Instructions to event hosted by Elana Mann. Inscription reads:
Deep Listening Chorus: A form to activate community creative sound making
By Pauline Oliveros
1. Lying on the floor, heads or feet toward center and touching, listen/sound. Listen while sounding—listen while silent.
2. Listen to the whole field of sound. Let any sound heard whether inwardly or outwardly be a cue for relaxation or energizing as needed. This implies a global form of listening, which includes everything from the softest, loudest, nearest, most distant sounds possible to hear. Keep expanding to include more sound without assigning importance to any particular sound, except to cue relaxation or energizing. This form of auto-suggestion can also be used to accomplish goals. Is can be done as a separate daily practice.
3. As a group, practice relaxation by scanning the body and releasing whatever tension is not needed. Send sound either mentally or vocally to the parts of the body that need releasing. Then bring consciousness to a pre-selected metaphor such as ice breaking up in the spring, the fullness or summer, the flow of electricity, etc. Each person helps to state the metaphor together simultaneously in an overlapping sound web using words, phrases and sentences at first, and then leading to a primarily nonverbal sounding. Words may weave in and out of the sounding, or not.
4. Anything goes if and only if you are listening.
A period of silence after the sounding is beneficial to help absorb the sensations, feelings and to assimilate the musical experience. After that, some people like to share their experiences, or not.
