Beyond the Unfamiliar

The reader, tolerant of these observations and perhaps finding certain directives to myself informative on occasion, knows fully what is meant by mainstream music and cultural arts of that nature. 

Certainly many people, like fish in water, take no notice of being immersed in it, and this is no criticism, but a neutral and objective point.  The mainstream is a cultural constant and one is everywhere aware of it, including its manifestations as alternatives to itself.

Live performances and recording sessions in the pop and rock milieu offer much in the way of creativity of the mainstream sort, but aside from the improvisational aspects of the former and the experimental opportunities of the latter there is a necessary element of predictability that is tedious and ultimately stultifying. 

The show must go on, coupled with give the people what they want and that sort of thing, holds interest for those who find it fulfilling, of course.  On the other hand, it is the motivation to create and explore that must take precedence for some, curiosity and the desire to know and learn being the dominate forces of their temperament.

Thus we move away from the cultural expectations.  The distance increases between us and the mainstream and its associated perspectives, on into the future, and as far as our journey will allow. 

Stir of Vibrations

Consider music experienced in the course of the day.

Multiple sources.  Multiple situations.  Alone, in domestic, work-related, and social settings.  Through television and radio, in advertising, by personal selection on digital devices.  For multiple reasons.  In complete form and in fragments.  By choice or not.  Given full attention, barely noticed, interrupted, or ignored.

No one considers it unusual; it is unprecedented in human history. 

Upon reflection, literally at the end of the day, it may be observed to have produced effects at the time, or none at all.  The individual would be the one to determine this, and to recall what those effects, if any, were, and whether or not they were desirable. 

To propose and design forms of a musical nature intended to make atmospheres and activities cohesive is to create a paradigm of auditory art that establishes an aesthetic relationship between sounds, ideas, emotions, environments and actions in ways contrary to the effects of transitory and fragmentary musical events. 

Instantaneous

Communications via resources that render them immediate result in untoward cultural effects.

Answers to difficult questions are expected to be reflexive, and, rather than being fully assessed with respect to facts, the replies are merely expected to conform to popular prejudices, and thus they are accepted or rejected as nothing more. 

Ideas and issues that have provoked debate for centuries, treated in this manner, will not be resolved.  Even concepts that are demonstrably wrong and absurd, clearly based on false premises or fatally flawed and transparently biased "research" continue to be given serious consideration long after they have outlived their relevance.   Ironically, the rapidity of communication that should speed their ultimate demise contributes to their longevity.

In forbearing to mention the many long-endured, obviously wrong and obsolete notions here, the point is to give consideration to the fact that a thoughtful approach to problem-solving, to conceptual creativity, and to the virtue of patience in the evolution of an artistic vision is not an error of judgement, and regardless of cultural norms and expectations, it is an asset to the artist and to the thinking person.  The coercion to think otherwise must be resisted, with intellectual authority and the strength of moral reason.

Dance

In general terms, entertainment is meant to provide diversion or escape, and to garner applause and acclaim.

Art is created to yield effects.

Convergence II

To trace the progress of music through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is to observe developments in artistic vision and technology and the rise and decline of familiar musical genres.

Common elements of these developments are the movement from the simple to the complex (and back again), the merging of styles, the standardization of commercial products and, in contrast to the latter, experimentation and risk in the pursuit of change.

Question, reflect, challenge, envision, and bring into being.

Perception, Reason, Nuance

The past lies in the future, the present in both; nothing appears out of thin air.

Life in a frenetic atmosphere is often represented as a cultural ideal, as a life of excitement or a state of affairs in which one is continually engaged in a series of passionate extremes in work and at play.  One sees particular historical periods as well as virtually all contemporary life portrayed in this manner, that is to say, in a romanticized and absurd way. 

Consider, only briefly, the kinds of music associated with such situations.  It is predictable, unchanging, propelled by the same instruments according to the same formulas, and geared to dominate, if not to overwhelm, the attention of the listener.  In other words, enjoyable as it may be from time to time, as a constant in the course of everyday activities, it becomes nothing special, bland and finally boring.

Other ways of listening and composing have developed separately over time, not as reactions against the time-worn flavors of popular music, but according to different points of view about art, and life.

Simplicity, Complexity, Reality and the Imagination

Sensory experience is a means of making connections.

