Tone Forms

Combinations of tones conjure textures.  Some suggest lightness and clarity while others evoke density and opacity.

In equilibrium and continuous movement, these shadings reflect the nature of environmental settings, whether real or imaginary, and may enhance the listener's surroundings and state of mind as well.

Extending Perception

Surrounding environments are to the ambient sound designer as views are is to the landscape painter.

The varied and changing aspects of the setting contribute the elements of composition, presences to be recognized, interpreted, delineated, and represented through the sonic media.

Artifice, Ideas, Vision

Any representation reflects the artist's perceptions and sensibilities.

These are individual aspects of the writer, poet, artist or composer.  Whether they in fact serve the art, or serve to make the art function for other purposes, is inevitably clear, as is the work's nature, and whether it is for the most part transient or permanent.

Currents, Waves, and Impressions

A broad view of cultural phenomena suggests prevailing influences that subject the senses to untoward pressures, often to enervating effect.

The inner ear responds to subtlety and sensibility, and ambient musical compositions are especially conducive to revitalizing the intellectual and emotional faculties, providing works to which the listener may respond, rather than simply react.

Approach, Response

Listen to voices, mix colors, determine limits, articulate words, observe shape, shading, movement, and expression; formulate and test theories, master processes, discipline vision; hear shadows fall.

All arts reflect being and becoming; every work is a synthesis and composition.  I want the effects of every composition I create through sounds to move the listener towards heightened, lucid awareness and elevated experience, as I desire no less for myself.

Glimpses, Echoes

Culture creates a sense of order that reflects, by degrees, social temperament and sensibility, particularly in the arts, and this is to be heard in the sonic atmospheres of diverse settings.

One accepts and absorbs the status quo or seeks other perspectives in keeping with one's nature.

This is often the existential position of the artist, the composer, and the listener as well.

Listen, hear, reflect, express.

Design, Intention, Representation

When sound mirrors nature, the aural patterns move according to the phenomena of the surrounding world, developing as do atmospheric and seasonal cycles, for example, as opposed to imitating "natural" sounds.

The composer may also follow patterns suggested by other arts and artists in any media, or by, for instance, architectural constructions and the sounds associated with specifically human or cultural ideas, events and environments.

Imitation alone can not bring forth that uncanny aspect of simultaneous strangeness and recognition that makes it possible for the experience of art to elevate awareness.

This demands the force of individual expression.

Nature and Civilization

The ear is conditioned to expect certain sounds.

Once accustomed to familiar atmospheres in the natural world and the human environment, we tend to blur or ignore the fullness of aural perception  This same attitude persists in the context of music.

It is possible to listen, and to hear, and to compose, differently, and while in concord with elevation of awareness and the spirit of the beautiful.

Timeless

Immersed in sound composition, lose temporal perception.

Continue to listen, and hear the moment now in all things.

Diffusion, Convergence

Complexity emerges out of simplicity.

Emptiness is filled, silence transformed.

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.

Motion Yielding to Stillness

Pause.  Observe the moment now.  Where there is stillness there will be storm, followed again by stillness.

The sounds of the Primeval are always present, interrupted only by the stormy and dramatic, the peal of thunder or the rush of the crowd.  Afterwards, there is not silence.  Listen and hear the innumerable sounds and movements within the clarity of stasis and balance.

In composition, this is aural beauty on the periphery of music, everywhere tones moving in lines and clusters, emerging and proceeding in non-melodic paths and patterns, reflecting the reality of natural settings and undisturbed cultural atmospheres.

Culture, Focus, Tone, Expression

The impact of environmental factors upon consciousness is a continuing variable in the long and short term, and one that should not be disparaged; nor should the contribution and importance of sound to setting be ignored.

Integrity of character, intellect, and emotional balance are obtained with due effort and sacrifice, and maintained by discretion, discernment, and force of will, while time and again one must defend these exacting qualities against the frailty and corruption intrinsic to human nature.  Reason demands that choices be made; lack of reason does not.

Art often serves to reflect this struggle, directly and implicitly in a multitude of ways.  This includes the sounds and imagery of the cultural atmosphere and surroundings.

Resonance and Action

Sonic imagery emerges in the awareness of listener and composer.

Perception and imagination yield aural impressions at once real and uncanny.

Finally. connections form between memory and sensory experience, concepts to be articulated through diverse artistic media, resources, and methods.

Stir of Impressions II

Emptiness will be filled, then emptied, to be filled again.

