Week 35 9/1/19

Creativity is far more rare than commonly understood.

This is because there is value on the one hand, and price on the other.  What is the cost of freedom in a free culture?  What is that which is priceless worth?

Spark and Means

Technology has its place.  This is not a complex or nuanced proposition, but plain fact.

Technology, in proper perspective, is absolutely subject to human reason and will.  It is, in fact, only as valuable as it is utilitarian, and only useful insofar as it contributes to the elevation and unburdening of the human condition.

Let those who will have it direct their lives defend it if they can, but such arguments are of no concern to free human beings.

Observe, Then Question

At no time in human history has music so absolutely saturated culture.

Thus it is taken for granted, devalued, viewed as a "given", without consideration for the labor of the trained musician or the intellectual rigor demanded of the composer, arranger, and songwriter, who are themselves considered marginal figures.

Now, This Place

Consider a balance of human sounds and the natural world.

It is an error to think of humanity and nature as mutually exclusive.  Listen, and hear.

Atemporal Music

Out of radio and recording technology emerged the three to four minute popular song.

Even so, modern innovations in technology and musical artistry extended the length of recorded works, highlighting the subtleties of composition and expression evident, by the mid to late nineteen fifties, in albums such as Miles Davis' Kind Of Blue.

Now, for composer and listener, time is of far less consequence, and the aesthetic of creative listening anticipates sound works reflecting the nature of these profound changes in both audio recording and the experience of music.

Point of the Spear

Science can not reproduce all phenomena, nor replicate consciousness.  It cannot be free of human error, and it can be misused and misinterpreted for non-scientific ends.

Still, science can be an art, and a means to exploration of ideas and concepts impossible to reach otherwise; I, like numerous artists, am indebted to scientific method and study for the capabilities and inspirations technology provides.  Imagination expands with technology, as does science, mutatis mutandis, with imagination.  There is often a great deal of confusion related to the experimental in music and sound, simply because such works are, in many cases, ill-defined and the result of  so-called "spontaneous" events.  While these certainly have their place, for works to be the outcome of experimental processes, they must be considered in the abstract, that is to say, in the postulation of theories, and follow procedures designed to be replicated in order to attain desirable outcomes.

It cannot be overly stressed that this sense of a fundamentally scientific approach is at work in every Black Mountain School composition and recording. These are works created by intent, not accident.

From Opaque to Transparent

Reflections scatter within echoes.

Some subtleties of perception, thought, and emotion can not be captured or reproduced, but only experienced. Yet art removes obstacles, and in doing so, opens eyes and ears, releases sensory awareness from dull habit, and approaches the realities of phenomena beyond their appearances.

Material

Nature yields to impermanence.

To reflect upon the totality of available recorded music is to be aware of inevitable change.

Break Through in Grey Room

Subjection to immediacy obstructs equanimity, restricts perception, and hinders communication of meaning and value.

The imposition of instantaneous direct involvement with media upon consciousness narrows and distorts perspective, yet it is most often a matter of choice and habit perpetuated by technological culture and its proponents.  As such it is within the power of one's will to determine the extent of its necessity and desirability, given cognizance of the reality and the self-aware capacity to call it into question analytically.  Certainly this suggests the virtue of direct perception, as well as that of art in opposition to illusion.

Consider the effect of the sounds of cicadas at night on the people of the late prehistoric ages.

Mystic Apprehension

Intuitive understanding worthy of the term presupposes refinement of wisdom and perceptiveness beyond such measurable qualities as age and education, even given their intrinsic importance as contributing factors.

Apply predictive analysis to the arts. Communications and media change, becoming at once more broadly effective and more intimate in reach.  That which is personal is more clearly universal.

Thought, idea, emotion, creativity, judgement and imagination are consequences of consciousness.

Listen, hear the future.  No machine will ever do these things.

Inside

In the interiors, spatial relationships alter auditory perceptions in ways the outside world does not.

Illusions of distance and direction are as pronounced as those that are out of doors, yet the listener will note more dynamic and dramatic responses to movement, while placement or adjustment of sound sources add to these effects.

As an artist must be cognizant of the balance of the elements of a painting, drawing, or sculpture, so must the designer in sounds have compositional awareness of the impact and interaction of the sonic elements in each creative musical effort and recording.

Mass Mind and Media

The senses are extended by technology, intensified, exaggerated, and in the course of these effects, weakened.

The natural state of the senses, that is to say, awareness unadulterated by anticipation of events grounded in experience of communications technology, may at times appear strange and uncanny.

Direct experience, in such cases, takes on aspects of the mystical.

For such reasons, among many, I choose to take music toward the unfiltered experience of sound events structured to the larger world, and outside the generic forms.

Impression and the Real

Artistic works may be starkly superficial or imbued with creative insight.  Both are representations of reality and ways of approaching the phenomena of existence.

The shared impressions of observer, composer, and listener, for instance, will be those that correspond to their human experiences, particularly those of an intellectual and emotional nature.

Within the scope of these impressions the aesthetic sensibilities connect and unite in varying degrees around the musical work.

Every artistic form speaks through such language as brings these experiential forces together.

Listening Beyond the Present

Consider the time prior to the existence of recorded sound.

Music was originally reproduced by instrumental performance, conforming to the symbolic written language of musical notation, as interpreted by musical groups or soloists.  Variations reflecting the diverse interpretations characteristic of different orchestras and conductors were to be expected, and these are are indeed notable in modern recordings.

Recorded audio reproduces the same performance every time, providing the interested listener opportunities to increase familiarity with the work and pursue an awareness of various aspects of the musical recording in greater detail. 

On the other hand, the more limited the style or content of the work, the more saturated the listener becomes with continued listening, and, as with pop music in particular, the greater the disposability of the sound and style, even given listeners' emotional attachments to various popular genres over several generations.

The richer the content of a recording, the greater the rewards of repeated listening.