The fundamental nature of seeing and hearing directs the observer, consciously or intuitively, toward an intellectual and emotional grasp of the nature of things and their innumerable relationships.  The creative or artistic impulse engages and orders these relationships into a statement, in one form or another, about what these relationships might possibly mean.

Light strikes the eye and the vision of an artist confronts perception; vibrations strike the ear and we share and respond to the sounds of a composer, or the words of a speaker.  As an artist brings a statement within our awareness, we bring experiences of our own to art.  If moved to do so, we reflect upon what these connections we have made say about the world and ourselves. 

Free Expression

There are no longer stark divisions between the fine arts and the popular arts.  Such distinctions are matters of individual discrimination and taste. 

Individuals who are less likely to be bound by cultural limits are by nature more receptive to imaginative works of art that appeal to their intellectual and emotional dispositions. Their tastes in films, music, and literary works reflect their own interests, rather than those of a narrow range of common experience that was once much more prevalent than it is now.
 
This is not to say that an age demographic is in play, but, in point of fact, to state the opposite. Works of aesthetic virtue are more accessible to a more diverse audience than ever.

Fashions and styles that once dominated cultural conditions (and cultural conditioning) no longer have a lock on the collective consciousness. 

This affords freedom of expression in ways as yet not fully realized.

Delineations

Imagery communicates sensory impressions, especially in their absence, in an appeal to one's fund of experience.

The imagined sounds of times and spaces, shapes and colors, physical gestures, textures, shadows and lights-- and so on in myriad diversity-- when combined in speculative sketches, bring to an environment an artistic portrayal of shifting perceptions.

A room takes on aspects of an aural action painting, an open field of impressions; the imagination of the listener contributes unique perspectives of meaning and detail.

Words free of predictable limits rise in the directions of poetry, and sounds released from mundane musical structures flow out into poems born of tones and permutations.

Imagined Musics

Forms suggest their elements in other forms.  Environments propose visual and auditory imagery.

Given creative consideration, a synthesis of elements comes into being-- sounds, instruments, voices, scenarios for performance or composition-- tones, moods, atmospheres-- impressions, spatial designs, proportions and textures, dynamics-- and a concept develops of musical forms evolving over a course of time. 

Spaces created, filled, emptied, reconfigured, all illuminated with sounds, challenge ideas of what music is and what it may become. 

Mosaic, Collage

Sound to reflect impression; tone to express emotion; pattern to engage perceptions, all interconnected and interchangable.

Each sound contributing to the following sound and to the whole; pattern combining with phrase and complementary pattern; tone and phrase echoed and reflecting each other; metaphoric color, light, temperature, distance, depth, implying meaning, apparently effortless and impossible.

All react and relate in part and in fullness to sketch out a sense of the sublime, a breath of balsam forest daybreak, a cafe filled with voices in unknown languages, a journey shared over a course of seasons.

Appearances

Things passed by unnoticed in the grip of routine may reveal insights into the nature of things, given but a degree of conscious observation.

Simplicity or complexity, whether in processes of design, with regard to human emotions, or in consideration of ideas, often depends upon subtlety of perception.

Stream

A profusion of thoughts, emotions, and sensory perceptions is characteristic of works such as Ulysses by James Joyce, in which expressions of direct experience are conveyed through descriptive literary imagery.  While such works were considered originally to be breaks from traditional forms, they have ultimately become traditional in their own ways.

As T.S. Eliot conveyed a poetic vision via fragmented imagery and the objective correlative, Charles Olson proposed that poetry render direct experience through direct expression, patterned after speech and delineating a flow of perceptions, unlimited by formal structure.  The vigorous nature of his ideas gained momentum outside the environs of academia, developed into forms carried forward by the Beat writers, and remains influential in numerous fields, including contemporary popular music.

In William S. Burroughs's novel The Ticket That Exploded the author expanded upon the idea of capturing elements of subjective psychic states by suggesting the use of cutting and splicing recorded sounds on tape and recombining them, as he had done with words using the aptly-named "cut up" technique.  Here is another instance of the stream of consciousness literary form being further modified in the attempt to communicate myriad levels of meaning simultaneously. 

Reflections of these concepts are found throughout the arts of the twentieth century and those of contemporary times, and are by nature intimately connected with diverse aspects of the music under consideration in these observations. 

Ideas, even recondite ones, do not simply cease to exist, but carry live sparks.

Balance and Emphasis II

There is always a collective consciousness of ideas manifested in cultural and social settings.

