Outside and Within

External atmospheres are perceived by the senses and generate internal feeling.

The creative arts, and the arts of sound in particular, may produce these emotional, aesthetic and imaginative or intellectual effects, and not only to convey information, mood and tone, but, beyond these and other concrete experiences, a sense of the ineffable.

Stillness II

Processes of organic growth unfold constantly, and for the most part unnoticed, in their unhurried subtlety.

The composer, like any other artist, may choose to develop works applying such processes through the medium of sound.  The effect is that of movement and change outside the urgency of the passage of time.

Elements of Subtlety

Sound follows every turn of events.

Attuned to sounds, listen for the nuances of life, follow them through to their conclusions and back to their origins.  Sense and realize their meanings, express their insights.

The formless leads to the formed, and then returns.

Imaginary Atmospheres

Fill spaces with sounds shaped by the character of objects to be suggested in desirable environments.

Consider these conditions aesthetically.  Sparse or crowded, in the wild or in well-appointed interiors, uniformly arranged or asymmetrically scattered, the limits of space and the compositions of objects imply meaning and mood, content both emotional and intellectual, and movement of both music and listeners.

What happens in the mind is as meaningful as what happens in the setting informed by sounds.

Vision, Action

The artist's priorities are the works and their content.

If experience, perception, contemplation, reflection and expression take precedence over transient social and cultural phenomena, various degrees of restraint and self-denial are called for from time to time.

The art must be brought to light; the artist is the means by which it is realized.

Promoveo, promovi, promotum.

Black Mountain School: "Observation"

Multiplicity

The art of composition, like that of listening, can be approached on various levels.

One may give critical attention to formal elements, for example, or focus on technique and expression with regard to such things as subtlety and intensity; it is also valuable to simply engage a work with an open mind and become absorbed in it emotionally and perceptually.

Some pieces of music lend themselves to contemplation and reflection, while many are successful as purely escapist fare.

Like written language, recorded sound defies the limits of time and space; this neither confers virtue nor value to a work, but expands the context in which these may ultimately be determined.