Axis

Civilization is predicated upon the transmission of culture.

The rise and fall of the way of nature is reflected in the Boethian wheel. Neither east nor west, the center also surrounds.  In this manner art emerges in the composition of sound.

To understand this is to listen, and hear, with the inner ear.

Supersensory Impressions

Open the inner ear beyond the common and easily recognized sounds of the day.

As a consequence, expect to hear the extraordinary, what some might call the uncanny, even the paranormal.  These are sounds outside the spectrum of mundane experience.

Elementary

Tones create simple metaphors.

Combined, tones expand, in the manner of ideas expanding into concepts.

Atmospheres illuminate settings; settings contribute to perspectives; aesthetic pleasure and communication between composer and listener grows deeper, wider, and more elevated, ultimately altering perception and refining the art of listening.

Path and Power

Patterns occur spontaneously in the rise and fall of things as well as according to design.

Rather than follow the established patterns of music, create according to the unfolding of sounds as observed in the course of nature and human events.

Natural Touch

Consider the natural environment as a template for sonic art, or, if you will, expression of musical form.

Given that the intended outcomes are at the fringes of music, it is nonetheless expression that reflects, modifies, expands upon, and explores auditory events as they occur in the natural world through the prism of the composer's percipience and aesthetic perspective.

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.

Concealed, Revealed

Let music seize attention and imagination; let it drown out thought and conversation.

This is not the purpose of music, but the extent to which listening may lose its perceptual virtue.  Even so, one may conclude that the art is reduced to that of conveyance, to the transfer and articulation of content, which can be emotional, social, political, and, at best, of the culturally good.

Set aside the idea of music, and consider only the nature of sound as the environment presents it, ordered and represented as art may, through tones, lines, spatial relationships, and movement, as elements of atmospheres.  Listen, and hear.

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.

Surrounding World

Depth of attention is difficult, but revealing of beauty.

Rain swirling in downspouts, droning electric appliances, atmospheres stirring with wildlife and insects-- such things as these are heard without listening.

But to listen is to gain insight and understanding of life that may be expressed and experienced.

Rippling

Listen to the world and hear its music.

Observe the pervasive nature of sound, and its constant influence.

Whether carried by wind in rushes and reeds, human voices or machines in action, its course is through nerve and bone, dream and being.

Stillness II

Processes of organic growth unfold constantly, and for the most part unnoticed, in their unhurried subtlety.

The composer, like any other artist, may choose to develop works applying such processes through the medium of sound.  The effect is that of movement and change outside the urgency of the passage of time.

Sound Merging with Light and Image

All the arts intersect in countless ways.  While music is most often created according to traditional theories, it may also be based upon any number of artistic ideas and philosophies.

Today's image has been selected by Brian Eno and his team as one of the featured images on the LUX - Day Of Light website. It will appear on the large main photo display and within the live streamed video on http://lux.brian-eno.net .  It also lives within the 'View Submissions' tab, complete with a special red dot to signify that it was featured.

Please spread the word:  http://lux.brian-eno.net

Sound and Time

Environmental sounds, whether in urban areas or in wilderness settings, appear random-- but this is not so.

The observer will note clear patterns in terms of cause and effect over extended periods of time.

Numerous developments occur as night takes the place of day and seasons come and go.  Most of these sounds will take cyclical forms, as in the cases of traffic movements and the ebb and flow of tides.  Some are easily predictable while others exist only briefly and are apparently disconnected from the general course of events.

To represent such sounds and their movements in musical form it is necessary to set aside temporal considerations to the greatest extent possible.  All things rise and fall as part of a greater reality in which beginnings and endings are of little consequence, and minutes, hours, days and years are simply measurements for the sake of human convenience.

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.

Atmospherics. Permutations.

Change is a constant throughout diverse environments, whether sudden and bold in nature or subtle, unobtrusive, or mysterious.

Transformation ambient music, that is, ambient music manipulated by the composer's intent, may capture the essential aural qualities of these nuanced changes and contrasts in the context of musical atmospheres, and, in doing so, conjure both attractive sound environments and settings conducive to reflective thought.

These concepts and processes may appear to be somewhat abstract, but the resulting works are anything but cold and cerebral, reflecting sound phenomena as they are experienced in the course of everyday life, yet given musical and artistic forms.

Environment and the Inner Life

Observe surroundings, circumstances, and settings; consider these external conditions of the psyche, environments of existential moment to range of perception, emotion, the intellect and consciousness.

Mind, meaning, awareness and knowledge evolve in subtle ways within parameters of perceived reality and perpetual change.  The composer contemplates these processes and the sounds that thereby suggest themselves, selectively combining them in textures and patterns complementary to the inner and outer worlds of experience.

Through atmospheric music of this nature, sensibility and sound converge with time and place.

Synthetic, Organic, Personal

Environments most often encountered are combinations of natural and artificial elements.

A child puts an ear to the seashell and listens for the ocean.  Listening, interpreting, aware of the objects in the room, the people in the house, the sounds of traffic and echoes of windows and walls. 

The sea is not making the sounds inside the shell, but the sounds are real, and not the sounds of the everyday world of the child.  The room becomes strange, and deep and distant within the shell is a roar that is the ocean and is not the ocean.

This aural impression lingers for a while, and during this time the light of reality is subtly changed.

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.

Transformation Listening

Each piece recorded by Black Mountain School is oriented in such a way as to sustain mood over a length of time through a slowly evolving dynamic series of independent combinations of sounds.

 

These are sounds to be perceived as they are; it is not necessary to "follow" them, especially by the typical means of melody, rhythm, and beat, those being elements that commonly dominate the listener's attention.  While serving as enhancements to the environment, these recordings also exert a subtle influence on one's state of mind, providing atmospheric space in which to think outside the often frenetic pace of things generally given to be "normal". 

What these works are and what they do is unconventional, though accessible to everyone receptive to diverse musical styles and to different ways of listening to music. 

Rhythm, Pattern, Movement

The rhythms of nature flow so continuously and change so constantly as to appear formless.

Within these appearances are many forms, however subtle.  Tidal rhythms and waves over water are clearly recognized, but there are others discernible to the mind and the emotions.  The pull of the moon's gravity, the pace of an urban environment, the movement of seasons, weather patterns, and all types of growth and decay are rhythmic, but in ways we are not accustomed to in music.

Consider, in composition, such transformations represented by sounds.