Category: Fall 22

A few key words I extracted from this article are “sonic meditation”, “listen”, “heal”, and “feminist activism”. “sonic meditation” is an “experiment in self-care” initiated by Oliveros. In this meditation, Oliveros “taught awareness through slow, quotidian movements like sitting, standing, lying, and walking. In meditation, Oliveros asks participants to feel the rhythms of their bodies with the sounds they make, such as the sound of breathing. This kind of meditation is regarded as a “turning of mind and body”. For Oliveros, when “one’s inner experience is made manifest and accepted by others”, healing can occur. She herself would follow this code by sharing her “Sonic Meditations” in print and in performance. Meanwhile, because of the inherently gender-exclusive nature of “sonic meditation,” such practices are seen as a feminist struggle.

For me, there is a controversial point in the article where the author calls “sonic meditation” a “musical experimentation”. A related issue is whether the breathing and the sound made by the gong can be included in the category of music. Beyond that, I think this “quiet activism” of listening is really an action to create a more open and inclusive society. Through such meditation experiments, people can pay more attention to listening. By bringing this habit to life, people can become more attentive to the inner experience of others. For females who lacked voice and attention at that time, this was an innovative and bold attempt to fight for the rise of feminism. But again, who would have thought that feminism would be expressed in such an obscure and seemingly unrelated way?

First of all, unfortunately, I have not participated in or tried meditation in the professional sense. So I can’t really draw any conclusions on the difference between Sonic Meditation and other meditations.

What makes me feel interested is the way how Oliveros’s Sonic Meditation going:

“Take a walk at night. Walk so silently that the bottoms of your feet become ears.”

  1. Mirror

  2. Kinetic Awareness—Make your last audible breath a sung tone

  3. Circle—Visualize your signature letter by letter slowly. Simultaneously hearing your name. Do this forward, then backwards. (Without sound) See your signature in a selected color. Do these with eyes closed and eyes open.

  4. Bowl Gong Meditation. If you lose track of the pitch or want to verify your memory hit the gong again.

  5. Walk once around the room as slowly as possible backwards

  6. Teach yourself to fly as long as possible

What Oliveros did was very similar to games in a broad sense. And these ways just remind me of a book called Grapefruit by Yoko Ono(小野洋子). The subtitle of this book is called “A Book of Instructions and Drawings”. In this book, I will refer to its first section called “music”, she also mentioned a lot of interesting, unusual ideas for making or enjoying music. I will give you some random examples:

TAPE PIECE I

Stone Piece

Take the sound of the stone aging.

TAPE PIECE II

Rome Piece

Take the sound of the room breathing.

  1. at dawn

  2. in the morning

  3. in the afternoon

  4. in the evening

  5. before dawn

Bottle the smell of the room of that particular hour as well.

CLOCK PIECE

Listen to the clock strokes.

Make exact repetitions in your head

after they stop.

In my opinion, they both instruct people to experience some sounds by synesthesia or to reproduce some sounds with methods like memorizing. And just as how Roger Caillois defines games, both of them let people experience sounds or music in a way separated from the routine of life; they let people have an uncertain experience of those sounds, because it is encouraged to involve people’s initiative; what’s more, they are unproductive…

In general, what they both have in common is the use of games or unconventional methods to actively engage people in the act of “listening”. As a non-popular way, this active “listening” is not only an art but also a medium for meditation or thinking.

 

At first sight, it is not obvious to me what “Sonic Meditation” is referred to. After reading about their topics for each meetings, I think it’s about connecting senses, mostly between sound and other senses. It must be very novel to connect the kinetic and sonic element at the time of its creation as the boundary between the two became ‘blurry’. It is also interesting how they brought in documenting, reflection, journaling and discussion into practicing music, to improve their consciousness in the process. I also find it fascinating how it transformed from a lonely process of creating music by oneself to a group improvising session. 

I like the concept of empowering women in the realm of music and would like to know more about how women are historically held down for too long. 

However, I am suspicious towards whether I would something such as ‘Teach yourself to fly’ as art. But I do believe that certain type of listening exercise have healing powers on a spiritual level, often like the background music in awareness practice and meditation videos. 

The thought of activism taking place in more private quiet spaces was interesting. The text brings attention to the forms of activism that can less visible but just as impactful – one that takes place in the form of listening. People often associate activism as voicing your opinions, making them heard. And people who remain in silence are, in many instances, shamed for not contributing enough towards the movement. The text, however, made me think further about the instances where silence is a necessary component for thoughtful activism to occur. What if silence is the product of active listening and learning, prior to voicing an opinion? What if silence is one healing emotionally from a traumatic event?

 

The privacy of the meetings allowed the group to listen to sounds of their choice, giving them a sense of control and power over how they engaged their senses in the midst of such political unrest and chaos. I think there is a lot of power in the line that describes

“listening as a necessary pause before thoughtful action”.

Thoughtful action is only possible after one has given time to think. And listening invites more ideas to fertilize the thoughts preceding an action. By declaring this pause necessary, Olivero describes listening just as important as taking action. This reading inspired me to become more sensitive to the sounds that surround us and further experiment with the medium for healing purposes. 