Shadows of ideas perceived vaguely or half-formed, some unconscious and others clearly ill-conceived, motivate expression and communication over a wide range of activities. The arts and sciences are no more or less subject to such errors than other fields of human endeavor, but these errors permeate works of weak foundation and, as history demonstrates, they fail the test of time.

All ideas are interwoven, and their value comes from their conceptual integrity.  When the world of ideas and the cultural arts demonstrates impulses that are critical as well as creative, a renewal of human awareness is one necessary outcome.

Abstract Atmospheres

Rimbaud spoke of intentional derangement of the senses, and, metaphorically, these long-term experiments in tone and technology (1996 to present) have brought about works that subtly evoke a similar aesthetic of auditory perception.

In general terms, ambient music as made by musicians adheres to the standard musical paradigms, and listening makes that clear-- its design and execution is admirable for these qualities. From much listening, it appears the popular "new age" stylings are mostly of the elegant and "mellow" sort, while the "dark ambient" takes the opposite tack, and other approaches are akin to jazz or novelty music, some pieces interesting and experimental, others a bit trite. This is oversimplification of a rich and dynamic genre, to be sure, but the point is self-reflection, not academic or pop cultural analysis.

In contrast, to listen to Black Mountain School is to hear Cubism, Impressionism, and Abstract Expression engaged through generative manipulation. It tends to be a bit on its own, somewhat anomalous, and, perhaps, remote.

Hills Beneath the Mountains

Every setting has its unique sounds and sound characteristics.  To become aware of them is to hear music, formless and flowing.

In a remote rural area an hour before sunrise a crescent moon revealed by a scattering of dark, heavy rainclouds provokes the sound of roosters crowing a mile or more away.  Traffic sounds rise and fall on a distant highway; the shrill hissing of night insects reaches a crescendo and goes silent. 

Hushed winds stir and wildlife moves among the shadowy trees with cracklings of leaves and branches.

Frames of Mind

Constraints on twenty-first century composition are few.  Structures may be expanded, sounds explored and modified, and methods and strategies given flexibility in the design of expressive works.

Artistic vision is shaped by sensibility, receptivity, and perception.  One chooses one's cultural tools-- ideas and technologies-- from those accessible, and develops according to proficiency gained through their use. 

A Black Mountain School recording is designed in such a way that, with each completed piece, listeners may engage their individual emotions, experiences, and visions through the context of the work, as though they were finding shapes, patterns, and pictures in clouds in the sky.

Reason and Vision

Ideas imply responsibilities.

The gifts of knowledge and and understanding bring with them an awareness of the necessity of sharing them, and of expressing them with integrity and honesty.  To be realistic, one must be cognizant of the negative aspects of cultural phenomena as well, and be prepared to counter them with reason and example.  It is a challenge to see beyond the superficial and the absurd, and to creatively engage in communicating ways to look beyond the trivial and mundane.

But it was ever thus, and thus the value of the arts and sciences.

Stillness

The sounds of quiet moments possess enchantments, if one but listens.

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. 

Subtext

Observe the ways in which the attention is directed to certain aspects of cultural reality, and away from others.

Through artifice, glamour and attitude are generated to fulfill needs and expectations of a consumer audience for atmosphere and a sense of connectivity and community.  Some would argue that this is an incomplete and unfulfilling arrangement, but that is not of moment here.  What is notable is that the context itself is often more interesting than the activity designed to engage the attention, for what it says about cultural conditions and the vision of those involved in producing or opposing them.

Postulate music that appeals to sound emotional temperament and invites reflection and creative reasoning.

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.

Form and the Formless

Visual and musical arts, like those of a poetic or tactile nature, may direct perception in unexpected ways.

Before we take notice of weather reports we are fascinated by the way raindrops dance on hard surfaces, the ways they form wide patterns while disappearing in a sudden flash of liquid silver; only later do we first think of carrying an umbrella.  With the acquisition of information and familiarity with the commonplace, it is easy to rely on the routine ways of seeing and being, hearing and thinking.  

Easier still is to become distracted by the pressures of responsibility or the popular diversions, losing, along the way, the sense of the unexpected or unknown.  But the beautiful and the marvelous are always to be found, sometimes in simple things and sometimes in complexity.

This is to explain nothing, but to take note, as always, of artistic ideas and intentions. 

Art, Music, Poetry, Mysticism

Much of what is considered ineffable with regard to the arts has more to do with coming to terms with reality itself than with the mysterious or the paranormal.

