The Theory of Sonic Awareness in the Greeting by Pauline Oliveros

Abstract

Pauline Oliveros is well known as composer, performer, and teacher; however, I would like to put forward another credential: Pauline Oliveros, theorist. Some composers, like Paul Hindemith, Olivier Messiaen, John Cage, and Harry Partch, have written books explaining how they choose and organize their musical materials. Of course not all composers need to evolve a theory to explain their music, but those that have, expose a creative approach to sound that must be researched and studied by other musicians. Oliveros' theory as yet has no name, but I would like to call it awareness1' I use the term to describe the ability to consciously focus attention upon environmental and musical sound. Sonic awareness is ideally characterized by a continual alertness to sound and an inclination to be always listening. I compare this tendency to John Berger's description of visual consciousness in his books About Looking and Ways of Seeing.2 Oliveros has partially described her theory in the Introduction to her Sonic Meditations and several published articles.3 Like all theories, sonic awareness can only be fully articulated after years of studying the medium (sound and time) and, as is often the case with creativity, it might appear synchronous with work done by others whose concerns seem similar, for instance, R. Murray Schafer and Karlheinz Stockhausen (the latter has only briefly explored the area in some of his meditative pieces). Although