In composing, ask what sounds complement settings, with their spaces, objects, shapes, and colors. Choose these tones accordingly, set them in motion through gestures harmonious with the elements in place, and hear them settle into the silences before flowing away into memory.

Awareness, Intent, Spectrum

What sounds are actually perceived in any setting often make up an infinitesimal part of the whole of the aural environs.

In any setting, consciously pause, absorb, and identify sounds and their sources, and in doing so refine the capacity for discernment of spatial relationships, movement, tone, and meaning.

This receptivity is innate, and potentially may be developed to a high degree of realization in hearing and listening; moreover, sound designs and musical compositions reflecting such atmospheric realities are possible as well.

Cause, Effect, Mind

Consciousness acts as a filter.  It absorbs, and it projects.

The listener's state of mind may be altered by music, or it may alter the perception of music.

These are attitudes accorded to music, and not necessarily expectations related to myriad sounds experienced within settings or atmospheres generally. These latter may be perceived more openly and directly, and, from my vantage point as a composer, are of greatest interest.

Formlessness

Conformity applies to unconventional expectations as well as those that adhere to standard norms.

The way of the artist is one of perception, contemplation, reflection, and expression-- and indifference to expectations.

Hearing, Listening, Openness

Sounds the listener can anticipate or "follow" are the norm for most musical arrangements.

The experience of sounds in the form of auditory imagery is expansive, deep, and, more often than not, asymmetrical in nature. Much of my work in composition and sound design intentionally moves away from establishing and directing expectations to reflect both the continuous aural activity and surprising sonic events of real, yet non-musical, environments.

Surrounding atmospheres rich with subtle beauty and intensely interesting sounds may go unnoticed when perception is dulled by the routine and mundane.  I want my compositions to be catalysts for elevating that awareness.

Other Than Music

Creating structure sets limits.  Thinking does not always require them.

Separate music from given ideas.  Set aside thoughts of "using" technology as a tool, regarding it instead as a means of gesture. Listen past emotion and intellect into the sound of the surrounding world, and there discern aesthetic beauty with the goal of bringing it into the listener's range of perception.

Culture, Sound, Tone

Attitude of mind and emotion as expressed in the arts may or may not reflect specific time periods.

Some works sustain interest, while others become cultural artifacts; still others may share both attributes. Considering time a continuum, think, hear, and bring into being auditory experiences of emergence and expansion.  Listen and create, indifferent to all but sound.

Sonic Textures

Combinations of tones and patterns move within physical settings and internal, perceptual terrains.

From the source, or sensibilities and vision of the composer, sound designs emerge through varied processes of selection, sound synthesis and juxtaposition of elements.

The subjective impressions of tone, mood, and atmosphere are considered aesthetically; additional evaluations of objective aural properties, including volume, intensity, equalization, compression, and such effects as contribute to dynamic spatial qualities of the composition are brought to bear upon the work.

The finished work resulting from these artistic and technological processes will suggest multiple sensory and emotional impressions, including color and shading, contrast, movement, and texture, as well as evoking memory and stimulating the imagination.

Expansion and Order

Perspective reveals or conceals a sense of symmetry and balance.

Accordingly, wind chimes, bird songs, wind through alleyways, and one's everyday encounters with voices and machines may appear random or part of a greater pattern of sounds.

Listen, and hear.

Transmission VI

Cultural context influences the listening experience, as does history and individual taste.

The extent to which the listener is enriched by the arts of sound can also be determined by choice, along with the effort necessary to expand one's range of knowledge and awareness, much as the curious and adventurous musician may decide to explore beyond subjective interests in technique and formula.

Atmosphere and the Mind's Eye

I compose to mirror the continuous rise and fall.

Apparent, even in stillness, is the dynamic totality of existence as it moves and changes.  Through sounds designed to reflect organic processes, aural events that might seem beneath notice may be brought into range of perception.

Such compositions, I would suggest, effectively contribute to heightened sensory discernment and clarity of thought, and further, stimulate the faculty of imagination.

Aural Themes

Sounds form, as vibrational forces, essential connection to the totality of phenomena.

Every aspect of experience reflects meaning, whether personal, cultural, or cosmological.

Forward Listening

Inner perception merges experience and the physical, that is to say, it is a union of consciousness, memory, and sensory awareness.

Engagement in such a state of contemplative reflection broadens understanding, deepens insight, and renders temporal concerns of little moment. It alters perspective by transcending external distractions inimical to the spiritual faculties of reason and free will, and thereby opens imaginative and meaningful corridors of thought.

