Tone Language II

Musical communication is generally conveyed through rhythm, percussion, melody and harmony, tempo and instrumentation.  For the most part, the intent of the composer or musician is to communicate emotion.

If the essential emphasis in a composition, recording, or performance is placed upon tone and its atmospheric qualities, however, the focus of the work is on the sense of perception itself, and beyond that, to create a setting in which the listener's imaginative faculties may be engaged and stimulated.

In terms of sound, these are two separate and distinct paradigms.

Position, Movement, Perception

Movement through a setting alters the perception of sound.

In the environment of perceptive consciousness, while listening and hearing with the inner ear, movement takes place within the imagination, altering states of mind and creative vision.

Function

Value and meaning are given sounds for their beauty and for their effects as well.

The listener will appreciate the emotional connotations of natural sounds, human speech, and favorite musical works, as well as the clarity of a well-crafted recording, the aesthetic integrity of a finely rendered performance, and other such things of a more objective nature.

As broadly understood, the influences of sound and music upon temperament, attitude, and the spiritual or contemplative aspects of the psyche are of equal importance to their emotional and artistic qualities.

Clearly, beyond art and entertainment, music and sound designs may be created and experienced as enhancements to consciousness, and to a life well-lived.

Change. Transition.

Forms in time do not remain static.

They emerge, develop, disperse, and return to emerge again.  This, too, is the reality of sounds.

Music and the Uncanny

Sounds may be designed to evoke the simultaneously familiar and the unknown.

These atypical arrangements of sounds, with their elements of emergence, clustering, dispersal and re-forming, may challenge reason, and so provoke uncertainty, or a sense of strangeness, even given their simple, everyday nature as tones and musical patterns.

They may, at first, be easily rejected, rather than given intellectual consideration and analysis with the aim of aesthetic appreciation, but the curious listener will follow the threads of the familiar until absorbed by a new-- or different-- perception of music.

Absorption

Impressions of events over time are made upon every element of reality.

This is true of sounds.  This is true of ideas.

Resonance

Communications convey imagery and tone through every medium.

Such communications take both gross and subtle forms, as do the ways in which they are perceived.

Again, in the context of  "music" and its variations as "sound design", the composer imparts meaning by direct self-expression through numerous controlled actions, or by producing works via methods that are more or less detached yet retain a degree of aesthetic involvement.

Both present aspects of artistic vision, given their separate methods, and each is accessible to a wide variety of  listeners.

Aural Flux

In nature there are rhythmic movements and myriad beautiful sounds, yet they are not driven by rhythm and percussion, nor are they enhanced by melody and harmony.

Sound designs may be composed to reflect the perceptual effect of such environments and atmospheres, with their diversity of tones and dynamics. 

Moving Sounds

Consider the sonic journey that begins and ends in conjunction with the perception of time.

A linear awareness of time is manifest in musical forms of all types.

Postulate music or sound designs composed and expressed according to the idea of time as a continuum.

Percipient as Observer

Neither listening nor hearing is effortless.

Much depends upon the creative imagination of the listener.  Some seek nothing more than to fill a sense of emptiness, while others strive to expand awareness.

The artist's duty is not to make shared visions easy, but to make them possible.

Sound Poetics

Staccato bird calls, distant rains, creaking of tall oaks in the summer sun, voices over the hills.

Pursue these sounds, convert them from words into impressions, combine them in kaleidoscopic movements.

Bring forth the perception of atmospheres.

View, Focus, Redefine

The creative nature of the artist lends itself to a view of reality through the lens of aesthetic perception.

The creative act draws upon resources and experience in representing a perspective of the real, regardless of the medium employed or the context of the activity.  It is communication that informs concepts, which in turn evoke perception, or vision, if you will.

Painting, literature, sounds and music, teaching, learning, politics, athletics, sculpture and invention-- these may indeed be arts, given imagination, and all the better if tempered by moral reason and clarified by the force of virtue, these being timeless and universal.

Therein lies meaning, and most particularly that of what it means to be human. 

Scope, Outlook, Foresight

Development of artistic vision tethered to narrow forms may produce predictability of outcomes, as standard formulas particular to the musical genres demonstrate.

Instead, cultivate beauty as the inner ear of the perceptive, forward thinking listener anticipates it, in the wild.

Reason and Expression

Observe how excessive diversion and distraction blunts the edge of perception.

Consider the extent to which dullness of the intellect and of individual awareness renders emotion unreliable, even treacherous.