To start, what I found extremely intriguing in this article, was the title of the piece, particularly the concept of “Listening as Activism”. When reading it, I found that it slightly confused me, which is what captivated me. To me, when I think of activism, the first thing that comes to mind is a voice: being heard. While I am aware that it is not the only form of activism, it is the first thought I get. I have heard of silent protests, written protest, verbal protest, but I never thought of listening as something that constitutes activism. When you think about it, it is something that goes hand in hand with having a voice and taking a stand, but it was not a connection I made until I read this article.

 

Once I read the article, the details of how listening is activism, became clear to me. I was introduced to Olivero’s “Sonic Meditations” and the power that sounds have. One quote that particularly stand out is:

“Her eccentric sound exercises—what she once called “recipes” for listening”

That stuck with me for some reason. It goes back to the topic of listening, and by using “recipes”, it refers to a way in which it can be recreated. Listening is one thing I would never correlate with a recipe, yet Olivero has managed to create a recipe for activism through listening, at a time of huge political turmoil. Olivero also says:

“Take a walk at night. Walk so silently that the bottoms of your feet become ears.”

There is something about this that just seems so powerful to me. Your feet, probably the furthest things in your body away from your ears, can also be channeled into a listening device.
How your bodies then become a vessel of listening, not just to outside noise, but to internalize those listening skills. Similar to how Elaine Summers, taught students to become sensitive to signals in their bodies. To truly understand what it is that is happening around you by listening and to familiarize yourself with what would have gone unnoticed before.

 

It was also beautiful to see how this particular form of activism was used to support women, at a time where they did not get a voice. Since they had been “held down” for so long, musically and in other ways as well, Olivero’s group and method was just one way in which they could take back what they could express and channel into something powerful. There is something truly moving about that…

I found the underlying concept in this reading to be very engaging as it walks us through Olivero’s internal feelings and personal retreats and how they led up to her externalizing them and sharing them with people around her; leaving her mark. The work she has done is impressive in distinctive ways as she was able to incorporate music and vocals in her meditation and healing. Just reading about it felt calming and reassuring. Her initiative in making The Sonic Meditation group a female-only meeting has allowed for a safe, women-empowering space. It’s also interesting that, although it was catered for musical practices, they also incorporated “journaling, discussion and Kinetic Awareness exercises”, which makes them feel more like a family, especially in the time of women-liberation where the house would be a sanctuary for them.

One of the meditation exercises that I found compelling was “Teach Yourself to Fly” where they would focus on their breaths and at some point allow their voices to sound, resembling the noise that an airplane makes when up in the air. This was a kinetic awareness exercise with the main goal of healing. The idea of focusing on our breath when meditating is not new, I have attended multiple yoga and pilates classes that emphasized breathing and its importance, allowing for inner peace and overall calmness. Moreover, when I used to have trouble falling asleep, I read online about a method that helps when focusing on breathing. Inhale while counting to 4, hold my breath as I count to 7 and exhale while making a “whoosh” sound, counting to 8, and then repeating the full process for multiple cycles. This, in my experience, allows the mind to focus completely on the sound and count and avoid overthinking or thinking about things that keep the mind wandering and awake.

I will interpret Oliveros’s “Meditation” as a kind of spiritual&physical pause that allows for intensive sensing of body, (sonic) surroundings, and time passing. What distinguishes Oliveros’s sonic meditation from other meditations is the highlight of sounds, and therefore listening and outputting voices. This is also where I see “communication” and interaction among a group of people, and where the content of performance lies. The question I would ask though is how much can we justify the performance value from a viewer’s perspective? In addition, I admire the value of sound and body experimentation under the political framework. The idea of haveing listening as a form of feminism and activism amplifies certian human sensation and the relation to external world. So it’s like we use our body to claim something about ourselves (and bodies). 

 

Compared to Oliveros’s actions my experience with meditation appears to be somewhat shallow. I guess I got introduced to meditation relatively late. The earliest meditation experience I remember was back in my Chinese high school, when hundreds of students filled a lecture hall for a psychological coaching for Gaokao(the national college entrance exam). You could imagine most students were paying little attention with heads down, because they didn’t want to lose every minute finishing tons of assignments. I was the type in-between, feeling it hard to choose whether to dive into the exercise book as well, or listen to the lecture which sounded interesting but might sacrifice my sleeping time. So in a constant shift between the lecture and assignments, students were introduced to practice meditation, which definitely made less impact. But I did follow the meditation seriously. 

 

Okay the point is not to discuss educational culture, but that meditation, which at that moment was regarded as irrelevant and disengaging by many people around me, actually brought me hyper feelings of my body and time. It pulls you from the shell and, at least for me, brings a more objective perception of self and surroundings. To some extent, I also showed my “embodied pursuit” that one can pause and rest facing tons of work to do. So I agree that Oliveros’s Sonic Meditations, and other forms of meditation, would never be escapism or disengagement. We need to pause and re-organize before the next step. Like written in the article, “Listening is directing attention to what is heard, gathering meaning, interpreting and deciding on action.” 

 

However I really don’t treat meditation as a regular practice, so I’m curious apart from more awareness on listening/sounds and body, how much the reflections on listening and Sonic Meditations can inspire ordinary people who don’t have the habit of meditation.