nswer 2 (Q: Women composers throughout the 20-21C)

Pauline Oliveros is widely regarded as one of the most influential American

composers in the 1920s. In the 20th century, she encouraged in-depth listening, was open

to what was happening, and actively founded participating communities throughout her

life. Oliveros was born in 1932. She is a composer, performer, writer and philosopher.

She has been active in the forefront of many music movements. Growing up in Houston,

she listened to metropolitan opera’s radio broadcasts Philharmonic and NBC. She also

indicated that her mother was one of the first people to influence her creative thoughts

and ideas. After studying at the University of Houston for three years, she went to San

Francisco State University to study deeper in composition. After her graduation, in 1957,

she and her classmates Terry Riley and Loren Rush began to try improvisation. She

explained that “while the convention music circles of the 1950 s were not exploring

music in this man. The Jazz World was exploring the Breadth of Improvisation SoundsIn

the mid-1960s,” she expanded her scope of creation by collaborating with dramatic

works, such as Elizabeth Harris, Anna Halprin, Merce Cunningham and others who were

dancers and choreographers.

Just like John Cage, he has given “music”, “composer” and “quiet” new definitions.

Oliveros has also expanded the definition and attention of the sonic environment, and the

total environment is equally important to her. At the same time Oliveros began to try a

sound meditation practice, which became the label for her in the future. Sonic

Meditations, which she created in 1974, is also one of her greatest works. Oliveros

encourages the listeners to listen to their own voices and the surrounding environment

deeply, which plays a certain role in the construction and rehabilitation of music

 

 

psychology. In the United States and abroad, she is one of the most famous and popular

advocates for training listening awareness. She regularly returns to various parts of the

world to teach and perform. Oliveros was the first director of the Tape Music Center of

Oakland Mills College. California, which is the Center for Contemporary Music right

now, and she is also an outstanding music professor of RPI. She did not get a doctor’s

degree that was very important as a professor in college at that time. for Pauline Oliveros,

she has been focusing on listening to everything around her all her life. she said in the

magazine American music that she grew up in the rural areas of Houston, so she adapted

to the sound of the natural environment at an early age and was influenced by it. She also

thinks that electronic sound is more limited to an audio range than natural sound, but

natural sound is not.

The four sources of Oliveros’s music material are: 1. All the music she has heard; 2.

All the sounds she has heard from nature (including her own internal physiological

sounds); 3. All the voices she heard in the technological world; 4. All the voices she

imagined. But she also has some electronic works, such as her Alien Bog. She uses some

repeated high pitch sounds as introduction. As the pitch drops, Oliveros adds various

sounds to the music, influenced by the frog sounds she heard in studio at Mills. These

sounds also seem to come from all directions, such as horn sounds, chirp sounds, bubble

sounds and rumbling sounds. However, she did not record the croaking of frogs, nor did

she translate the croaking of frogs into the specific pitch of music. Her aim is also to give

the audience more imagination space in such a whole voice.

In addition, most of Oliveros’s works are based on her integration into the natural

environment. No matter where she is, she enjoys and freely experiences her environment

 

 

and listens to all the voices around her. Oliveros himself explained: “All is nature that

supports life forms of all kinds; humanity is the body of life forms called humans. . . The

relationship is symbiotic.” This is why she pays attention to meditation and total

environment in his music composition.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bibliography

Glahn, Denise Von. “Pauline Oliveros.” Essay. In Music and the Skillful Listener American Women Compose the Natural World, 102–28. Indiana University Press, 2014.

Kelly, Jennifer, and Pauline Oliveros. “Pauline Oliveros.” Essay. In In Her Own Words: Conversations with Composers in the United States, 1