The artist must reach beyond the failures of moral reasoning engendered by cultural conditioning, or surrender to them.

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.

Pause, Perceive

Extend the immediate.

Take in the awareness of those things that go unnoticed.

Imaginative Variables

Environments contain unexpected elements that contribute to the atmosphere in unexpected ways.

In composition and experimentation, there are innumerable choices.  Each alters the total effect of the finished work irrevocably.  The extent to which the artist's sensibilities are manifest is also a choice, and my personal perspective is that the least interference results in the most compelling aesthetic result.

Each transformation ambient piece should be, more than a personal expression, an evocation for the listener's most desirable states of consciousness.

Mimesis, Abstraction

The art of transformation ambient composition echoes awareness.

As field recordings reproduce auditory events, sound designs may be composed in ways that reproduce diverse aspects of auditory perception.  The ultimate end of this process is a fullness of experience involving both active listening and passive hearing in the course of interacting with the musical expression.

The nature of such compositions, being suggestive rather than specific, lends an impression of being somewhat detached from linear time, and, with repeated listening, an impression of never sounding exactly the same.

Conjunctions

Transformation ambient music reflects the choices and the hand of the composer.

Neither solely generated by programming nor arranged according to traditional theories, the music of Black Mountain School is designed to bring separate sonic events into play simultaneously, with as little interference as possible and without particular regard for form, whereby their varied interactions combine to enhance environments and states of mind.

Fluidity

Movement over time is perceived in music as a flux or flow of sounds ordered to propulsive beats and rhythms, tightly synchronized and controlled.

Consider, in contrast, a continuity of sounds more deeply reflective of the manner of fluid dynamics, with internal currents, variations in pressure and depth, velocity, temperature, and other associated phenomena.

Rather than flowing according to the framework of an arrangement, as in a channel or canal, such a concept opens, alters, and expands the settings and scenarios in which musical movements occur, producing multifaceted forms-- tone clusters and lines, for example-- and directions, as does water in rivers, lakes, and oceans.

Stylization

The sounds of nature and human environments are not random, but part of a larger connectivity.

Sounds and visions and perspectives may be reproduced, and consciousness directed; they may also be suggested, and consciousness extended, elevated, and, above and beyond mundane expectations, liberated.

Clarity and Magic

Observe the multitudes of distractions and diversions, the ideological issues and the expectations associated with cultural and social norms.

In contrast, clarity of vision may appear to be of supernatural origin.

The Obvious and the Subtle

Emotional impression and critical interest are conveyed by words and music.

The sublime is conveyed by tone, mood, and atmosphere.

Shading

Shift focus from the obvious.

The critical sounds are masked by beat and rhythm.

Avenue, Trail, Broadcast

Sounds in the wild-- whether in distant fields or urban areas-- are unpredictable and asymmetrical.

A listener does not commit these soundscapes to memory, as may be done with a popular song or favorite musical work.  For the most part, music is created with the intent of imprinting memory, appealing to mnemonic devices both auditory and verbal in ways that are essentially artificial, with improvisational forms presenting the most variations within a musical arrangement.

While artificial, transformation ambient music is designed to create sonic atmospheres in ways similar to those that occur in the wild, or in conformity with sounds as they simply happen while moving through various environments.  Not meant to be committed to memory, yet appealing to the inner ear, they remain fresh and retain interest over time, enhancing settings and states of mind as well.

Perceptions in Obscurity

Accepting the "given" in regard to music, all the elements of understanding fall into place.

The listener then enjoys certain types of music, dislikes others, or is neutral in point of view regarding them. There is nothing to think about; either it provides subjective pleasure or it does not, whether it is a masterwork filled with passion and spiritual intensity or it merely has a good beat and you can dance to it.

The detached observer takes a different perspective, recognizes the various aspects of music for the effects they produce, considers their myriad forms and patterns, and notes the variables and extremes in dynamics, sophistication, technique, presentation and instrumentation that define the genres and appeal to both the popular and refined tastes and sensibilities.

Set aside the given of  "musical appreciation" along with the fashions, the attendant subcultures, the platitudes of "show business", and it becomes certain there is much more to the art of sound than adherence to cultural norms and well-worn styles.  Freed from form and formula, sounds and tones, in pattern and combination, can enhance consciousness and elevate experience in ways far beyond those to which listeners are accustomed.

To listen and to hear is prescience.

