Week 39 9/29/19

There are mysteries of knowledge, and of perception.

Some things are beyond words, and outside the reach of the senses.

The Artificial and the Reflective

To perceive the aural environment, listen without the presence of music.

The contrast with the musical environment, or with "environmental" music, is instantly apparent.

Sound imagery may be constructed in an aesthetic way without the stylistic elements that commonly define music, and in doing so the composer creates a more authentic reflection or representation of the "atmospheric" environment.  But make no mistake: such sound art is no more created randomly than actual environmental patterns are random in nature.  There must be cause and effect processes that the composer may influence and replicate in compositional terms; these techniques and methods are the unique intellectual property of any composer working in these peculiar experimental modes.

Perception is revelation.

Enigmatic Pursuit

New and unformed roots inevitably take hold.

When music and audience are altered irrevocably, pivotal changes transform expression of sound.

Cultural Perceptivity

Moved by social and cultural forces, one encounters sounds that reflect diverse experiences.

Gravitating toward the most pleasurable aural forms that offer the greatest intellectual and emotional satisfaction, some find the sense of listening itself becomes enhanced, and consequently listener and composer develop the spirit of inquiry that leads to new, even as yet unknown, forms of artistic music-
or, given the nature of aesthetic experimental work, non-music.

Mirror to Nature

The sounds of the phenomena of reality reflect a greater order than those corresponding to the structures of music.

The artistic vision and the inner ear of the composer perceive within the limits of individual consciousness, but only by choice within the confines of expectation.

Definition

The concept of music as an arrangement of sounds over time serves its purpose as a simplification.

Contrasting the viewpoint that music is inextricably associated with melody, harmony, and other generally recognized elements of stylistic construction, my perspective is that combinations of sounds may produce meaningful, aesthetic experiences in and of themselves.

Such experiences can be brought into being through sound designs that pleasurably stimulate both active listening and passive hearing, and while these may or may not be considered music, they are no less beautiful, valuable, and elevating to perceptual awareness for being undefined.

Walk Through a Room

First see the obvious.

Notice how the attention is directed, and for what purpose.  Now perception and will are engaged.

Look where focus is not emphasized.  Take in the small details.  A piece of red thread, paperclip, cobweb; age of the furnishings, textures, stylistic features; regard how these offer a sense of human presence and unseen activity.

Why, then, are these elements present?

Following the same pattern, listen. Hear each sound and its identifying aspects.  Consider intention, reason, the tone and mood of the setting, and how these may be translated and brought into being as musical designs.

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.

Aesthetic Distortion

It may be an apocryphal statement, but I have heard it said more than once that Dr. Bob Moog believed that the electronic synthesizer should not sound like any other instrument.  Recently one of Dr. Moog's former students confirmed to me that this was true.

Synthetic sounds have unique qualities. They may create entirely novel combinations of tone, or reproduce certain obvious characteristics of specific instruments. In both cases these sounds can be manipulated to produce effects that reach the ear in striking ways.

The results may sound merely imitative, an echo of aspects of familiar musical works, or they may combine in more interesting synthetic forms, as Dr. Moog conceived them, to move in diverse or strange directions.

A sound that seems ancient and modern at once is particularly appealing to me, especially when it moves through time organically and unpredictably, and I often seek to attain it when organizing compositions.  The digital studio and synthesizer make a potent combination in bringing such sounds to life through innumerable means that were not possible mere decades ago.

It is no longer possible for me to think of music as being limited to particular forms, but rather as auditory images evolving in other ways altogether.

Crisis and Discovery

Unconfined by conventional expectations, music moves in the direction of its own meaning.

The forms and genres have their pre-existing audiences, and consumer and celebrity culture contributes to their popularity as always.  The novelty of recasting a previous form into a different context is consistently attractive stylistically, if stale creatively.  A cursory overview of the state of music only a century ago, nevertheless, demonstrates the inevitability of development and change.

As forms fail to sustain interest over time, new directions are forged by throwing off the tyranny of the timeworn, the pedestrian, and the sentimental.

Exploration beyond known boundaries is an obligation to art, and to reason.

Non-Music

Sounds considered musical, that is, having tone, timbre, pitch, apparent texture, and so forth, and being subjectively pleasing to the ear, still lack qualities usually considered necessary to be termed "music".

Wind chimes, bird songs, the sounds of rainfall, crickets, and ocean waves are common examples.  They may be somewhat melodic, rhythmic, and repetitive in nature, but they are not fixed and defined by these qualities as are symphonies, pop tunes, or jazz arrangements, though the latter are stylistically free-form and improvisational.

Ambient sound design may combine any of these qualities, as the numerous ambient genres demonstrate, and it may also be digitally generated according to various programs and techniques.

The intent of the "sketch" music of Black Mountain School is to generate, pattern and evolve musical sounds that reflect the shifting, natural dynamics of real-world sound perception, these being ungoverned by formal structure.

Forms

Space and time are measurements of convenience.

Auditory perception structures environments, and our positions in them, according to such things as the placement or origin of sounds, their intensity, and their meaning.  Near and far, quiet or loud, sounds inform the listener in ways gross and subtle, simple and complex.

Processing spoken and written language and listening to music engage the intellect and emotions in communications practically infinite in scope, and they generally adhere to the technical "grammar" of their respective modes of communication, as do mathematics and the arts and sciences. 

Communication is but one aspect of life, and one exceedingly dominant in contemporary living.  One must, at times, consciously make time to contemplate, to ruminate, to reflect, to muse.  Such music as would heighten these faculties of consciousness would not be have to be content-specific, and might be more akin to environmental sounds structured in part by the listener's perception than to typical musical arrangements and song forms. 

Perhaps it can only be called music as a matter of convenience, and it will be considered something else entirely in the future.

Sketch and Transformation

Sound, form, proximity, and movement.

These elements (among others) order perception in time and space.  A great deal of this focus is visual, but conscious concentration on listening reveals a richness of shades and textures as well, whether in an exterior or interior environment.

Drone, hum, distant roar, voices both directly spoken and reproduced, rumbling, noises of animal, bird and insect, automobile and aircraft, timepiece, hiss and rush of air, movement of water, sounds made by metal, glass, leather, plastic, electronics, doors opening and closing, gravity settling and shifting  walls and foundations.  Just now, a siren, approaching and finally fading in an eastern direction.

The sound of musical instruments will be heard as well, and songs, whether fragmentary or complete, but setting those particular cultural artifacts aside, consider an approach to music and listening based on the seemingly random but perceptually ordered nature of sounds, tones and patterns within environments.

Listen:
Excerpt from "The Celestial Way is Like Water" (30:11)

Simple, Involuntary Nervous Movements

Foot shaking and the like.  Fidgety, repetitive, rhythmic patterns.  Nervous energy, perhaps.  Restlessness.  Do these things result from external sound patterns?  Are they carried on after those patterns are removed?

Interesting questions.

Rhythm, melody, and percussion are expected in music.  It may be these things are essential to most listeners, and that music not dominated by these does not qualify as "music" at all, but is then, maybe, something like a "tone poem" or a sort of atmosphere established with sound.

That's up to the judgement of the listener, certainly.

From the album Elevation: