Artifice Corresponding to the Natural

Generative music is the result of programming alone, whereas transformation sound design is manipulated by the composer for aesthetic purposes.

Creative work that is a product of inquiry, speculation, observation and exploration ultimately reflects, in its development, the sensibility of the artist.

As to the Black Mountain School project there is a conscious effort to shape and produce tone-poem environments that emerge and evolve as sounds do in the wild, as it were, or as tonal forms evoking movements and settings regarded in terms of peculiar, non-musical perceptions.

Examples would include such things as wind in trees, traffic noises, birds and insects, as well as patterns describing any type of natural or social activity. Other events-- like changes in the quality of light, architectural structures and textures, meteorological effects and states of mind-- are treated as aural possibilities as well.

Fundamentally, it is a search for different ways of listening and hearing that emerges in these compositions.

One Moment

Observe, and consider the real.

Respond, and give account.

Reaction, Response

The design of sound environments takes into account reasoning as well as emotion.

Both attitudes, the feeling and the thinking, reflect the consciousness of the listener, and both passive and conscious listening engagement take place in such environments.

The intention of the composition is to accommodate the full spectrum of auditory attention throughout, emphasizing interest with sound elements like tone and contrast while minimizing those such as rhythm and melody that tend to dominate concentration and focus.

Distinctions

Distinctive compositions bear the impress of the author or composer's vision.

The musician focuses on displays of technique and style; the composer, on self-expression and emotional relevance; the speculative artist or theorist, upon ideas and concepts related to sound, its effects and its revelations in regard to reason and the human experience.

Each perspective reflects a kind of quest.  The first is for acclaim or glory, the second for personal and aesthetic satisfaction, and the third seeks mystery, whether out of intellectual curiosity, a metaphysical turn of mind, a desire for expanding and understanding consciousness, or something else altogether, but beyond the mundane and emotionally subjective.

Flux and Passage

Change over time is gradual.

In contrast to sudden, dramatic events, the course of things appears static, but this is an illusion.

Sweeping changes come to pass in ways that seem undetectable except to the perceptive observer; in sound design, such effects contribute to an aesthetically pleasing listening experience and, often, to a more relaxed and alert state of mind in the listener.

Encounter, Response

Impression, followed by processes of envisioning, resulting in representations reflecting reality and the imagination.  Such is one concept of art among many.

So cycles of creativity continue, constantly revised, completed, restored, and renewed.  One artist gains perspective in regarding the work of another, and another painting, poem, or musical piece follows.

Ultimately, fully evolved and internalized, the artistic vision moves beyond the traditional into the personal, shaping and shaped by experience itself.

Variations in Pattern

Throughout the human and natural environments find designs, repetitions, change and development.

The myriad choices of tones, lines, spaces and clusters of notes and patterns combined in sketch music and transformation ambient music are reflective of such designs as those observed in sediment deposits and erosion, roads and trails, cloud formations and the movements of crowds or flocks of birds, to suggest a few obvious examples.

Sounds arranged and produced in this manner have very little to do with popular music-- but everything to do with sensory impressions of the good and the beautiful.