Still Point

Intuitively and thoughtfully, analytically and with rational feeling, the observer and artist considers the distance between cultural norms and individual experience.

Along the axis between the two there are numerous perspectives.  There are variables that determine points of balance, as one discovers in a composition in which elements are chosen and arranged to satisfy this equilibrium.

The observer and artist recognizes these variables in terms of honesty of expression and personal motivation in the context of cultural and social expectations, and acts accordingly in bringing creative concepts into being.  Certainly this is a deliberative effort, informed by imagination as well as the reality of cultural conditions, and predicated upon a degree of objectivity.

It is also a matter of integrity of character and expression, for those who practice it.

Sway of the Modern

The extent to which the modernist perspective began as rebellion and rejection is debatable; that it grew to a means to rebuild, redefine, and clarify the broader cultural and historical outlook in the moment now is certain.

Visions contrived outside this paradigm yet remain frivolous; forces of history and shared global traditions reflecting the highest order of genius persist in power and influence.  Dynamics, means, and methods of expression change, but the permanent things do not, through continuous processes of being and becoming.  These abstract ideas and ideals-- among them love, integrity of character, honesty, beauty, and faith-- are brought to meaning through art and made new in the experience of living every day.

Over the course of a century the modern retains its force and virtue.  It yet unfolds, no less illuminates.

Illusions Forming Barriers

Much of the cultural conditioning of the last century is gradually fading away.

While there still exist the critics, trendsetters, and celebrities, the cachet and sense of cultural influence associated with them is slowly vanishing, and with that, the limitations their perspectives promulgate.

One drawn to the arts need not be pressured to court their favor or, more importantly, to think or create within the boundaries they and their predecessors have established.

This brings fair weather to creative atmospheres and to those who thrive within them.

Like Water II

Every moment emerges constantly, receding into time past and carrying forward into time future.

The basic concept of music as "movement of sound through time" need not be strictly limited to linear time, with its beginnings and endings and "captured moments" as commonly delineated.

Objectively, recordings do not change, but the listener's perception of them can and does.

Compositions in sound can be so designed as to place minimal emphasis on movement between points in time, to stress greater fullness of experience in the movement or flow of the moment itself.

Time need not be the dominant factor around which art revolves, nor is there any need for an art so conceived to be confrontational, affectedly ugly or disagreeable pour épater les bourgeois.  This is a lack, if not a failure, of vision in the modern world; there is beauty to be found here and given voice as the way of the flow of life.

Atmosphere, Effect, Development

Within settings, variations in sonic dynamics are brought about by any number of environmental factors, including such elements as barometric pressure, wind direction, and changes in topography.

In transformational compositions, the composer chooses the extent to which direct influence upon sound and structure is desirable.  In directing the evolution of a work that reflects awareness of auditory imagery within a changing atmosphere, I seek the suggestion of impressions rather than predictable patterns while aiming towards a balance between the orderly and the apparently random.

The aim is to reveal, or bring to light, the authentic and effortlessly grasped aesthetic listening pleasure that may be found within a nonlinear aural dynamic or sound and tone collage.

Cultural Continuity

Any number of things taken for granted are unnecessary.

Art is not among them.  Discover the past, know the present, illuminate the future.

Image and Essence

Music is generally understood in terms of common knowledge, in the way that recognition of imagery signals its meaning.

The listener's expectations are centered upon style and instrumentation, while the musician discerns method and technique, and all these are conveyed in performances and representative recordings.

Yet sound and beauty converge in countless other ways, producing myriad shades of meaning.