My interests lie in developing musical compositions and sound designs that reflect and contribute to such attitudes of mind and emotional outlooks, as these will often provide for prescient impressions, the rise of speculative ideas, and productive courses of action.

Thought and Feel

Lucid perception stimulates clarity of thought and insight.

In giving thought to the content of the arts and experiences open to personal choice, it is plain and clear which ones elevate or degrade awareness and understanding.

The way of the artist is to perceive and create, and more, to sustain.

Impression, Design, Expression

A composer's aesthetic reflects sensibility and conceptual vision.

One who hears sounds as they reflect environments sees their visual counterparts: emergence, movement, lines, patterns, fluctuations, interaction, order, unpredictability, and every kind of phenomena, including color, nuance, light and shadow.

Listen Closely

Patterns emerge, then disperse.

Sounds collect together, suggesting activity; they move independently and circulate together. Tones stir beneath notice and become prominent, coalesce and gradually grow to be illusory.  Perceptions change; awareness expands with permutations of sound and nuance of mood.

The combinations set in motion in these events mimic the sounds of natural environments and human habitats, and, rather than converge as musical forms, they take shape as aural images in dynamic atmospheres.

Mind and Inner Ear

Generally, music is considered to be a  form of entertainment, though emotion, attitudes, and cultural ideas are expressed and conveyed through every musical form.

Now in contrast to its entertainment value, the wider cultural purposes of music are often given little attention or are perceived as being of lesser importance. Certainly not all listeners would agree with this, particularly those of wide-ranging and aesthetically informed tastes, but nonetheless music designed for personal reflection and the rituals and shared experiences of community is somewhat neglected as a result.

We all think, we all reflect and sometimes contemplate the world, events, and our surroundings.  It is neither necessary nor desirable to expend every free moment upon entertainment and diversion in a life open to myriad and meaningful pursuits.

There are other sounds, other musical works meant to complement a full life as well.

Waking, Dreaming

Imaginative vision and sound may lead, at times, to experiences far beyond the mundane.

Divergent states of awareness are at the edges of common shared experience; historically, these are visible in extraordinary artistic expressions, and suggestive of the idea that wider, deeper perceptions are possible through other than the normal channels of the senses.

Outside and Within

External atmospheres are perceived by the senses and generate internal feeling.

The creative arts, and the arts of sound in particular, may produce these emotional, aesthetic and imaginative or intellectual effects, and not only to convey information, mood and tone, but, beyond these and other concrete experiences, a sense of the ineffable.

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.

Elements of Subtlety

Sound follows every turn of events.

Attuned to sounds, listen for the nuances of life, follow them through to their conclusions and back to their origins.  Sense and realize their meanings, express their insights.

The formless leads to the formed, and then returns.

Imaginary Atmospheres

Fill spaces with sounds shaped by the character of objects to be suggested in desirable environments.

Consider these conditions aesthetically.  Sparse or crowded, in the wild or in well-appointed interiors, uniformly arranged or asymmetrically scattered, the limits of space and the compositions of objects imply meaning and mood, content both emotional and intellectual, and movement of both music and listeners.

What happens in the mind is as meaningful as what happens in the setting informed by sounds.

Vision, Action

The artist's priorities are the works and their content.

If experience, perception, contemplation, reflection and expression take precedence over transient social and cultural phenomena, various degrees of restraint and self-denial are called for from time to time.

The art must be brought to light; the artist is the means by which it is realized.

Promoveo, promovi, promotum.

Black Mountain School: "Observation"

Multiplicity

The art of composition, like that of listening, can be approached on various levels.

One may give critical attention to formal elements, for example, or focus on technique and expression with regard to such things as subtlety and intensity; it is also valuable to simply engage a work with an open mind and become absorbed in it emotionally and perceptually.

Some pieces of music lend themselves to contemplation and reflection, while many are successful as purely escapist fare.

Like written language, recorded sound defies the limits of time and space; this neither confers virtue nor value to a work, but expands the context in which these may ultimately be determined.

Creative Will

The attention is continually subject to distraction, the purpose being to capture and direct emotion, idea, and action.  It is then a simple matter to manipulate social, cultural, and economic choices, decisions and events.

Observation of the arts reveals the difference between legerdemain and magic.  It is always evident when a message or external purpose is associated with an artistic presentation, just as it is plainly clear when the effect or meaning of a piece, however obscure it may be, is intrinsic to the work itself.

