Fading False

Without common vision and purpose, there is no culture, but only its false appearance.

What remains is nihilism, centered upon obsessive and bellicose disputation over long-past failures of moral reason and creative vision, ideas rendered obsolete by the test of time.

The real goal of those engaged in conjuring such a state of affairs is one of totalitarian control.

It is the artist who is often the first to realize that the single, essential struggle is one for individual freedom and personal autonomy, regardless of whether society as a whole is capable of it.

Constriction

The artist as free individual gives expression to that freedom.

If that expression is beyond the comprehension of the uninformed, the critic, or the "consumer" of art, this is a cultural issue beyond the power of the artist to correct.

The only course, as Camus would have it, is disdain, and I might add, work. It is the first fact of life for the artist that there can be no expectations, for anything whatsoever.

Identity, Image, and Audacity

Typically, diversion and dance come to mind when discussing the purposes of music.

Further consideration suggests the use of music in ceremony and ritual, and for artistic expression of emotion and ideas. Enhancement of concentration and meditative focus, refinement of perception and the reinforcement of contemplative states of mind and being, however, are of far greater importance to those who practice these ways of engagement with reality through expansion of consciousness.

Certainly this is the position of one who composes works in sound to such ends as these.