"Who we are" is more than a function of society and culture, and more than self-image, persona, and intellect.  Measurements of character and integrity, and of the genuine or spurious nature of the appearances of things, convenient and useful as they are in navigating day-to-day experience, do not confer more than a deeper regard for the problems of human nature.

The arts challenge all of these, and the complacency that accompanies dependency upon any of them as sources of smug self-absorption.  That these values and ideas have their place is not in question; that it is possible to rise above attachments to the mundane and the narrowly limited, in culture, ideology, and world-view, is of equal importance to the expansion of consciousness.

To see beyond the present and to strive for the fulfillment of higher ideals is a transcendence of the "given" in our lives and a more powerful understanding of what it is to be human.

The arts offer perspectives from which to consider these possibilities.

Ways of Meaning

Correspondence between setting and sound implies application of the same freely nuanced juxtapositions of imagery as those that appear in poetry.

T.S. Eliot conceived the objective correlative as a set of objects or events that objectify and evoke emotion through concrete sensory imagery.  The connotations associated with such things as walls and windows, rivers and horizons, running and waiting, and the familiar archetypes may bring, in the context of an artistic work, moods and states of mind to bear on a reader or audience. 

In terms of music, emotions are aroused by the full spectrum of audible sounds and their myriad combinations, though much of it is melodramatic and bombastic, or trivial.  Nevertheless, as more is communicated at times by tone of voice than by words, so may expressively tinted music, unfettered by inflexible formula and form, reveal or elicit subtleties of heart and mind not always perceived directly.

Danube Riverfront, Saturday Afternoon

Now consider the imaginary landscape, having attended to the phenomena of sound in a number of given situations.

If every significant line, shape, form, pattern, and emotionally suggestive impression in this image corresponded to a sound, tone, pattern, and musical texture, the sound design would be reinforced by spatial separation, impressions associated with the acoustic properties of the elements therein and the perceived distances between them.  The resulting composition, then, is contemplated with attention to total atmospheric effect.

The same place at another day and hour would sound completely different.

Visual Music

Today my wife and I visited the 77 Million Paintings exhibit by Brian Eno at the YMI Cultural Center, 39 S Market Street, Asheville, NC USA. We would urge anyone with a love for the arts to attend this "visual music" presentation between now and November thirtieth. This is the first installation of 77 Million Paintings in the US outside Los Angeles and San Francisco. It is a unique work of art, and it is a masterpiece.  Below is a detail of an original Eno work we purchased at the Cultural Center gallery, where the installation is now open:

Still images and other means of representing this profound and marvelous work, beautiful though they are, can do no justice to the direct experience of the installation itself any more than a photo in a textbook can a Brueghel, a Van Gogh, or a Warhol. For true insights into the future of art and media, it is an opportunity that is not to be missed.

YMI Cultural Center Hours: 11:00 AM to 6 PM Wed - Sat / 1:00 PM - 6:00 PM Sun (closed Mon and Tues)

Accord

Conformity to popular culture is no transcendent experience, certainly.

Nor is it less absurd to consider the so-called highbrow culture to be more than what it is, refinement of taste and intellectual probity being a matter of character and principle, independent of particular mores, academic institutions, and social constructs.

To be knowledgeable and conversant in both contemporary and classical arts and attitudes is valuable for the simple reason that there are fewer limits to be encountered in doing so, and wise because it provides a greater fund of information through which to navigate the world of ideas and emotionally charged perspectives.

Cultural detritus is easily dismissed; the unexpected may lead to an epiphany.

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.

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.

Integrity and Remoteness

The total effect of a work of art has as much to do with "feeling", or emotional effect, as with intellectual perception or appreciation.

While it is possible to be knowledgeable about particular forms of art to a fine degree, it does not necessarily follow that one will find such works to one's taste.  Perhaps only a very exceptional piece of, say, film or sculpture, will appeal to one's sensibilities, while others in that manner or genre will not.

Both content and style contribute to the total effect of a work, and to the degree that the audience experiences the intent of the artist.  It is a distance to be crossed.

Failure and Vision

No conventions need be adhered to in experimentation.

The idea is to look for ways and means and methods to accomplish a vision.  The experiment itself is a process, not an end.  Fail once, fail a thousand times, and then the eye of the imagination is opened.

That is the goal, and accordingly, the value of risk.

Peculiarity of Expression

Attempt to define the indeterminate, yet its nature remains beyond grasp.