Knowing the Inner Ear

Discernment questions, but also proposes, interpretation of sensory perceptions.

Listening and hearing determine, for the individual, the aesthetic value of sounds, music, and auditory imagery, unless cultural conditioning supersedes the capacity for making objective personal choices.

Consciousness, Art, Technology

The transmission of culture is not always in verbal or written form, being conveyed by the arts as well.

Visual arts portray symbolic images, and sounds possess myriad symbolic attributes associated with emotions, perceptions, and ideas, suggesting, as they may, states of mind as diverse as those of celebration, ecstasy, and fear.

The ubiquity of media contributes to immersion in these representations, and thus their potential effects upon the psyche.  And while the extent to which composer and listener engage creative experience is certainly a reflection of cultural conditions, it can also be one of conscious, individual choice and aesthetic sensibility.

Stylized Realism

Atmospheric sound compositions reflect incremental changes in the course of events.

The artist gathers and assembles perceptions in accordance with these phenomena, whether they reflect organic or cultural sounds, ideas, and events.

Participating in visions of the extraordinary, one may come to see and hear beyond the general norms and the contrived extravagances that indulge vicarious experiences.

Rising

Subtlety of perception heightens clarity of meaning.

To experience subtlety of expression in the arts is to set aside the obstacles presented by personal subjectivity and directly sense the meanings behind artistic representations. The extent to which one "loses oneself" in experience, and the context in which one chooses to do so, will improve or degrade perception accordingly.

Aesthetic vision and discernment move both artist and audience with shared perspectives, whether toward heightened or enervated awareness, thought, and feeling.

Wandering

The composer's art, regardless of style, reflects aesthetic intentions.

A work may be meticulously planned and executed, spontaneously generated with varying degrees of focus between the contrived and the apparently random, or be designed to unfold within limits in the way of the natural course of things.

In the latter case, I am only interested in a minimal touch, one that contributes to a composition's grace of mood and tone.

What one desires to hear, one creates.

Extending Imagination

The unexplored is everywhere.

Long thoughts, deep books, nuance of experience, visions of possibilities, sounds drawn out from immeasurable distances and disdain for the trifling chaos of the day bring light to the world and the mind.

Depths, Heights, and Futurity

Sounds are set in motion and combined; compositions emerge and may be recorded, transcribed and performed.  In the listening imagination, sensory impressions appear spontaneously, as if out of echo and shadow.

Beyond this point listening takes on a unique and individual dimension that neither the casual listener nor the self-absorbed "fan" discovers without encountering a sense of the uncanny.  One's attention is wholly given over to sounds, as happens in thoughtful reflection upon works of art, and in listening one becomes detached from the sense of self and its distractions, entering a contemplative state of mind and being.

The composer devoted to realizing such a fusion of sound and art cannot be content with transient nonsense and mundane chaos, and strives for representations of environments and atmospheres that reflect elevated perceptions and stimulate the expansion and evolution of consciousness.

Direction and Movement

Contemplative thought and listening, well considered action, and fullness of perception do not come without conscious effort and choice.

Reality is not scripted, regardless of cultural or social expectations. Listeners may be conditioned to types, genres, and forms, but these do not define music any more than external conditions define being and humanity.

In the arts, one may observe both expression and sense of purpose.  As the apparently formless moves gradually toward clarity and breadth of scope, the glaring intensity of the mundane and predictable dissipates and grows dim.

Simplicity and Complexity of Pattern

One may be lulled into a pleasant state of mind by the sounds of wind and rain, waves moving in and out against the shore, or traffic passing through the night.

Removed from surrounding noise, which can, in fact, include recorded or transmitted media, the listener may encounter sounds that do not fit preconceived expectations regarding music, yet be capable of finding these aural images appealing.

Combine sound elements in such ways as to conform to such diverse patterns and atmospheres, including those that occur in cultural or "man-made" environments.

Myth, Music, and Mind

Music appeals to the senses, toward physical movement and ecstatic experience.

These basic and emotionally charged qualities, driven by rhythm and various traditional musical elements, do not form the sole parameters of the arts of sound.  Without intellectual and spiritual energy, expressed in ways perceptive of their natures, what is commonly considered music loses meaning, interest, and value.

Potential Unknowns

The senses and imagination strike together to ignite vision.

Reason balances the process, but the creative act is one of intuition, that is to say, faith.