Oliveros' Lear - Deep Listening

Pauline Oliveros' "Lear" was released in 1989. "Lear" is about actively listening, as it continually engages the listener. A constant drone connects all sounds, therefore expanding the sonic landscape that Cage opened up with his number pieces. There is no silence, no un-noise in Lear.

Lear is a massive 25 minute piece of music, opening up the album Deep Listening, recorded by Oliveros (who plays accordion), Stuart Dempster (Trombone and Didjeridu), and singer Panaiotis. Oliveros and Dempster also add vocal parts.

Recording took place in a large underground cistern, which explains the clever pun in the album title and served as a place of tremendous reverb, creating a dense soundscape of sustained tones that almost seem electronically processed. In fact, when first listening to Lear before class unprepared, I thought it was an electronic piece of music. The effect of the endlessly echoing room is remarkable, as it creates an ever-growing tension that pushes the piece into darker territory at the halfway mark. The album cover seems to be composed of a picture of trees repeated three times, but upon further inspections, the “trees” are metal pillars scattered around the cistern, which also explains the clonking noises heard infrequently, as they probably were used as additional instruments.

In Lear, borders between instrumental and vocal music begin to fade. There are obvious vocal contributions, but the extensive echoes turn them into another instrument. Especially in the context of Alvin Lucier's "Sitting In a Room," which we listened to during the same session, this was an intriguing revelation. As a 90s kid, Lear also reminded me of the soundscapes of early role playing video games such as Diablo and I wonder how many video game and movie composers took inspiration from Deep Listening.