Pauline Oliueros 17

Listening Journal

The Exercise

After the listening exercise, describe your experience in writing in a notebook that
you keep for this purpose. Give your experience a tide. Notice your feelings about
vour experience and record them. Of course, writing can be replaced by another
means of recording to suit your needs (e.g. Thpe).

How to Use Your Journal

Your journal should be private, like your own room. This journal is a place to
write, graph, add collage, or draw whatever you would like to record. There is no
need for anyone else to look at your journd unless you decide that you want to
share a part of it or all of it. Your journd is your sanctuary for your listening
experiences. Through journaling over time, your experiences in relation to one
another accumulate meaning.

Experiences come and go. Some experiences stay with us easily and others
disappear quickly. Some. experiences pop into mind at odd times like dreams or
flashes/visions. Keeping a journal with descriptions and reminders of immediate
experiences, memories and your imagination of sounds, can be surprising and
rewarding. Recording your experiences can help the development of your
memory and imagination for sounds (and silences).

Recording Your lnner Experiences: Remembering and

Remembering to Remember.

Eadr listening meditation has unique dynamics, feelings, sounds and sensations that
can be described and tracked in your journal. Sometimes you notice very subtle
and quiet differences in sounds you thought were familiar. The slightest difference
may lead you to new creative relationships. Such material recorded each time you
do the listening meditation will give you a record of your progress in the expansion
of your awareness and give you the eventual basis for an essay or article.

Even though an experience may seem not worth writing down, your perspective
may change later, especially in the context of many different experiences recorded
through time. Allow your inner critic to relax and be calm while you have the
18 Deep Listening

opportunity ro record your experiences without censorship. A word, a fragment,

o, pu^gt^ph can later trigger your memory or your imagination and yield an
^
enormous amount of information. Your journal can be as non-linear or linear as
you wish.

One way to treat your experiences is to review them like a journdist. Be descrip-
tive ani be aware of feelings aroused by sounds and the relationship of sounds.
Remember that linguistic thoughts are sounds ifyou choose to listen to them that
way. Another way is to think of the experience as a dream.

During your waking or sleeping life, bring yourself to attention with the
thought-"remembering and remembering to remembei'. You might find your-
self liitening backrvard in time to a sound that you didnt know that you heard!

Recording 0bservations of the External Soundscape

Much of the time we focus narrowly on our goals and objectives. In this narrow
focus we may discard or tune out sounds that are not yielding what we consider
to be relevant information.

\Vhy should we be interested in the sound of traffic, or cafeteria noises, or the din
of multitudinous conversations, or garbage cans crashing in the street at 2 am, ot
a pin dropping in a quiet place?

All of the waveforms faithfrrlly transmitted to our auditory cortex by the ear and
its mechanisms constitute our immediate soundscape. Though we may not be of
it, we are in it. Extending our awareness as far as possible to include any and all
sounds places one in the center of the environment, with presence and relation-
ship to dl that is going on. The body is continually sensing and recording all of
the information that is delivered to the auditory cortex, even though we may not
be conscious of this constant activity. This is why the brain/body knows far more
than our mind can Process immediately.

Inclusive listening then opens us to all possibilities in the space/time continuum.

Depending on o,rt perspective or emotional arousal, or commitment to a goal or
goJr, *. c:.,' enter the profound interplay of the universe through sounds.
 Paalirc Olivavs . 19

ltere may be a surprisingly strong rclationship betwcen thc inner and outer
cqrcrience of indusive listening. Rccording the flow of sounds ttuough the
ryace/time continuum like a journdist can promote a deeper undersanding of
tour presence and mcaning in the environment. Therc is dwala information in
my sound thatpu perceive.

What does it Mean to Collect All Sounds?

lae faithful collector of all sounds that can be gthered within its limits of
ear is a
fioquency and amplitude. Sounds bqrond the limia of the e:z.r mey be gefiercd
by other sensory E/stcms of the body.