On April 7, we explore listening as a compositional tool. Composing is constructing layers, textures and spaces in sound and the level of nuances is endless. How ‘deep’ is a composer listening to these sounds in a creational process? Can we, as listeners, approach this depth of fields and if not, does it really matter? Or is each very act of listening a compositional tool in itself?

The act of listening

Listening is much more than simply registering sounds. Even more than understanding the meaning of these sounds, to listen means to connect. Connecting to sound, meaning, source, presence, atmosphere, your own mood, the sound of your neighbours breath, a memory that comes by. There is no guideline to ‘good listening’, but our listening muscles can be trained. Composers are highly trained listeners: scanning for microsounds and overviewing the entire landscape of sounds at the same time. To compose is to listen and the act of listening connects us to the world around us.

Emphasize the unheard

We start off our studio symposium with a listening session to a tape piece from our studio resident Huba de Graaff. Her work celebrates the unheard: whether it’s the singing of monkeys, the moans of eroticism or the tired sighs of an officer after acts of genocide. For Huba de Graaff, who has studied sonology and tape composition with Gilius van Bergeyk and Dick Raaijmakers, creating music starts at listening to unheard sounds, voices and spaces next to us. Together with Het Concreet, Huba joins us for a week-long residency. This afternoon, we will listen to the results.

Slow walk

Sharon Stewart will guide us in a full-body Listening and Slow walk session. Sharon was introduced to Deep Listening® by founder Pauline Oliveros, IONE, and Heloise Gold during three 5-day retreats, from 2008-2010, and is currently a core teacher for the online programme offered by the Center for Deep Listening at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. During this time together, Sharon will invite participants to come into a receptive, full-bodied listening awareness of the location of Het Concreet and to engage with each other and all that is present in the space during (and beyond) an extreme slow walk.

13:00 get in: coffee & tea at Het Concreet

13:30 start program: listening session Huba de Graaff & talk with Frederik Theuwis

14:30 slow walk with Jacqueline Hamelink

15:30 residency presentation Huba de Graaff & Het Concreet

16:00 end program, drinks until 17:30

Due to the participation of international AMPA students, the main language will be English

Listening as a compositional tool

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