The San Francisco Tape Music Centre was a kind of collective non-profit that my friends and I got started so that we could pool our equipment and make tape music.
Pauline OliverosI have a commission to do a piece in a place in California, Oliver Ranch, which has an eight-storey structure called The Tower designed by the visual artist Ann Hamilton.
Pauline Oliveros[Students] they did the sonic meditations, I would observe them in their ensembles, and the ensembles improved incredibly. So I knew I had something to do and something to say.
Pauline OliverosI became interested in the delay, having sounds recorded and played back and then come back. I did many different configurations of sending signals from one track back to another track, or to the same track, or crisscrossing them and so forth. I worked on masking the delays so when I played into the machine, I would make long tones and collect sounds in such a way that you didn't hear the delay, although sometimes you did.
Pauline OliverosIt takes time because the habitual response to that is very deep. It goes back to our earliest responses as babies. You have to feel safe, and if a sound is threatening, you're going to be upset. There are those early responses, depending on how and what kind of experiences you had.
Pauline Oliveros