That which is sui generis may correspond in some ways to some things and be communicated according to those similarities.  Call it a transformation ambient sketch; it consists of  an engagement of interactive sound forms lasting between a few minutes and an hour or more, developing and changing over time, moving without percussion or structured melodies according to patterns more likely to be heard in environmental, rather than musical, terms.  Hence it is atmospheric, and for lack of a more comprehensive term it can be called music of the twentieth and twenty-first century, given its roots in modernism and the reaction against atonality in classical composition.

It neither needs to be understood in a particular way nor defined by what it is not.

Media and Psyche

What is generally assumed to be “the media” is a combination of arts and industry associated with printed matter, radio, television, cinema, and most recently, the internet. 

For some, there is no other culture, and thus no original point of view, no past, no sense of curiosity, and ultimately no imagination.  Out of the burden of this shallow, passive and superficial perspective a host of problems arises.

According to the degree that it afflicts a person's relationship with the world at large, such problems may result in anything from minor misunderstandings in communication to heinous acts intentionally wrought by individuals and groups.

This is not "the media", but a construct of what might be called self-sustaining social and cultural errors.  Media is, in and of itself, neutral.  It is no more and no less than a tool, and it can no longer be dominated by one group or agenda. 

The results of this scenario remain unsettled, but bode well for the idea that mediocrity need not be the cultural and social norm it has been, more often than not, within living memory.

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.

Echoes Over Time

Music in contemporary life is virtually omnipresent. 

This has become possible over the last hundred and fifty years, during which time the process of recording sound evolved from initial concept to the high quality digital reproduction devices useful in everyday situations and easily available now.

In terms of recording sounds and music, this brings to mind the advent and development of the printing press. The technology is here, the medium everywhere, and culture and the human imagination define the future.

Perspective

Mindful of pattern, direction, aesthetic sensibility, and emotional content, the artist must free the design to suggest itself if it is to have integrity, balance, and purpose.

One does not tell the waves to reach the shoreline in a certain way, or leaves to fall in a particular configuration, or clouds to form and dissipate according to a preconceived notion.

With clarity of observation and subtlety of method, a deft brush stroke, a critical camera angle, or a thoughtful juxtaposition of musical elements, art may manifest itself as if by invitation.

Design

Expansion of simple elements.

When a system is sealed, growth ends.  When it it open, it expands beyond expectations and arbitrary limits.  Now reason and judgement play a critical role, in that the system will thrive under direction, cultivation, and care, but otherwise will become unable to sustain itself, and waste away. 

In art and music, one must recognize when a work is finished.  In life, one must know how to experience gain and loss.

Phenomena

Released on 10/31/11.

The Long View

Perhaps the future is present at times before we take notice of it.

My wife and I enjoyed the rare good fortune of the opportunity to attend Brian Eno's Illustrated Talk this afternoon at the Thomas Wolfe Auditorium in Asheville, N.C., USA. A great pleasure and an elevating experience, both for Mr. Eno's wit and his grace in delivering an artistic and scholarly presentation of ideas and concepts of genuinely profound cultural importance, it was also the finest example of public speaking I have ever seen, having been privileged in the past to attend talks by, among others, Carl Sagan and Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

Anyone given the chance to see the Illustrated Talk should not miss it, particularly if you embrace a love for the future of music and the cultural arts.

The Bob Moog Memorial Foundation / Moogfest

Moogfest 2011 will be held in Asheville, North Carolina, USA this weekend.

Tangerine Dream, Adrian Belew, Hans-Joachim Roedelius, Tim Heckler, Moby, and many other featured artists will be present over three days.  Perhaps I will see you there.

Brian Eno will present his ILLUSTRATED TALK at 1.30pm, Saturday October 29 at the
Thomas Wolfe Auditorium, Asheville Civic Center, 87 Haywood Street, Asheville, NC 28801

77 MILLION PAINTINGS (28 October to 30 November)
YMI Center, 39 South Market Street, Asheville, NC 28801

Hour and Moment

Art answers the question, "What is your experience?".

Those to whom art communicates consider the answers.

Unspoken, Understood

In the absence of a direct narrative, atmosphere and tone communicate a sense of meaning.

A work need not be content-specific to offer such things as refinement of perspective and nuance of mood.  In fact, these may be made more apparent without the association of direct exposition. 

