Sonic Artifice

Brightness, shade, temperature, and other atmospheric conditions have their equivalents in sound.

Surfaces dappled with sunlight suggest different tones than those in bright light or deep shadow. Textures and colors bring to the mind and inner ear diverse auditory images, as do gestures and movements.  

Instrumentation and composition cannot replicate these perceptions with exactitude, but may imply the sounds of their reality.

Resurgam

Originality is an imposition of will athwart the mundane.

The artist is the individual who will not be subsumed into mediocrity and mere chaos.

Every stroke of pen or brush, every release of note and tone, sound and pattern, is an existential act.

Sounds of Future History

Listen forward.

Predictive analysis always suggests combinations of the real and the potential, out of the deepest possible past and through the broadest present awareness.

Listener and composer lift wind through reeds to the Anemoi, and upward to the spaces between the stars.

The Angel Passing Through

In the sudden silences, the inner ear acclimates to surroundings.

For listener and composer, this is simply the continuum of aural imagery and the moment now.

Aural and Sensory Clarity

In large measure, external motivation fuels attention, narrowing perception and focus to objects of immediate desire.

This concentration on the appetites, essentially limitless in nature, diminishes awareness, being, and meaning. A deficit of moral reason will not be replaced by the transient and temporal, nor will these supplant vision.

Begin by taking notice of the surroundings, giving consideration to those elements of the outer and inner worlds that are disregarded; as directly as possible, perceive without subjective distraction, and contemplate experience and atmosphere with the mind's eye and the inner ear.  See, hear, and listen in such ways as heighten awareness and consciousness across the sensory spectrum, refining and bringing lucidity to feeling and thought.

The way of the artist demands intention, force, and balance.

Shaping, Restraining, Releasing

Sound and vision cohere in art through systematic approaches.  Even so, spontaneity, improvisation, and experimentation are critical elements to original concepts.

The nature of atmospheric sound composition includes selective input, shading and juxtaposition of tones, and flexibility in ordering processes and arrangements; the extemporaneous and unexpected bring vivacity to these methods and applications.

Ultima Thule

The sounds of urban environments tend toward the metallic, electronic, strident, pale, and brightly reflective.  Street, shop window, old brick and new concrete, restaurant, business, hiss of elevators, radio night air traffic.

Suburbs bring voices, automobile society, games, radio and television, air conditioning thrum, floor plan, patio, murmuring landscapes constructed for pleasure and altered by weather conditions.

Rural sounds flow with wind, wood, water, and wildlife.  But there is asphalt, railroad, shopping center, institution, home and garden.  And, like the cities and their environs, the sounds of cultural order and disorder-- intellectual and emotional, physical and spiritual, social and personal.

But even yet there are sounds at a distance to all human contact, beyond society, media, and culture --unimagined geographies, uncanny and otherworldly.  The real challenge is to perceive, discover and bring these atmospheres into being.

Potential Musics

Everything related to aural perception may be considered music.

By engaging perception and approaching expectation in diverse ways, listening for pleasure--  and information-- expands and becomes more acute.  Imagine extravagantly; hear symphonic works and concertos developing through the composition of atmospheres.

Shifting Forms

Impressions of formlessness, though briefly perceived, reflect the intrinsic beauty of nature and the mind's eye of imagination.

Apply the concepts of art to sound constructions, and strictures are loosened; predictability is not as important as process and aesthetic effect.

Input, Output

Apply one set of ideas to another concept.  Sustain this pattern of thought and action.

Representations form according to a different order of thought, perception and meaning.

Art moves according to historical forces, but does not follow.

Appearance, Impression, Interpretation

Auditory sensations, with the responses of the mind and emotions, yield meanings.

Listener and composer realize, reflect, and transmit these meanings, in personal and cultural terms.

Contemplative Ear and Spirit

Move outside the current, rather than with or against it.

Music is considered mostly in terms of active listening, although some music is designed for passive awareness, as background music, or "aural wallpaper".

When neither perspective applies, both happen, by the composer's intent.  For the listener, this may bring about changes in perception, and consciousness, enhancing ways of listening and hearing.

Essential Order

Avoid the extraneous; if a sound does not contribute to the total effect of the work, eliminate it.