Sensation and Thought

Within and without consciousness, perceptual imagery takes objective and subjective forms.

See and hear, remember and imagine, and as artist, sculptor, dancer, writer, composer, communicator, express by giving form and being to experience.

Not Hearing, Not Listening, Not Music

Fragments of music pass through consciousness throughout the waking hours.

Sometimes these fragments linger after encountering a piece of music, and other times they simply arise spontaneously out of memory.

Consider whether this is a positive or negative effect, whether it is a pleasant diversion or a distraction, a disturbance of concentration, focus, and consciousness generally.  Certainly it is a common effect, and not abnormal in its commonality, but neither is it necessarily desirable.

An interesting secondary effect of the peculiar transformation ambient compositions discussed here is that the listener does not experience these "ear-worm" auditory perceptions while listening to them. They apparently disappear immediately, as if unhooked or detached from the listener's awareness, and the compositions do not take this form later, after listening.

It is a different way of encountering musical sounds altogether, reflecting prolonged efforts in the way of experimentation, contemplative discipline and aesthetic observation.

Currents

Genre music develops according to parameters of composition and style.

Currents of air and water move according to volume, density, gravity, the diverse shapes of topography and other influences like temperature or human intervention.

Release sounds from common form and formula to develop and aurally transform in similar ways.

Artifice Corresponding to the Natural

Generative music is the result of programming alone, whereas transformation sound design is manipulated by the composer for aesthetic purposes.

Creative work that is a product of inquiry, speculation, observation and exploration ultimately reflects, in its development, the sensibility of the artist.

As to the Black Mountain School project there is a conscious effort to shape and produce tone-poem environments that emerge and evolve as sounds do in the wild, as it were, or as tonal forms evoking movements and settings regarded in terms of peculiar, non-musical perceptions.

Examples would include such things as wind in trees, traffic noises, birds and insects, as well as patterns describing any type of natural or social activity. Other events-- like changes in the quality of light, architectural structures and textures, meteorological effects and states of mind-- are treated as aural possibilities as well.

Fundamentally, it is a search for different ways of listening and hearing that emerges in these compositions.

One Moment

Observe, and consider the real.

Respond, and give account.

Reaction, Response

The design of sound environments takes into account reasoning as well as emotion.

Both attitudes, the feeling and the thinking, reflect the consciousness of the listener, and both passive and conscious listening engagement take place in such environments.

The intention of the composition is to accommodate the full spectrum of auditory attention throughout, emphasizing interest with sound elements like tone and contrast while minimizing those such as rhythm and melody that tend to dominate concentration and focus.

Distinctions

Distinctive compositions bear the impress of the author or composer's vision.

The musician focuses on displays of technique and style; the composer, on self-expression and emotional relevance; the speculative artist or theorist, upon ideas and concepts related to sound, its effects and its revelations in regard to reason and the human experience.

Each perspective reflects a kind of quest.  The first is for acclaim or glory, the second for personal and aesthetic satisfaction, and the third seeks mystery, whether out of intellectual curiosity, a metaphysical turn of mind, a desire for expanding and understanding consciousness, or something else altogether, but beyond the mundane and emotionally subjective.

Flux and Passage

Change over time is gradual.

In contrast to sudden, dramatic events, the course of things appears static, but this is an illusion.

Sweeping changes come to pass in ways that seem undetectable except to the perceptive observer; in sound design, such effects contribute to an aesthetically pleasing listening experience and, often, to a more relaxed and alert state of mind in the listener.

Encounter, Response

Impression, followed by processes of envisioning, resulting in representations reflecting reality and the imagination.  Such is one concept of art among many.

So cycles of creativity continue, constantly revised, completed, restored, and renewed.  One artist gains perspective in regarding the work of another, and another painting, poem, or musical piece follows.

Ultimately, fully evolved and internalized, the artistic vision moves beyond the traditional into the personal, shaping and shaped by experience itself.

Variations in Pattern

Throughout the human and natural environments find designs, repetitions, change and development.

The myriad choices of tones, lines, spaces and clusters of notes and patterns combined in sketch music and transformation ambient music are reflective of such designs as those observed in sediment deposits and erosion, roads and trails, cloud formations and the movements of crowds or flocks of birds, to suggest a few obvious examples.

Sounds arranged and produced in this manner have very little to do with popular music-- but everything to do with sensory impressions of the good and the beautiful.

Projection, Perspective

The fusion of reality and the imagination is essential to the composer's art.