In poetry and literature, a character description or sketch of a time and place alone may entertain and inspire insights, while music, painting and sculpture need not reference a specific account of an  imaginative tale or historical event to evoke feelings and ideas in those who encounter the works.

Consider the sounds of seasonal change, of the rise and descent of cultural phenomena, or posit those suggested by light in landscapes or the movement of time through generations.  Intuit and put forward tones and musical textures that bring these into being, and though they are nebulous, they reveal worlds within worlds.

Direct Experience

The appearances of things are multidimensional.

One does not gain an estimate of an individual's character by looking at appearance alone.  That is an absurdity.  Neither is it of any value to accept or reject works of art, from the classical to the the avant-garde, by mere surface impression.  An interpretation offered by someone else is not an informed personal judgement, and an "open mind" is no substitute for a critical eye or ear. 

This is the value of self-knowledge as well.

Fields of Perception

Fragmentation, fractured awareness, spatial and temporal dislocation, sub-textual meaning, and the idea of word and image propagating as viral constructs have provoked debate for a century or more.

That these concepts are influential in cultural consciousness is beyond doubt, particularly in the arts.  Setting aside the often trivial disputes associated with analysis of these cultural and social phenomena, there is much aesthetic pleasure to be found in the happenstance encounter with surprising justapositions of sensory imagery, particularly those sounds and images which are often ignored as unintentional or as mere by-products of the environment.

The interested observer might consider this an opportunity for an artist to be less obtrusive in the creation of works of art.  Not absent, certainly, but mindful of the nature of the inspiration.

Dimensions

Depth, distance, clarity, obscurity, reflection, texture, intensity, proximity, color, tone, and meaning.

Within human and natural settings-- the perceived subjective experience of environment and atmosphere, with its associated emotional and intellectual connotations--  these measurements, among others, serve as intuitive guides to our journey, our movements, and our actions.

If the senses are reliable and the chosen courses of action true, the journey is graced with integrity, balance, spirit and reason, especially in adversity.  If life is torn by contradictions, driven and dominated by the passions and appetites, perhaps some good will come of it, but whatever measures may determine that are vague at best.

Culture is ever in flux, ever subject to events and ideas, some meritorious, some ruinous.

Look and listen.  Choose with care.  The foremost of these measures is meaning.

Higher

If the aims of music are more than the perpetuation of vanity and greed, the listener will know.

Art exists for reasons as old as human existence, and music, as an art form, invigorates the senses and the imagination.

It may be crass, exploitative, absurd, and pointless from time to time, but whatever its negative attributes, it can always be more than a sign of the times and a signal of despair and desperation. 

It can symbolize, through sound, our higher ideals and most uplifting desires.

It can, and does, illuminate past, present, and future.

Between the Lines

As sensory images, sounds may be metaphoric, and so symbolic.

Symbols and metaphors conveyed non-verbally will be associated with universal meanings in many cases, and these archetypes-- in the case of sounds suggesting flight, for example, or depth, or solitude-- bring to mind concepts associated with such things as freedom, mystery, the serene and the sinister, the obscure or uncanny, the pastoral and the seasonal.

Music moves and is moved by culture and the imagination, and the transformational ambient sketches discussed here are designed to immerse the listener in an atmospheric hour for the refreshment and renewal of the mind's eye.

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.

Reality, Existence and Art

Chaos and order exist together.

Disordered thinking is manifested in daily living as impatience, emotional instability, clutter, hazard, and noise.  Chaos happens of itself; it is trifling, irrevalent, and easy to perpetuate. 

To create a perspective free of the pettiness of chaos is no small challenge, and requires effort and vision equal to the task.  Beyond the labor and choices involved, it is also an art.

Out of that art comes culture, and its strength.

Like Water

In the visual arts, a sense of movement may be evoked by line, pattern, repetition, and shading.

In music, these elements are produced over a period of time, in the course of the musical piece.

An "atmospheric" design made with sounds similarly gives this impression of movement.  Unlike a song or instrumental performance, however, created to move more or less directly from beginning to end, the ambient work suggests movement in multiple directions. 

These may approximate an ebb and flow, for example, or movements near and distant, high and low, in asymmetrical juxtapositions and in varied placements in space.  Technological developments in digital stereo and surround-sound recording greatly augment the capability of creating such apparent movements and perspectives with subtlety and clarity.

Ultimately, from an artistic viewpoint, these aspects of the work, with their simplicity and elegance, are meant solely to enhance of the experience of the listener. 

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.