When a composer establishes limits, the tendency to be limited by ideas and events outside the composer's range of experience and influence can be mitigated.  This is of peculiar moment when assessing the considerable impact of a superabundance of information and continual technological progress on the development of a body of work.

Shock of the Real

Aesthetic richness is measured by simplicity as easily as extravagance.

In a state of lucidity one perceives directly, unfiltered and unadulterated by cognizance of self and culture.

Transformation Design

Developing electronic music through generative processes alone places the composer at a distance from sonic events and their final forms, often resulting in works of serene and highly nuanced beauty.

Transformation designs are the result of direct and indirect involvement on the composer's part; the object is to create conditions in which sound structures evolve while directing that development in such ways as enhance the total aesthetic effect of the work.

Echos, Reflections, Waves

Learn, perceive, think, and contemplate.  Action emerges.

In painting with sound, as it were, tones are mixed and set in motion.  Among innumerable things, they blend, spread, coalesce, dissipate, develop patterns, move in and out of focus, fade, become darker or lighter, and take on the ultimate form composed with the artist throughout the dynamic processes.

Art as Sound as Art: The King Krill

As discussed here in variable contexts, diverse sound elements may be presented in asymmetrical manner, designed in ways that defy anticipation.  The King Krill is a recording by Diode and Rick Holland that synthesizes unique elements of poetry, vocals, percussion and electronica to create an experience of rare aesthetic beauty.  This is a work that draws the future into the moment now.

The King Krill, featuring I am Fya, Beth Rowley, Chris James, Onallee, and Andrew Plummer, as brought into being by producer Old Man Diode and poet Rick Holland

Listeners familiar with Drums Between The Bells and Panic Of Looking, Rick Holland's 2011 collaborations with Brian Eno, will note the distinctive qualities shared by those works and The King Krill in combining musical and poetic elements. Each approaches and explores sound settings for voices from various artistic perspectives that bring to life diverse atmospheres and moods, and all three reflect creative interaction and experimentation seasoned over the past decade. As a poet of critical imagination and integrity, Holland proves at ease with both the ethereal atmospherics of Eno's arrangements and the elastic sonic power Diode wields with energetic bravura.

Read more of my review of The King Krill at The Quietus.com:  http://thequietus.com/

MP3 Album of Old Man Diode and Rick Holland: The King Krill at Amazon.com:  The King Krill

Sounds of Shadows

Sensory perceptions conceal as well as reveal.

For the artist to render honestly, a degree of subjectivity may palliate or exaggerate the reality fixed as a representation of objective experience.  This individuality suggests personal and demonstrative perspectives brought into being in any medium.

The inner ear of the composer must have the free reign of the eye of the visual artist, and the balance of lucid imagination.  Clarity of style and execution reflects coherence of concept, most peculiarly in emphasis of the more subtle elements of sound.

Auditory Imagination

The sounds of experience may evoke the broad vistas or small corners of the world.

The aural events and atmospheres of these settings may be expressed by the composer in all manner of ways.  Microcosm and macrocosm may be still and serene, or seething with activity.

But there is an essence of vision that the listener and composer must share, one difficult to define yet glaring in its absence, that of integrity of expression.

Emergence, Depth, Presence

There are sounds that can be heard only within the inner ear.

Such sounds form the narratives of mystery and epiphany, of insight and the unknown.

Past the Future

There are distant sounds, given no thought today, unheard and as yet unimagined.

Some are present even now, crossing the gulf, yet going unnoticed in the passing of events.

Being, Listening, Hearing

Matters of taste reflect cultural conditions as well as individual discrimination.

The content of culture changes, as do the perceptions and processes by which culture is understood and engaged.  Simplistic and materialistic attitudes and philosophical and conceptual perspectives are always in opposition.  The contention between historical forces such as these is reflected in current events, concrete artifacts, artistic representations, music, and in the written transmission of culture.

The transient material world rises and falls, while the poetic forms remain universal.

Sound Perceptivity

Perceptual sensitivity to sound may be enhanced or degraded according to various internal and external conditions.

Granted the individual has particular expectations regarding sights and sounds, and these influence attention and focus, certain perceptions may go unnoticed if not for peculiarly receptive states of mind, that is to say, of the neurological system, and the processes of thought and emotion.

Such heightened awareness and lucidity may be stimulated by sounds, especially those designed to defy anticipation, emerge and expand without reference to temporal events, or otherwise engage one's consciousness in extramundane experience.

