Active Listening

December 11 2020

Listening in an active manner is using one of our senses but it is on the cognitive level that my main interest has taken focus. Sound has the particular characteristic of being able to touch us in ways that the visual does not - namely the ability to evoke strong emotive states in a more direct and intense manner. This may not be the same with everyone but on a personal note, sound is definitely a medium of expression with which I’ve always had a more profound relationship when it comes to the stirrings of emotions. Is sound a physically more visceral experience than the visual? Do sounds have an effect on our state of mind that is different than the visual? What differs? These are general questions for which I’m not a specialist to give any scientific answers. Yet, they have led me to read more on the subject in an attempt to inform a body of creative work which explores the subject of memory. My point of departure for this topic is the specific links that emotions have with memory and I’ve become fascinated in the ways that these intertwine. 

To explore this I have decided to use a particular genre; drone music. There are a number of reasons for this choice. This particular style of sound composition is minimal, sustained and has a long evolving quality that induces a state of active listening. I want to strip down sound to its raw state of tone and timbre, distancing myself from the more popular and perhaps indeed more stereotypical manner of eliciting emotions through melody and beats. There is also a more subtle intention for this choice too that will take shape as the project moves forward. There are undertones of a message that are inherently related to my world view. That may sound very grand and pompous but it shouldn’t. I have no intention to be pretentious, nor pertain to make some important statement. Suffice to say that the slower, more meditative nature of the drone is a stance in a world that is fast, all-consuming and not always conducive for reflection. 

My current drone work is akin to navigating a sparse yet forever changing landscape. The more one listens in an open manner, the more one can discover micro sonic elements. Oscillators sound out in unison, slightly de-tuned and modulated with low frequencies to add surprising yet minimal mouvement. They can sound like horns or sometimes didgeridoo, resonance giving rise to various partials that are rich with emotional state. Rhythm can be perceived in the underlying vibrations, at times excited and fast, at others subdued and mellow. There is a contemplative field of frequencies which come together as a whole, patterns of partials, fed into delay and reverberating rooms to extend their presence. This hum of the drone is like the light and shadows of a sparse landscape in movement. A perceptual window that opens directly onto a continually updated field of emotional possibilities. 

Through a state of deep listening, I experience various layers of frequencies, at times my attention is drawn to one particular field. I hear the sound differently, catching a moment in a detail never before noticed. The more I listen, the more I navigate and the more I map out these various parts of the sonic fields, time being my only means of reference to check each sonic position - To check I was not just simply having another auditory illusion or hallucination. My state of mind is never the same is it not? Somehow the drone brings me back to emotional states that quite simply resonate with my being.