Expansion, Diminishment

Some define the role of the composer as an author or creator of "art" as "serious music".

While this may be useful to certain people, and particularly those who adhere to general cultural norms related to music, it is a view that is inimical to wide-ranging perspectives on art and sound.  

These latter viewpoints cannot be conveniently restricted or labeled, but they are in many ways notable as modern, dynamic, individualistic, and avant-garde, though these terms simply suggest starting points for an aesthetic understanding those bound to the former are unlikely to pursue.  

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Balance, Rise, Decline

Find the mysteries of reality. Perceive within them.

What is viewed as an unknowable future inevitably becomes ancient history.

Élan Vital

The art of sound, as I see it, contributes to sustaining the light of reason.

The aesthetic moment is one of clarity of consciousness evoked through experience of art, and yet it is outside the awareness of all but a very few. Though it may be refined, and overanalyzed to an absurd degree, it is merely a moment of vigorous insight into life itself and the act of living with awareness and grace.

It is available to all, sparked by perception and cognition, unfettered by politics, identity issues, cultural disputations, or the influence of the juggernaut of digital mass media on the collective zeitgeist.

It requires nothing more than recognition of the contemplative means by which such understanding is conveyed.

Pause, reflect.  Listen, and hear.

Vanguard and Context

It has been said that Picasso was as familiar with the work of the Old Masters as he was his own.  Andy Warhol's final series of paintings was based on variations of Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper.  John Cage utilized the Classic of Changes, or I Ching, as a musical composition tool.

The avant-garde does not appear out of a vacuum, rootless, without foundation, directionless and devoid of cultural reference.  As a manifestation of the artistic impulse, it reflects elements of the cultural sensibilities of the artist, whether the goal is to advance traditional forms or break with them altogether.

In contemporary terms, this manifestation may encompass all cultures, all of history, and all human expression.