Atmospheres in Transformation

Stillness, birds and insects in sun and heat, distant train, then wind stirring, brief showers, and the sounds of wildlife, children playing, and motor traffic.

Sound events like these form a basis for compositions and arrangements that reflect metaphoric and symbolic musical gesture, but remain for the most part in opposition to what is generally understood to be music.

Yet it is simple to understand, and its beauty speaks for itself.

Sensory Environs

Consider sound designs as stylized representations of reality, particularly the reality of the movement of consciousness and perception through the various atmospheres and events of the day.

The scattering of aural events might then serve as one model for sound composition, as variations of the emergence, clustering, and dispersal of diverse sonic forms could provide structure for others.

Participation

Auditory imagery moves freely in all environments, but may also be framed in perspective.

In composition and production, a balance must be struck; to do more is interference, to do less diminishes experience.

As It Is, Infinite

Culture is not burdened by the stilted and the linear, nor is modern perception averse to nonlinear forms.

Absurdly, obsolete models remain the norm, particularly in the arts of sound. The musical formulas remain static, serving as little more than a vehicle for stale, nineteenth century aims: essentially, to épater le bourgeois.

Like the listener, the modern composer is interested in utterly different effects, sounds, ideas, and imaginative visions.

Temporal Slip

In the archetypal setting, the sense of linear time is abandoned.

One does not escape the bonds of time and space, but may nonetheless perceive them with detachment.

This is one among many perspectives I intend to share as composer of these works.

Distillation

Human perspective is constantly renewed by exploration and vigorous, elevated thought.

Nor should sound arts be burdened by narrow interpretations and diminished limits that grow ever more inadequate to the range of popular imagination.

Promoveo, promovi, promotum.

Sound and Subtext

Diverse listeners gravitate to myriad sounds, particularly those of preferred genres of music.

These musical forms are predominately defined by rhythm, beat, melody and harmony.  Their effects are such that they may take ascendancy over consciousness, induce physical movements, reinforce sensibilities and attitudes, convey emotional states, and influence thought and imagination as well as provide diversion and entertainment.

I am interested in creating sound works that make no demands upon the listener and evoke entirely different phenomena altogether.

To Observe, Listen, and Hear

The listener will be cognizant of sounds, or enveloped by them unaware of their influences.

This is a legacy of recorded sound.  Within individual memory, illusions of music, voices, or vagrant rhythms circulate repeatedly in forms absorbed or impressed upon the listener.  Even as recently as the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries such a condition would have been considered as a rarity, if not an aberration, in terms of a sound state of consciousness.

As a composer I am interested in designing sound works that enhance listening pleasure yet produce entirely different effects, releasing the attention and, consequently, heightening lucidity of thought as well as expanding perceptual awareness.

Space of Being

Think.

Certain environments are conducive to creativity, contemplation, and development of inspired ideas.  If this is desirable, one acts accordingly, gravitating to such atmospheres and bringing one's immediate surroundings into accord with those elements that enrich them.

From my perspective as a composer, this is the art of sound as well as my purpose in bringing works of this nature into realization.

Sound Composition as Aural Vortex

Sound is naturally perceived as a complex of surrounding auditory events.

Even though one may be inculcated by experience to understanding music as linear movement of manipulated sounds through time, the listener may easily find non-linear, avant-garde yet artistic, sonic atmospheres aesthetically pleasing.

The phenomenon of hearing itself  implies the recognition of sound events in this manner, requiring no special preparation, esoteric perspective or attitude to enjoy the experience of listening to works of such character.

Wake, Art, and Artifice

Sound phenomena are fleeting, their motion through consciousness evoking a broad spectrum of persistent impressions.

Composition of sound designs to produce such effects contrasts with that of musical works crafted to be imprinted in memory, being created to reflect environmental events rather than directly engage the listener with variations of predictable patterns.

Each expresses perspectives; one reflects creation, the other, movement in time.