Aural Prescience

There are myriad shared musical environments, and among them are found widely diverse cultural variations.

As listeners, we may become conscious of being thoroughly conditioned to our familiar atmospheres, and, rejecting facile conformity to general values and expectations relative to sound and art, we may find our inner ear is more attuned to the sounds of futurity.

This attitude is shared with the composer, and is a matter of natural curiosity. To engage in predictive analysis about the ways sounds and sonic structures may evolve creates conditions for speculative music to engage the imagination, potentially to be realized in concrete forms.

Movement and Expansion

There is no "stasis" in aural imagery.

Vibratory waves extend and develop in perpetual transformation as they encounter others, to defy illusions and anticipations of linear, temporal movement.

Imprint Time Past

Early memory informs present impressions.

What begins as direct perception informs, in the moment now, as meaning.  In sound apprehension, this is hearing, and listening, as passive and active attention, respectively.

Of the Far Margins

Listen for sounds heard at the edges of consciousness.

At the extreme limits of perception sounds defy identification, suggesting possibilities.  Hear and reach for them; make these undefined aural images emerge in the compositions, and allow their evocation of the uncanny.

Stillness, Knowledge

At the core of sacred places is the sense of universal being.

Within and without may be heard the sounds of the soul.

Sound Works

The existential phenomena of nature and human character are originative and controlling forces.

The process of structuring dynamic combinations of sounds, tones, patterns and clusters designed, as are works of art, as reflective and representative of the influence of these universal and personal phenomena upon perception and temperament, is a continuing and challenging purpose.

As a composer, I consider auditory images as the peculiar elements through which meaning emerges and expands, in creating contemplative contexts through which meaning may evolve.

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.

Turn, Turn Again

Lose originality, and there is only repetition.

Lose innovation, and there remains only genre.

Exclude individuality and idiosyncrasy, and the artist is invisible.

But neither art, nor artist, will cease.

As Waves Intersect

In terms of sound imagery, a definition of music is unnecessary.  It is beside the point.

Vibrations set in motion produce others, and interactions continue as other effects are produced.

Sound, Being, and Becoming

Sonic imagery alters perception and broadens perspective.

Where reality and the imagination intersect in sound, in the performance of a musical composition, tone poem, or other form of aural art, the listener may observe a sense of a continuum of temporal events, as opposed to a perpetual movement of linear time.

For this effect to manifest itself, the composer must not work according to expectations, nor against them, but outside possibilities of anticipation altogether.

Part and Whole

Every sound perceived within an environment produces effects.

Some will communicate significant, profound, or extraordinary impressions; some will suggest the uncanny, or the presence of something ineffable; many will not be noticed at all.  Listeners discern, and, as poets and composers, they manipulate.

Listen, and all things rise and descend.  Hear, and all things emerge and pass away.

Shapes of Aural Events

Physical reality is immersed in sounds.

Heightened perceptions of listening and hearing sense ideas of distances, placements in space, external forms, and such concepts as the aural imagery of shadows and colors.

As painting and drawing may render objective and imaginative events visible, put forth such forms in sounds.

Periphery of Music II

Set an emotional and intellectual paradigm for the understanding of music as an experience.

Turn from that understanding of music, toward an idea of no music, in contrast to something that can be called non-music; then consider sounds outside those common models or frameworks of music, with environmental aural imagery, tones and patterns serving as the the fundamentals for such sonic designs as they may be heard in diverse contexts.

Sever the significance of time, then place all these perspectives into simultaneous flux.

Sonic Archetypes

Sound motifs represent, through tonal quality and pattern, symbolic realities.

Ethereal heights, storms and floods, places hidden and abandoned, mystic waters, deserts and hills all have their representative sounds, and with them suggestions of stasis and movement.

Atmospheres embrace listening and surround perception, opening the mind's eye and the inner ear.

Universal Patterns

Where rhythm is not apparent, it will be found through expansion of understanding.

The moon turns the tides and its force is perceptible.

There are vast rhythms pulsing in the cosmos.  Draw these into awareness through representative musical sounds.

Connection, Control

Atmosphere, environment, perception, thought.  These are interrelated.

Some things are within the scope of a composer's or listener's will. Others can be imagined.

What sound may express may then be understood, and thus more possibilities, real and concrete or imagined and abstract, may be brought to light.

