you are quiet? How many more?

• Sure, maybe a few more? Earlier when I focused I could hear the rain outside.
• I turned off the music. Going to try listening again.
• I hear my stomach making gargling sounds since I'm hungry.

22. How long can you listen?

• Not long. In a lecture I start to zone out after 5-10 minutes and then I realize I'm not focusing so I'll re-focus.
• If I'm actively listening as a meditative practice, it's probably even less than a lecture or presentation. I suppose the silence and trying to focus on just soudns makes me want to wander in my mind.

23. When are you not listening?

• When I'm sleeping.

24. Can you not listen when something is sounding?

• Yeah, because we can just hear a sound as noise.

25. Try not listening to anything. What happens?

• Try not listening makes me want to listen.

26. How can you not listen if your ears never close?

• Guess it's a difference between hearing and listening? We can hear sounds but are we listening to them always? Listening is to be attentive, while hearing is to notice. Similar to look and see.

27. What meaning does any sound have for you?

Sound can be a way to navigate the world, signal sounds. Sound can be a way to remember and recall memories. Sound can be a way to have an aesthetic experience. Sound can be a way to relate to the world.

28. What is your favorite sound? How is it made? When can you hear it? Are you hearing it now?

I tend to get fixated on certain songs which I'll play over and over again, or a specific artist. When it comes to non-musical sounds, then I'm not sure.

29. What is the soundscape of the space you are now occupying?

It's quiet since everyone has left the campus. There's a few students still who will open the creaky doors to travese the hallway to open another creaky door. There's the ambient sounds from outside. Cars driving by, airplane in the sky, some rain.

When it's during the day, it can also be quiet if everyone is working but usually there will be one or two conversations. If I focus intensely, which I'll try another day, I'm sure I'll be able to hear people typing. There's sometimes a person tapping on the table with their pen. People opening doors more often.

30. How is the soundscape shaped? or what makes a soundscape?

The soundscape is shaped by the structures that contain the sounds and the people or living and non-living that make the sounds. But it also requires us to perceive it.

31. What is the soundscape of your neighborhood?

The neighbourhood that I live in Geneva is very quiet. IT's kind of eerily quiet especially at night. Sometimes you'll hear a conversation from neighbours on the balcony from outside or a gathering with music and lively dicussions in a neighbouring apartment, but for the most part, it's quiet.

There is a time where the birds are super active. Around dusk the birds occupy the sky and as they fly around they will squak.

32. What is the soundscape of your city?

I would also say pretty quiet in comparison to where I'm from which is Toronto. Just from my apartment in Toronto, there's always a loud noise outside the balcony and it's constant.

33. How many different soundscapes can you imagine?

Maybe a few? The ones that I mentioned previously, the soundscape of Geneva and Toronto. But I don't know, I feel like I need to do field recordings to accurately imagine them.

34. What would you like to have in your own soundscape?

Variation from high energy moments to relaxing ones. But maybe on the whole it would be serene and calm with natural sounds and maybe mixed in with some music. I need to get better at describing sounds.

35. What would you record to represent your soundscape?

• Water
• Birds
• Stones

36. What sound makes you speculative?

Ones that are low sounding that are played for a long time mixed with sounds that are high pitched and stattaco. Think it's this contrast between the two that makes me feel like they shouldn't belong together.

37. What sound gives you chills?

• Very squeaky stools
• Scratching a black board
• Applying a thick permanent marker quickly on paper. EWW thinking about it is giving me chiils.

38. What sound ruffles your scalp?

In the sense that it gives me a tingling sensation in my head? I would say the sound of water with bubbles.

39. What sound changes your breathing?

Sounds that make me feel like I'm perceiving danger, like horror movies, it will inevitably change my breathing to be heavier. Sounds that are calming like a stream can also help relax me so I'll have a better control of my breath.

40. What sound would you like whispered in your ear?

I don't know, that sounds intimate and that's none of your business.