Exercise IV

Listen, and hear, while analyzing detail.

Consciously describe the specifics of each sound in an environment.  Determine each source, and identify the qualities of each element, clarifying objective comprehension of such things as tone, color, and pattern. Take account of subjective responses and relevant aesthetic perspectives.

Mentally delineate the sonic structures and juxtapositions that the imagination suggests.  Apply these experiences to the work of composing and recording representative expressions.

Timeflow

What is heard:  the essentials for human functioning, then the media.

What is missed:  the subtle, the environmental, the aesthetically pleasing, the elevated, the uncanny; virtually anything outside the realm of the self-centered.

Elevation or Decline

To be conditioned to experience sound in rigid forms is to lose touch with perceptual awareness.

By this I mean that the sensations of sound lose breadth, depth, and nuance.  A "sameness" of texture, tonal quality, and stylistic formula pervades the listening experience, and the ability to distinguish between the finely wrought and the merely competent is stultified.  Essential sounds of the surrounding world, with the exception of undesirable noises, are dimmed, such that they may even go unnoticed in the scheme of things.

Having experienced the joy of music and the beauty of sound, the faithful listener will find such a state of affairs unacceptable.  The composer would do well to accept the challenge of not only restoring a fullness of auditory awareness, but of improving upon the art of listening itself, and moving beyond the conformity of expression that diminishes listening pleasure.

Art and Atmosphere, Sound and View

Place perception in context.

Now the composer and listener, artist and observer, given diversity of experience, may discern unique perspective as percipients.  If engaged, intellect, emotion, or the spiritual may dominate, or they may balance together.

Each point of view, initially defined by natural differences, gains a degree of unity and a sense of meaning, established by setting and circumstances.

Sound Decoration

Art is expression; it is functional in ways that are of aesthetic, social, and cultural value, while at the same time it may also be simple, pleasant, and superficially attractive and undemanding.

Given deeper thought, it may be of great value to the individual, becoming so to many.  Beauty is not to be feared or held in contempt; the artist may embrace as well as transcend.

Aural Radiance

Postulate a musical form in which equilibrium of composition emerges in a gradual unfolding of tones. 

The combination of sounds evolves like a kind of luminosity that expands throughout the atmosphere, altering colors and hues, brightening hidden places and casting ever-changing shadows.

Pop and the Fine

Similarities between the music of popular culture and that associated with refined or cultivated tastes are many, as illustrated throughout these various notes on creative perspectives and the arts.

Even so, these similarities are rarely acknowledged, as if the latter, even given its sophistication and rarefied intellectual attributes, is diminished by the understanding that the nature of both forms reflects the same focus on rhythm, melody, harmony, and other traditional aspects of music, particularly Western music.

Both have similar origins, both order sounds to similar effect, and each generates expectations in its listeners as to what constitutes music in terms of the elements mentioned. Yet neither prepares the listener for forms that are brought into being by artists who compose outside the strictures of the common and traditional.

Nevertheless, it is through the act of  listening itself that it becomes possible to hear with the contemplative or inner ear, and thereby interact with sounds designed beyond the "given", to ultimately expand the personal and cultural aesthetic in musical experience.

Inner Ear

Listening pleasure demands no technical, esoteric, or arcane knowledge.

This is not to say curiosity about sound and its forms is not rewarded-- to the contrary, the more the listener realizes about the ways and concepts of artistic expression through music and creative sound design, the greater the awareness becomes of the scope of human perception.

Even so, the enjoyment of listening is intrinsically uncomplicated and instinctive; the composer's work is for every open mind and ear. 

Sound Over Time

What is generally accepted as music is informed by perception and culture, experience and effect.

The aesthetic grasp of "the beautiful" is internal and external in nature, defined in myriad ways, and most often associated with appeal to the senses, intellect, emotion and spirit.  As music and sound design are intimately conjoined with the element of time, so the listener's sense of the temporal world is at play as well.

To listen and hear contemplatively is to slow the pace of life, reflect upon experience, and enjoy subtleties and complexities of atmosphere and aural imagery, regardless of musical biases and preconceptions.