Drama and Ease

To perceive and to reflect embrace intensity and intimacy.

Things happen and are apprehended; as understood, perhaps reconsidered, perspectives emerge. The composer brings aural imagery to such perspectives, manipulates, juxtaposes, stylizes.

Feeling yields designs, tones, dances and dreams.  What is otherwise is merely music.

Reach, Again

To explore memory in its depths is to find perceptual impressions, thoughts, and feelings.

Sudden cold October wind, waving shadows against lights of home; cheer, misunderstandings, disillusionment; exiting a film into blinding daylight; view through strange windows; long gaze at distant boats, stars, mountains;  photographs, then direct experience of art, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, say, or an exhibition of works by Modigliani, Seurat, Warhol-- or unknowns.  Hospital sheets, flickering fluorescent lights, sidewalk bright with dusty chalk drawings, restaurant in early morning rain.

Sounds, smells, all the sensory impressions of street, school, job site, field, highway.  There. Within, find the notes and tones and aural imagery, the sonic impressions that sing life to the inner ear.

Detach

Time, a measurement of convenience, is not fixed and universal in perception.

The listener may be fully or partially engaged in a musical work or sound design, and still be completely immersed in experience.

So it is with the temporal world:  a moment, now, in motion, within the vastness of reality.

Sensing the Real

Sound creates a panorama of perception.

Listen.  Hear.  Images form, delineating environment and atmosphere.

Here one may recognize objects, distances, relative locations, and connections to feeling as well. More will be experienced.   Move within sound, as sound moves within consciousness.  By such means compositions may be envisioned and designed.

Mere pretension can neither conceive nor express the ineffable.  Awareness must extend beyond the ego to sense what any medium can-- and cannot-- represent.

View, Mood, Meaning

Every composition designed to be contemplative in nature calls up extraordinary circumstances.

Each day and hour evolves; each moment suggests time past and time future.  Both clarity and imperfection in art and consciousness speak to the reality of existence filtered through limits of awareness and understanding.   Sound is resonant energy, coming into the range of listening perception and moving beyond it.

Every life is singular in its being and effects; every sight and sound experienced from the vantage point of the moment now is unique beyond measure.  Impossible to capture, it may nonetheless be reflected in the arts.

Ideal and Real

Concept comes alive once exposed to actual application.

When real forces come into contact with ideas, both are altered, and released, to determine outcomes.

Given any number of possibilities, thought that merges with reality through sound as its artistic medium now responds to its own nature, and the will of the composer must assent.

Variables

Expansion also indicates the choice of limits.

 It is possible to take into account the addition of any number of elements, large or small, in such compositions as these.   Rhythms, percussive components, vocals, natural sounds and melodious harmonies might be developed according to these paradigms and be equally atmospheric as well as heightening to the listener's consciousness.

Ideas and energies contain the essence of their opposites, with measured limits giving rise to equilibrium.

Settings, Atmospheres, Elements

The aesthetic sense is reflected in the ways we conduct our lives.

It's absence signifies a dearth of self-knowledge; if too rarefied, a lack of humanity.  Between these extremes of taste and perception, the arts exert influence on the senses, intellect and emotions.

The artist in sound is a painter of color through vibrations, and an explorer in search of the truly beautiful.

Outside, Within-- Pop and Other

Experience is pattern, vibration, vision, sound, and being.

Exposure to diverse musical styles and environments yields receptivity to perspectives beyond those of one's more familiar settings, offering contrasts to both popular and refined sounds with the exotic and obscure, while also inviting comparisons.

There is always more to hear, more to stir curiosity, and more to know.

Audible Emanations

As the perception of music is released from emotional attachments and culturally standard patterns, the auditory faculties may tend to increase in acuity, and the sounds of one's surroundings grow more interesting.

Clear the mind of preconceptions, bring sounds into juxtaposition and balance, and allow for the emergence of compositions that move in all directions, ultimately into their meaningful forms.

Hearing Time Dissolve

Listening, like memory, is selective.

Losing significance, some memories dissipate in fading impressions while others return with force of meaning; similarly, atmospheric sounds of seemingly no import dim to apparent silence in the course of everyday activity, unless sudden changes in volume or tone bring them to the attention.

Observe these minor auditory images and they are suggestive of the uncanny realities of dreaming.