I had to cope with attitudes that were not supportive all along. I mean, you still have that. Pauline Oliveros More Quotes by Pauline Oliveros More Quotes From Pauline Oliveros When I composed the first sonic meditation, I realized that I was composing the direction of attention. Pauline Oliveros meditationattentionfirsts We have a very large constituency in the world from all of the years that we've done workshops, retreats, and talks. I would say there a few thousand people out there that have some relationship to what we do. Pauline Oliveros retreatpeopleyears 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. Pauline Oliveros spaceplaylong It takes time because the habitual response to that is very deep. It goes back to our earliest responses as babies. You have to feel safe, and if a sound is threatening, you're going to be upset. There are those early responses, depending on how and what kind of experiences you had. Pauline Oliveros upsetsoundbaby I became interested in the delay, having sounds recorded and played back and then come back. I did many different configurations of sending signals from one track back to another track, or to the same track, or crisscrossing them and so forth. I worked on masking the delays so when I played into the machine, I would make long tones and collect sounds in such a way that you didn't hear the delay, although sometimes you did. Pauline Oliveros delaytracklong I think the worst thing is stereotyping. Pauline Oliveros stereotypeworstthinking 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. Pauline Oliveros lightmirrorsreflection A mouse and a keyboard is not a good performance instrument. Pauline Oliveros miceinstrumentskeyboards I had a lot of good times. I had a lot of fun. I liked what I was doing, so I just kept doing it. At the Tape Music Center, I was working from midnight to four in the morning. Because then it was quiet, nobody was there, and I could just do my work. I didn't have to fool around. Pauline Oliveros foolmorningfun The students were missing out a lot in their ensemble playing because they weren't listening to each other or the environment. Pauline Oliveros ensemblemissinglistening First of all I had to teach myself how to use the studio because there wasn't any classes in electronic music. So I'd stay there all night and leave in the morning, observe the sun rise and have a lot of different kinds of sounds in my mind. But it was a quest, it was a search. It was research, it was learning. Pauline Oliveros classmorningnight All the way from the first thing that I can remember, like our Victrola - a wind-up record player - and my grandfather's crystal radio, and my father's shortwave radio. Pauline Oliveros playerwindfather 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. Pauline Oliveros spaceskillslistening 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. Pauline Oliveros skillsplayerbeautiful I felt a challenge to compose music. That's where my challenge was, for the most part. Pauline Oliveros feltchallenges There is a book called San Francisco Tape Music Centre:1960s Counterculture and the Avant-Garde and this book describes everything that you want to know or don't want to know about it, with a lot of documentation. Pauline Oliveros san-franciscotapebook 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. Pauline Oliveros blockplayerlistening The San Francisco Tape Music Centre was a kind of collective non-profit that my friends and I got started so that we could pool our equipment and make tape music. Pauline Oliveros san-franciscotapekind 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. Pauline Oliveros meditationlisteninglong Maybe I'll start from the initial idea, what motivated me to do that. In 1953, I had access to a tape recorder. Tape recorders were not widely available. There was no cassette tape back then. It was a Sears Roebuck tape machine. I put a microphone in the window and recorded the ambience. Pauline Oliveros tapemachinesideas
