I began using the term Reflexive Listening to describe what we listen to, and how we listen, when we experience and perform Reflexive Music. It asks us to notice how we are taking part while remaining attuned to what is happening around us and between us.

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We listen for how sounds, movements, gestures, and words relate to one another, allowing what we meet to guide what we do next. Our own contribution enters these relationships and changes them, too. We develop the flexibility to shift between perspectives, following the larger composition while giving full attention to the present moment.

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When I play, I hear what I am doing while I am doing it. My listening shapes the next sound, the touch of my hand, the length of a pause. What happens next gives me something else to listen to. I am part of the situation I am trying to perceive, and my inner and outer listening move together within it.

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Since 1995, I have been exploring the difference between hearing and listening through composing, performing, teaching, and conversations with people from many fields. These include musicians and artists, educators, psychologists, therapists, social workers, philosophers, mathematicians, anthropologists, linguists, and neuroscientists. Working with individuals and groups, in education, communities, and organizations, I see again and again how a change of attention can alter our participation. How do I listen to my own voice while attending to another person? How does a group listen to the relationships developing among its members?

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For me, this listening extends through the senses, and I have come to understand it as Cross-Sensory Listening. In my synesthetic experience, taste, hearing, and textures arrive together. Working with others led me to explore how each of us, through our own perception, could take part in relationships among different forms of expression. The pace of a gesture, a breath, or the distance between people can become part of what we attend to.

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A gesture may find a response in a voice; something of its rhythm, pressure, or intensity continues while taking another form. I listen for what connects these expressions, what changes between them, and what the response makes possible. Can the other person take up something in my sound and carry it on through their movement? How does their response change what I perceive and what I offer next?

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Through this listening, we form the encounter together. What I notice affects how I respond, and my response becomes part of what the other person receives. Meaning can take shape as we find ways to continue together, sometimes before we have words for what is happening. Each of us keeps our own voice, contributing to relationships that also change us.

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As a musician, I often think of the ear as the instrument I am practicing. I may hold a cello, a flute, or sit at a piano, and listening guides how I touch, breathe, phrase, and move. What my body does changes the sound; the sound changes how I play on. Ear development becomes a lifelong practice of discovering these connections and finding my own way of playing within them.

This also changes how I hear noise. An unexpected sound, an interruption, or the noise of my own thoughts can become material for listening. I can notice how it arrives, where it takes my attention, and what I do in response. Something I first experience as interference may offer another way into the composition.

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The difference between being reflective and being reflexive in real time has accompanied this exploration. While performing, I can be reflective: I step back within the moment, consider what is happening, and choose how to respond. I can also be reflexive: my listening and my participation affect one another as the music unfolds, and I become aware of this relation while it is shaping the next sound. Both happen during performance, often within the same phrase. What interests me is how we move between them, and how the music changes when we notice which one is guiding us. The question remains open, and the practice keeps giving me new ways to investigate it.

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For the listener, this is a polyphonic experience. I can follow one voice, attend to the relations among several voices, or notice my own contribution to what I hear. Another person’s phrasing, movement, or pause can reorganize my attention. I am drawn to those moments in opera when several characters sing different words and melodies at the same time. Each has a particular voice, and together they let us experience the larger scene. How can we develop the listening that allows individual voices to remain distinct while sounding together?

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In CRUMPLE IT, a score I composed in 1988, you can explore the relationship between action and listening with a piece of paper. Crumple it, listen, and open it again. Repeat the action. The paper has changed, and you have already heard something that may change how you touch it next. Notice what happens when you attend to the sound, the grip of your hands, or the timing of your movement. You are both producing the event and discovering it through listening.

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The scores and études give us situations in which to practice this flexibility. Over time, the conditions needed for this work became what I called an Active Listening Playground. This work continues today through The Playground Approach (ALP: Active ⇄ Attune Listening Playground), in artistic, educational, therapeutic, community, and organizational settings.

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Anyone can begin, with or without musical training. We practice with our attention, our senses, our actions, and the relationships we enter. We learn to notice how we are already contributing, and to explore what becomes possible when we listen differently.

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Enter the Reflex Invisible Score practice