Transmutation

Convert the visual to the auditory.

Unify the perceptions, emotions, and intellectual impressions and express them in sound.

Influence and Release

The composer comes to terms with art by the degree to which control is desired and expressed.

It is a choice that determines the extent to which the total effect will reflect both the action of the creative ego and the force and virtue of the work itself.

Tracing the Arc of Sonic Ideas

Listen, hear, think, create.

Engage conscious awareness of both active and passive auditory perception.  Consider the totality of sounds, music, noises, and atmospheric effects that form the palette of impressions.

Arrange the composition plainly and directly, avoiding interference in the development and formation of the whole, and experience its intrinsic beauty as it unfolds.

Sense and Technology

Perception informs imagination; technology extends expression.

When expression contributes to the expansion of consciousness, clarity of light reaches the eye and sound is realized in the inner ear.  Consequently, perspectives are heightened, rather than constricted as they are by representations of the mediocre and the mundane, artful though they may be.

Mirror to Nature

The sounds of the phenomena of reality reflect a greater order than those corresponding to the structures of music.

The artistic vision and the inner ear of the composer perceive within the limits of individual consciousness, but only by choice within the confines of expectation.

Sequence, Continuum

As a composer, I view each work and recording as an element in a single process.

These are atmospheres in succession, as over the course of seasons, progressing in gradual and subtle flux.

Aural Gesture and Meaning

Perception seeks expression.

The process of bringing sound designs into being is a movement from mental image to total effect.

Sound and Sense of the Real

Sound and visual media offer not only representations of reality, but illusions that are anathema to lucid perceptions of life in the world as it exists.

This is a matter of conscious choice, one of perceptivity, sensibility, and creativity.

Transitioning

There comes a point at which the things of the past appear far removed from the moment now.

But these are the impermanent things, for the most part, and they seem alien to the present just as such things that now represent the chaff of culture will appear in the future.

The way of integrity and timelessness is the way of the artist.

Imagining Sounds

The visual artist envisions objects and ideas.

Sounds emerge spontaneously in dreams; the listener, and particularly the composer, may cultivate these perceptual phenomena by reflection, contemplative examination, and experience in listening and hearing.

In such ways the reach of the inner ear expands, and with it, perceptual consciousness.

Beyond Echo and Imprint

Imitation with variation is intrinsic to genre music, and the reconfiguration of common elements is a standard practice.  This is not because of lack of skill or imagination, but out of  a sense of stylistic conformity.

Ultimately, this continuing reworking of what some call "classic" elements diminishes their impact and their predictability becomes stale and boring to the astute listener, who is receptive to change.

These are the listeners for whom artistic gesture in sound design and engaged aesthetic sensibility in perception and expression represent the modern, and the drawing of the future into the present.

Musicality

In cultural terms, music encompasses various preferred sounds and styles of social groups, but no definition of music is all-embracing.

Thus the term "ambimusica", suggesting ambiguity as well as ambience.

I am interested in sound compositions that evoke aesthetic beauty in ways that, more often than not, tend to defy categorization as music, and that are intended to bring into being effects in opposition to those the standard elements of music-- rhythm, melody, etc.-- produce in the listener.

These pieces create atmospheric surroundings, offer immersion rather than distraction, and create conditions for clarity of thought as opposed to dominating the attention.

Perhaps this may be called music, but the full experience in repeated listening may be somewhat different than expected.

Essence

Reality and life unfold through processes of change.

In the course of everyday experience, one may observe causes and effects, predictable patterns, and linear forms.  Yet it is also clear that events and cycles of a larger, more profoundly powerful and less comprehensible order are in continuous flux.

As a composer I seek ways to express those latter, mysterious forces, with their uncanny beauty and grace.

Idyllic Atmospheres

These compositions are designed first for their aesthetic beauty, and thus, listening pleasure.