Nature, Meaning, Revelation

A work of art reveals a perception, an experience, communicated in concrete terms.

Among essential qualities of energy, character, and significance, a work of art in sound is expressive of meaning; it may fail to conform to conventional expectations in terms of generic musical forms, but its tones, patterns, and combinations thereof have peculiar emotional and perceptual value of their own.

Thus it is that, beyond enjoying the simple pleasure to be taken in an atmosphere brightened by ambient music, the listener's interest may be drawn to a sound design's archetypal and symbolic expressiveness in ways that further enhance the listening experience.

Imaginative Power

Not fact, but sense of fact; not the knowledge contained in the reproduction of a perception itself, but that of the singular impression it presents the artist. In this way certain qualities of music, or the presentation of sounds in aesthetic context, shadow elements of other arts rather than imitate prevalent musical forms.

Consider the invitation to listen to the composer's perceptions, to think and feel, if possible, in the imaginative spirit of the artist. This need not be an imposition on a mind attuned to popular culture, and asks only that the listener be in a receptive frame of mind or mood to listen without the need to "catch" the tune or respond to a beat or rhythm.

Presently, if the listener is so inclined, it may be possible to detect a "poetic" quality to the design in sound, a feeling or impression of a different, but not unfamiliar, sense of reference. Something along the lines of a walk in a park or open field may come to mind, as opposed to following an arrangement of a song or standard instumental work. 

Within this emerging atmosphere there are patterns, colors, tints of sound, textures and spaces, shapes and lines and distances, along with an awareness of movement; all of these elements are most often associated with the visual arts. Temporal movement itself may be perceived as more easily borne than is usual with the general passage of time, as is often the case with aesthetically pleasing experience.

Combinations of sounds in this manner are transformational by design and intent; bearing the impress of the artist, they sketch the panoramas of imagination.

Unrestricted Listening

Sound and emotion are inseparable, but the art of sound extends beyond simple association with mood.

Musical atmospheres may be designed with the goal of directing the listener's attention and perceptions outside the range of mundane thought and activity.  This is directly opposed to musical compositions conducive to escapist fantasy; the aim is that of bringing about a more creative and autonomous state of mind through engagement with listening experiences that are aesthetically pleasing, yet out of the ordinary. 

I desire music that is liberating, in an emotional, intellectual, and spiritual sense.

Strange Pastorals

The pastoral ideal involves removing the complicated imagination of the urban dweller to the pleasant settings of rural life and an aesthetic of simplicity in the embrace of nature and human relationships.

This is utter escapist fantasy, of course, and has been so since Egyptian scribes wrote poetry in this style, assuming the narrative voices of unsophisticated, charming people to speak of romance and leisure in small villages along the Nile.  The shepherd in the fields represents the archetype of such a life: therefore the intimate association with the style.  "New Age" music often relates to pastoral settings and is meant to aid or induce relaxation, meditation, the alleviation of stress, and so on.

In contrast, the song "Grantchester Meadows" by Roger Waters reflects a more direct perception of such a landscape-- and soundscape-- as do numerous works by Pink Floyd from around the time it was written.  It is this directness that distinguishes works reflecting the ambient mode from the generic pastoral style, as listening to a track like "Dunwich Beach, Autumn, 1960" by Brian Eno aptly demonstrates.

Nor is this direct, impressionistic experience of aural atmospheres limited to environments outside the urban; cities and their architectural layouts offer as many interesting and aesthetically appealing settings as fields, mountains and deserts, and imaginary landscapes, though likely more abstract, are equally fitting for treatment in the ambient manner.

The links between a transformational ambient work or sketch-- and even a purely generative one-- to the pastoral are tenuous, but notable.  The contrast is not between the complex and the simple, or the urban and the rural, but between the perceptually mundane and the elevated.  And there is no shepherd, unless it is the composer who facilitates the journey.

To the extent that the Black Mountain School albums reflect such considerations and ideas, they are successful in concept and design for listening.

Times, Places, Sounds and Forces

There are various goals in these audio works, with specific strategies and tactics to attain them.

