Percipience of sounds in the course of moving through various environments is not the same as listening to music.
This is a simple fact, and as such, it is not given any attention. One might assume that listening to the sounds of most environments would not be as interesting as listening to music, and that will often be the case. Yet it is not the particular sounds that we are concerned with here, but the differences in the ways in which the one is produced by events within the atmosphere and the other according to intent and instrumentation, because the effects of each are entirely different. The act of listening to any piece of music, whether a pop song. a classical piece, or a performance by a jazz combo, combines both expectation and attention on the part of the listener. We create entirely different scenarios.
The musical works of Black Mountain School are designed to be a part of the listening environment by reflection and representation of the ways in which sounds come into being in the organic sense, as part of the reality of a setting, to be experienced in the same ways as the surroundings are perceived in the course of the day, but with the additional element of aesthetic design that enlivens the sonic environs. The resulting experience is totally unlike that of "listening to music", as it is based upon divergent principles, theories and techniques, developed to sustain beauty and interest and to intensify total effect. In point of fact, no other ensemble composes and produces works revealing the art of sound in ways utilizing these ideas and methods in the same manner as does Black Mountain School, as their unique recordings amply demonstrate.
The musical works of Black Mountain School are designed to be a part of the listening environment by reflection and representation of the ways in which sounds come into being in the organic sense, as part of the reality of a setting, to be experienced in the same ways as the surroundings are perceived in the course of the day, but with the additional element of aesthetic design that enlivens the sonic environs. The resulting experience is totally unlike that of "listening to music", as it is based upon divergent principles, theories and techniques, developed to sustain beauty and interest and to intensify total effect. In point of fact, no other ensemble composes and produces works revealing the art of sound in ways utilizing these ideas and methods in the same manner as does Black Mountain School, as their unique recordings amply demonstrate.