Begin with the personal-- setting, surroundings, cultural history.  Question the possibilities; hear their sounds, and bind them together into the real.

Critical Perceptivity

The way of the artist at once embraces and transcends.

All elements of culture are interrelated and exert forces upon each other over the meandering course of generations.  Life is fleeting; human consciousness, awake and dreaming, remains mysterious; art is the tangible evidence of possibilities, whether seen clearly or glimpsed in shadows.

In experience, draw close.  In creation, elevate.

Consciousness, Perception, Questions

Not everything can be viewed, understood, or heard subjectively.

Yet the totally objective, like Reason itself, has final limits.

The way of the artist is to choose.

Other Sounds, Other Views

Speculation about the cultural future, though interesting for what it is, has limits based on linear viewpoints.

Such perspectives grasp at darkness, projecting the present.  There is no knowing any number of potential developments, as history consistently demonstrates.

The way of the artist creates the future by bringing it into the present.

Obscure Sense

Sounds in time may be perceived as moving in a linear fashion.

Sound compositions may also be designed in such a manner as to suggest a musical continuum.

Linear listening reflects attachment to rhythm, beat, and melody as they develop from beginning to end, while music designed to ebb and flow without direction elicits temporal detachment in hearing and listening.

Sublimity

Sound designs of simplicity and clarity grace the atmosphere of a setting, and the listener enjoys a sense of vitality, presence of mind, and composure.

Black Mountain School paints the air with sound.

Visit Ambimusica.com

Around, Within, Between

Regard the idea of negative space in sonic terms.  Initially, one might consider it to be silence, but it is more than that, and of greater subtlety.

Consider negative space to be a matter of perceived distances and surrounding areas within which notes are clustered or scattered, for instance, or of the differences in shading between various timbres.  These shifting areas of negative space are as valuable as the aural "objects of focus" themselves.

Viewed in this manner, tones and lines as objects of focus are of equal-- or greater-- importance to composition when compared to the more commonplace components of music, to wit, rhythm, beat, melody and harmony.

Changing Patterns

Music, with its rhythmic and melodic formulas, is a constant.

As a cultural and social force, it is held harmless, given no thought beyond entertainment and profit, and reflects the impulses and patterns at play in human affairs.

The sounds of life can be more than this.  A moment's pause, and fireflies in a dark grove beneath a sky burning with stars, rain striking the face while passing along a crowded avenue, or a hand filled with nothing greater than sand on a lake shore evokes mystery without end.

Find the sounds of these moments and embrace them.  They are formless forms, beyond the limits of time.

Sound Cycles

Emerge, rise, descend, return.

Observe the way of nature reflected in the course of human events; thus it is to hear and listen, and to recognize these sound designs with understanding and clarity.

Extended Perception

Foresight, when clarity of awareness evokes anticipation of potential events, actions, or outcomes, is a naturally occurring phenomenon.

Similarly, in sound design and musical experimentation, prior knowledge of the many ways through which combinations of sounds connect and interact lends itself to insights into the various aesthetic effects that may come about by manipulating tones, patterns, and other aspects of composition and recording.

Far from a being a process of controlling, it is rather one of freeing sounds to evolve in diverse ways and engaging listeners with unique experiences. 

Synesthesia

Contemplate image, environment, sensory impressions, setting, scene.

In stillness of consciousness and imagination, sounds come into being.

Sounds of Images

Point of view shapes and is shaped by imagination.

Consider the implications.  Do not simply seek vision, intent, purpose.

Realize them.

Illuminated Passages

A child's experiences and interests become the work of a lifetime.

The elements of life and work may be many and varied.

Isolation, deep distances and echoes, ghost stories, shadows, fires, Reformation, Reconstruction, myth, legend, baptism, poetry and mysticism, good and evil.  Debussy.  War.  Art school. Literature. Folk, bluegrass, rock, jazz, fusion, avant-garde.  Love and Reason.  Performance. Studio. Production, arrangement, experiment. The Academy.  Digital.  America, Europe, The South, Bohemia, the Western Lands.

Expansion and decline, form and the formless, ten thousand things.  Elevation.

Nothing is possible without everything.

Opposing Forces

Dynamic movement begins.

Tones, lines, and clusters, lights and darks, the warm and the cool merge, coalesce, fragment, disperse.  The sounds are reflective of such events as atmospheric developments, air and ocean currents, cyclical patterns and unpredictable combinations of conditions.

Remaining constant, they continually change.