Listening Deeply

By Fil Corbitt

“The Ear is a faithful collector of all sounds that can be gathered within its limits of frequency of amplitude.” - Pauline Oliveros

In February 2020 I moved into the mountains and began work on a radio show called The Wind. My plan was to make a podcast about listening—threading together music, language, and the way sound connects us to place and to each other.

I had found a handsaw sticking out of the snow near my new place about a year before moving up. Seemingly a sign of some sort, I carried it deep into the woods and began cutting on a felled pine tree. The tree had been blown over by a storm, and its huge rootball now ran parallel with the living aspen grove surrounding it, all tucked beneath a good five feet of snow.

After a few weeks of commuting by snowshoe, I had two logs about as long as my legs. I scavenged a plank from a nearby abandoned house and arranged these three pieces of wood into a desk. A new place to work, in a stand of lodgepole pines on the edge of a meadow.

And then COVID-19 hit. Suddenly this abstract idea of working outside at a handmade desk became very practical. About a mile from my house and a half mile from the highway, I had adequate social distance. I had only seen a person in this meadow once, and that wasn’t a living person but a carving of a person left by basque sheepherders in the 1970s. As the snow began to melt, this place became my office.

On my commute, I would often listen to Pauline Oliveros. Oliveros is perhaps the most famous experimental accordion player on earth, if such a thing exists. She’s a composer and a sort of spiritual thinker who for decades would host Deep Listening workshops, teaching people—mostly musicians—to engage with the sounds of their environments in new ways. I purchased her book that outlines a handful of exercises to help with that sonic engagement.

My somewhat modified listening practice goes as follows:

I find a place to sit. Lately, this is at my desk or against the tree nearby. Occasionally I will stray far up the nearby creek and find a sunny spot by the water, or a shady spot in the aspens. Though I should mention quietness is not the goal: I’ve done this in town, in train stations, in the car, by the highway—really anywhere you can focus.

Next I get comfortable and set a timer for 20 minutes.

Then, I listen.

It’s really quite simple.

When I listen closely, I start with the farthest sound I can pick out. A vibrating airplane dips beneath the horizon, then I notice the plane that’s booming closer to me. Then the roar of distant traffic that can still be heard from even the most far-flung parts of the canyon near my house. Then the breeze rustling the distant trees that bend over the creek. Then the rattling of the creek. Working inward, slowly. The willow thickets clacking up against each other, then the squeaks and pops of birds in those willows, then the birds in the meadow, whose songs I have begun to separate and recognize for the first time in my life, and finally I listen to my immediate surroundings.

Often those surroundings are sprinkled with the sounds of my own self. My jeans rubbing against each other or my back scraping against the tree, the perceived sound of racing thoughts. When I began this practice I would try desperately to mute my own contributions to this soundscape, but found that the attempt to separate my own noises from their surroundings was not only impossible, but disingenuous. We are a part of our environment, no matter how still we stand.

The practice brings calmness and clarity occasionally, but I’ve also found a bubbling excitement—something I think I can only describe as a craving. Just like the feeling a couple of hours before before dinner, I’ve found myself anticipating familiar sounds before hearing them. Listening is a skill you can practice and improve.

—

I heard once that a voice carries metadata. Principally, you hear the words somebody is saying, but unconsciously you glean a smattering of information from how the person says them. Age, accent and geographic background, cultural proclivities, even a person’s physical health are all present in their unique sonic identity. And if you can sharpen your own listening skills on distant airplanes and separating types of trees, you can then use that skill on fellow humans.

Since I was using this handmade desk to create a radio show, I found a lot of opportunities to practice exactly this. As I hosted radio interviews, I would try not to anticipate the conversation, or think of what I should say next - but instead listen to what the interviewee said and how. I began to hear music in new ways. I began to hear ideas that people weren’t yet saying out loud.

—

If you are blindfolded and walk into a room, you can make a little noise and tell the general size and type of room you’re in. There is an obvious difference between the sound response in a storage closet and a cathedral, but your ears pick up on much more subtle differences too. In that same way, as I sat listening to the wind blow through the valley that my office is in, I began to hear its shape. The flow of the distant creek, the time of year based on the sibilant dryness of the Aspen leaves. I could hear the huge mountain behind me by the gnarled Ponderosa pines swishing above. I could hear the topography.

The wind blowing through a place tells you about that place. Similarly, the wind passing through a person in the form of breath creates speech and song that tells you about that person. Listening closely, you can hear their inner topography.

The practice of listening is exactly that: something you can practice. COVID-19 has physically separated all of us, but throughout the pandemic I’ve been lucky enough to stumble into an entirely new way to connect. And sitting in my office beneath the lodgepole pines as the wind starts to pick up, it’s hard not to feel connected.

Fil Corbitt makes a radio show called The Wind from a handmade desk in the mountains outside Reno, NV. Their audio work has appeared on USA Today's The City, CBC, NPR, 20khz, TravelNevada, and on public and community radio stations across North America.

Thank you for visiting Humanities Heart to Heart, a program of Nevada Humanities. Any views or opinions represented in posts or content on the Humanities Heart to Heart webpage are personal and belong solely to the author or contributor and do not represent those of Nevada Humanities, its staff, or any donor, partner, or affiliated organization, unless explicitly stated. At no time are these posts understood to promote particular political, religious, or ideological points of view; advocate for a particular program or social or political action; or support specific public policies or legislation on behalf of Nevada Humanities, its staff, any donor, partner, or affiliated organization. Omissions, errors, or mistakes are entirely unintentional. Nevada Humanities makes no representations as to the accuracy or completeness of any information on these posts or found by following any link embedded in these posts. Nevada Humanities reserves the right to alter, update, or remove content on the Humanities Heart to Heart webpage at any time.

Kathleen KuoFebruary 16, 2021FComment