Lucid Hearing

Observe the ways sound patterns may be repeated or extended.

Repetition fixes attention on a single pattern; extension engages variation, leading to change and development suggestive of evolving movement.  The former lends itself to hypnotic effects, but offers little in the way of increasing significance, while the latter sustains interest by remaining, to various degrees, formless.

Life and Sound

As humanity and nature are interdependent, so are composer and listener.

Every historical period contributes sound and atmosphere to the moment now.  Every sound of the past is a sound of the future.

What listening reveals, the creative impulse expresses, in ever-expanding cycles.

Heightening

The senses, and consequently, consciousness, may be intensified by surrounding conditions.

Certainly situations fraught with hazard and risk impact and augment perception, yet those of quiet beauty and serene calm can equally awaken the faculties and elevate perceptivity above the dullness of routine.

Thus the composer's concern with the quality of aural atmospheres; the considerable effects of sonic environments upon state of mind and emotional well-being are of paramount importance and should not be underestimated.

Exploring Sound and Awareness

Listen actively, and be aware of the sounds and atmospheres of the day.

Become conscious of what is heard passively, that is to say, inattentively, as well.  Certain aural elements, for example, music, conversations, and environmental sounds will come into focus, and others will require effort to detect, if at all.  Yet each of these auditory perceptions contribute to the conditions of the environment and the state of one's consciousness in myriad ways.

Consider the implications for meaning, and being.  Here are found impressions, choices, creative challenges, and stimulation for the reasoning mind.

Conceptual Sound Design

Simply put, the aim of a work of transformation ambient music is to develop and sustain expressive sound imagery.

Compositions of this type are not programmed; the composer takes an active but subtle role involving choice and manipulation in generating and combining the various elements that make up a work.

From my perspective, this means the artist disappears in the atmospheres created.

Aural Illumination

Qualities of tone and atmospheric sounds are often accurately described as being light and dark.

Metaphoric representations such as these are based not only upon perception, but also on emotional and intellectual connotation. Accordingly, the composer chooses tones and the materials of the sonic palette based upon the ways in which they may be juxtaposed and developed to create the desired total effect.

Ultimately, beauty may be discovered in both the shadowed and the luminous.

Scale and Force, Flash and Thunder

Aural patterns occur in diverse environments in unique ways.

Patterns associated with bird calls or construction sites may be of relatively short duration; others, such as cyclical, seasonal sound phenomena exist over greatly extended periods.

In composition, aim for colors, tones, and combinations that reflect and express the synergy of these conditions in ways that capture the fullness of their aesthetic powers.