Sounds to fill spaces, to complement environments and activities, to enhance thought, study, reading, creativity-- writing and drawing or painting, for example-- and for listening, as works complete in themselves, are among the desired outcomes when experimenting with tones and textures, designing sound structures and patterns, and otherwise fabricating or composing these pieces. 

The listener-- or participant, if you will-- should engage with the works to any extent that is pleasing and useful.  It may be a different way of listening, one most familiar to aficionados of ambient music, but it is, in fact, innate, given the various levels of attention accorded to sounds and music throughout the average day.

These transformative sketches in sound are made in consideration of the idea that music is an application of force, and that such forces should be fitting in regard to circumstances, activities, situations, and sensibilities.

Technology and Technique

The studio process, and the studio considered conceptually as an instrument, have undergone change over time that rivals that of the evolution of other twentieth century technologies.

Beyond the elimination of financially prohibitive recording scenarios and esoteric equipment, the means of manipulating sound forms and reproducing aural textures has led to conditions through which the imaginative artist or producer can envision entire sonic territories that may be brought into being. 

With due emphasis on patience and meticulous precision, it is possible to develop a repertoire of strategies and methods to create works that have never before been possible.

The Wright brothers first flight took place in 1903.  In 1969 Armstrong and Aldrin walked on the lunar surface, on the Sea of Tranquility. 

People of vision are even now touching the future.

Solitudes

The sounds of lonely places have their own characteristics, wherever they may be.

At a distance from routine activity, textures and movements of sound strike the ear as being less predictable.  They may seem to have a stronger presence and a greater impact in the stillness of time and place.  Their quiet contrast to the common auditory sensations of everyday experience, whether encountered on an urban rooftop or in a pastoral setting, leaves a profound impression if it is heard with fullness of attention.

It is an impression that cannot be recreated, but musical efforts to suggest this state of consciousness, ones that follow such patterns and evoke similar textures of sound, may bring such an atmosphere to the receptive listener.

Synthesis II

Sounds are considered warm, cool, even cold.  When a sound or combination is hot, you know it.

Listening for other sounds and ways to describe them we may find them wet, dry, light, heavy, metallic, silken, glassy, airy, ethereal.  In terms of mood they might be called stormy, serene, highly charged, gloomy, bright, or anything related to the feeling they bring to the listener.

Composers and musicians always capitalize on these sensory images.  Any examples that come to mind are illustrative, past or present, in any genre, with any type of instrumentation.

It is the capacity of the electronic music synthesizer to access and generate an abundance of sounds that may be manipulated to breathe life into these aural images that make it a marvelous tool for sound design and collage.  And by marvelous, I mean evocative of magic.

Total Effect

Combinations of elements and their arrangements contribute to the completeness of an artistic work.

In a work designed with sound, such things as the production of tones and elements of movement, contrast, and pattern develop a sonic environment experienced by the listener in ways that differ from those typically fitting the definition of music.  While there are no specific organizational structures that the piece must follow, neither are such structures out of bounds.  They simply may not be useful in contributing to the total effect of the work.

If the goal of a piece is to liberate thought and emotion from the dominance of standard musical patterns, for instance, or to engage listening in ways other than the insistently repetitive and predictable, elements of melody, rhythm and percussion may prove more shopworn than interesting or uplifting.

Synthesis

The ambient composer or listener may become preternaturally sensitive to the sounds of the surrounding world.

The drone of an idling car; bird call; light fall of rain; Doppler effect of passing truck with radio, briefly casting the aural shadow of an undefinable musical instrument; light hammering of minor construction work suddenly becoming multiplied in broad and deep echoes across a hundred yards of open field; refrain of crickets and cicadas downhill toward a distant riverbank.

Convergence

Consider the phenomena of existence, the sights, sounds, mingled impressions, historic and human elements and connections of interrelated events.

Music, noise, sounds of the street, voices, insects, animals and machines.  Clocks striking and shouting children, weather conditions, the stirring of air.  Travelers passing overhead.  Ring tones.  Birds and the fluttering of wings.  Back to music, footsteps, automobiles passing.  Wind in the ears.  Breath.

Vibrations, at times, that are perceived yet cannot be identified.

They are all the sounds of a journey.