Saturday, April 07, 2012

Structure and Essence

Vibrations along a spider's web might be measured, quantified, and reproduced.



Or, such phenomena, among others in boundless variety, might be imagined, and given form in musical compositions.   

Friday, April 06, 2012

Retention of Image

Listen within memory.


Seized in the moment, sensory impressions remain over time and distance.

Summon the total effect through idea, emotion, state of mind, and artistic medium.

Thursday, April 05, 2012

Heightened Clarity

Acute observation is critical to to the manipulation of ideas as well as artistic media.  Perceptions combine, patterns emerge, and possibilities suggest themselves to those who extend the reach of their understanding and awareness.


While the sciences require accuracy and precision, the arts call for honesty and reflection.  Both order and arrange information and concepts by methods that challenge and transform their meanings with the intent of illuminating connections and realizing possibilities. 

Given their differences, the rigor of science and the imaginative intensity of the arts also include processes involving uncertainty and risk.  Yet every outcome, whether it reaches a desirable conclusion or not, is a refinement of vision.

Wednesday, April 04, 2012

Passages

Auditory perception functions on primary and secondary levels of awareness.


Consider the nature of listening as active, and primary, and hearing may be regarded as passive, or secondary in character.  The former implies focus on specifics, the latter suggests generalized sensory involvement with the whole of the environment.  Both are natural experiences of varying intensities.

From a composer's perspective it is clear that music and musical perceptions are centered on the act of listening, in ways that dominate the attention, while the function of hearing is of no particular moment in the course of a performance or recording.

Transformation ambient music, in contrast, like ambient music in its original sense, is designed to accommodate both levels of engagement with sound, with the composer taking an active, if reserved, role in the arrangement and production of the works. 

Tuesday, April 03, 2012

Atmospherics. Permutations.

Change is a constant throughout diverse environments, whether sudden and bold in nature or subtle, unobtrusive, or mysterious.



Transformation ambient music, that is, ambient music manipulated by the composer's intent, may capture the essential aural qualities of these nuanced changes and contrasts in the context of musical atmospheres, and, in doing so, conjure both attractive sound environments and settings conducive to reflective thought.

These concepts and processes may appear to be somewhat abstract, but the resulting works are anything but cold and cerebral, reflecting sound phenomena as they are experienced in the course of everyday life, yet given musical and artistic forms.

Monday, April 02, 2012

Line, Curve, Motion, Time

Regard like types of imagery in visual, verbal, and auditory modes.


Each appeals to the senses, reflecting color, shape, sound, texture and representations of experience.  In juxtaposition, each suggests the others in complementary nature.

Who desires this understanding will apprehend it in its simplicity; who contemplates it as such will breathe deeply of its complexities.

The future makes its presence felt in the past as well as in the moment.

Sunday, April 01, 2012

Minimal, Singular

Refer to Poe.  Every word contributes to desired total effect; those failing to do so must be excised.


Originality is more often a matter of removing, rather than adding content.  With sounds, one also manipulates imagery in the way of words, as connections to the imagination. 

Through ideas, juxtapositions, archetypes, emotions, tones, that is to say, all the systems and structures in the continuum of creative force, visions conveyed become visions inspired.