Your Guide to Deep Listening:

Deep Listening Guide

Welcome to your comprehensive guide to Wavepaths’ Deep Listening. Whether you’re about to embark on your first deep listening session or seeking to enhance your existing practice, whether you’re about to participate in a group experience or listen by yourself – this guide is written for you.

We begin by illuminating the concept of deep listening, delving into the evolution of this approach, and providing a multitude of recommendations, tools and techniques to prepare for your session. We’ll also explore how deep listening can serve as an introspective method, enriching your self-development and self-care routine.

What is Deep Listening?

“Listening is not the same as hearing and hearing is not the same as listening”

This quote is drawn from Pauline Oliveros’ book, ‘Deep Listening: A Composer’s Sound Practice’ (2005). She originally coined the term ‘Deep Listening’ to encapsulate an intentional and mindful mode of listening, in contrast to the passive act of hearing.

At Wavepaths, we’ve developed a deep listening approach that integrates insights from historical deep listening practices, various schools and models of psychotherapy, and our own research.

This lead us to define deep listening primarily as an attitude of listening characterised by focus and openness, a definition we will further elaborate on in the subsequent sections

Historical context of Deep Listening

While the term may not always be identical, numerous cultures across the globe and throughout history have embraced forms of deep listening within shamanic, religious, and healing practices to facilitate altered states of consciousness. Whether we examine Hindustani Raga and Rasa theory, the Rangda/Barong rituals of Bali, Indonesia, the spiritual sama concerts of the Sufi tradition, the practice of Suizen in Japanese Zen Buddhism, or the myriad variations of trance drumming in Mongolian, Siberian, African, and Native American communities, we find a rich global history of listening methods that immerse the listener, making them ‘one with the music’ and capable of achieving transcendent states of consciousness.

In more recent Western history, we can identify clear instances of deep listening in the works of musical innovators like Pauline Oliveros, Eliane Radigue, Philip Glass, John Cage, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Igor Stravinsky, and numerous others. Additionally, contemporary boundary-pushing musicians and sound artists, such as Oren Ambarchi, Francisco Lopez, Sarah Davachi, Abul Mogard, Kara-Lis Coverdale (just to name a few), continue to explore and expand the boundaries of deep listening.

It’s important to note that this isn’t an exhaustive survey of the history of deep listening, or the contemporary artists related to it, but rather an acknowledgment of its rich heritage.

Development of Wavepaths’ Deep Listening

Over the years, we have developed an approach aimed at nurturing a practice of listening with the potential for healing. Our research has led us to develop deep listening as a form of psychotherapeutic introspection—an art of listening that offers the listener deeper insights and understanding, the more one gives to it.

We acknowledge music’s inherent capacity to be a potent psychedelic agent, in and of itself. At its core, we have developed deep listening as a ritualised, immersive experience that amplifies the extraordinary therapeutic power of music.

In this endeavour, we’ve drawn inspiration from various sources, including our founder’s academic research on the role of music in psychedelic therapy. We’ve also incorporated elements from psychotherapeutic methodologies such as transpersonal, person-centred, Jungian, hypnosis, focusing techniques, and more. We’ve also found inspiration from various shamanic and artistic rituals. Importantly, the insights from our ongoing research program on the therapeutic applications of music has played a pivotal role.

In 2019 Wavepaths built an immersive pop-up space in London to study Deep Listening.

Watch interview with Wavepaths founder Mendel Kaelen on their Deep Listening pop-up space and partnership with L-acoustics

Who is Deep Listening for?

Deep listening is an enriching experience open to anyone interested in harnessing music as a tool for deepening self-connection, insight and personal growth. We view deep listening as one of the most accessible avenues to nurture mental health and well-being.

However, it’s crucial to be mindful of certain contraindications, especially when engaging in deep listening sessions with higher intensity music. If you are presently dealing with acute emotional distress, such as post-traumatic stress disorder, we advise consulting a mental health professional before embarking on the Wavepaths’ Deep Listening approach.

Benefits of Deep Listening

Individuals who have engaged in deep listening with Wavepaths have reported a wide spectrum of experiences, including a profound sense of calm, heightened mindfulness and focus, deep relaxation, emotional release, newfound insights into personal challenges, a deeper connection with themselves and others, and often a deepened sense of rest and relaxation following a session.

We want to emphasise the importance of approaching your session with a clear intention while remaining open to whatever the experience may unfold, and letting go of overly rigid expectations and specific desired outcomes.

It’s essential to recognize that every person and every moment is unique, and your experience will reflect this individuality. The importance of approaching your session with thoughtful personal preparations is detailed in multiple sections below.

“I had a very positive experience and felt an overwhelming sense of calm and quiet afterwards. So much so, that I remained laying down for an hour with no music just allowing my brain to drift in the comfort of that space”

Frequency of Deep Listening

Due to the strong emotional experiences deep listening can evoke, we generally advise against conducting more than one deep listening session per day.

However, this guideline isn’t set in stone and depends on several factors:

Intensity of the Session:
Deep listening doesn’t necessarily require emotionally intense music. It can be applied to both subtle sounds and highly evocative music, and everything in between. If you’re practising deep listening on your own, we suggest alternating between sessions of varying emotional intensity.
Duration of the Session:
Longer sessions tend to be more emotionally demanding than shorter sessions, and you may find yourself doing short sessions once or multiple times a day, whereas you reserve longer sessions for once a day or once a week. You can read more about the durations of your sessions in the next section below.
Your Therapeutic Needs:
Each individual’s journey is unique, with distinct processes and needs. Therefore, we recommend consistently checking in with yourself and reflecting on what serves you best in each present moment. You can read more about this process in the section “Preparing yourself”.

Remember that your deep listening experience should be a personalised and self-reflective journey, and these considerations can help you tailor it to your own preferences and needs.

Duration of Deep Listening

Deep listening can be as brief as a few minutes or extend to multiple hours:

Longer sessions provide an opportunity for a deeper and more comprehensive journey and emotional processing. For sessions involving emotionally evocative music, we typically recommend a minimum of 20 minutes, with an ideal duration ranging from 20 to 90 minutes.
Shorter sessions conversely offer a convenient way to incorporate deep listening into your daily routine. These 5 to 20-minute introspective moments can serve for example as a conscious beginning and closure to your day, allowing you to stay connected with your inner thoughts and emotions, nurturing self-reflection and presenceToggle Content

When to Deep Listen

You can engage in deep listening at any time, any day of the week. What’s paramount is approaching this experience with sufficient understanding, adequate preparation, and the time it deserves. This is why we wrote this guide, and we’ll delve into these aspects in the upcoming sections.