Additionally these works are conceived, fabricated, organized and produced in ways that are intended to alter attitudes towards generic music, evoke different perceptions of listening and hearing, heighten the listener's acuity of aural perceptivity, and create conditions for lucidity of thought while enhancing the physical environments in which they are played.

Sound and Thought Forms

Clarity of mind in agreement with a tranquil environment promotes reason, intuitive thinking, and perceptive states of being.

In composing to create ambient atmospheres, the desired effect is to set aural conditions for ideas, feelings and sounds to coalesce into contemplative experience.

Prescience, Magical Thinking, and The Uncanny

Prescience can be considered to be a form of predictive analysis, or a kind of forward thinking or insight into the future, just as it is generally viewed as prophetic intuition of a supernatural origin.

On the other hand magical thinking presupposes interference with cause and effect, being associated with concepts of sympathetic magic and superstition, and is clearly opposed to rational explanation.

Finally, the uncanny, as applied to what Freud called "the aesthetic qualities of feeling", describes an effect which is simultaneously intimately familiar and excessively strange.

The full title of the new 74 minute ambient track is intended to reflect the mingling of each of these qualities of human perception, illusion, and artistic perspective.

Black Mountain School: Prescience

Prescience will be released on CD August 12th.  This is the "Producer's Edition" studio audio format.  It is available for pre-order at Amazon.com as listed at the link below.

The MP3 version is tentatively scheduled within the next ten days and will retail as a single 74 minute track for 99 cents.

Aural Apprehension

Hearing is continuous; listening implies intensified focus.

As both phenomena reflect natural perception of sounds, the listener and composer who approach atmospheric compositions and artistic sound designs accordingly will engage a broad spectrum of auditory impressions outside the range of genre music.

Merging, Unity, and Dispersal

Consider sound compositions and designs in which formlessness-- the formlessness of aural imagery as it occurs spontaneously in natural and social environments--  is a virtue.

Tones combine, coalesce, and produce effects as sounds blend and commingle, creating singular points of interest within the whole as it emerges and evolves.

Since the total experience of such a work is one that engages passive yet perceptive hearing as well as active or direct listening, one may be immersed in the sounds without their dominating one's full attention.

Boundary and Frontier

Across cultures, music is generally defined by social norms, models and uses.

Curiosity alone naturally leads one beyond narrow cultural limits, and even to the point of questioning and considering other approaches to music outside the common fundamentals.

Once brought to mind, concepts will ultimately be brought into being; this is the reality of visual and sonic arts.

Shift

Beat, rhythm, melody, harmony and pattern combine to attract and focus the attention of the listener.

The nature of what is called "music" and what is not is limited by a number of factors, most notably cultural conditioning and the expectations associated with the commonly accepted elements and functions of sound compositions.

As a composer, I am not interested in dominating consciousness, but in liberating it, with works designed to create conditions for lucid, unimpeded thought, and further, that do not contribute to internalized distractions.

Process, Power, Perception

From concept to final expression, artistic efforts assert force.

To artist and composer, it is a force of obligation in the act of revealing facets of reality; to the viewer or listener, it is the potency of apprehending experience.

Creation

Sounds need not take on musical forms to be beautiful.

It is only necessary that they be brought together in ways that bring pleasure to the ear, and uplift the heart and mind.

Sway of Strange Beauty

Structure creates the familiar.

Formlessness implies the uncanny.  Like the situation in which one hears, but at first does not recognize, a song or musical work and is startled by its beauty and strangeness, one perceives simultaneously an intimacy and an unknown quality in a sound design that apparently moves unpredictably.

Formlessness, Emotion and Thought

Perception will adapt to form and create expectations accordingly.

In this manner consciousness may be dominated by anticipation of experience.  But sound may be designed against correspondence to form, thus releasing the attention and the will to feel and think freely.  One may experience such compositions and pursue other activities while simultaneously engaging the aesthetic sense and enhancing the surrounding atmosphere.

Lucid Hearing

Observe the ways sound patterns may be repeated or extended.

Repetition fixes attention on a single pattern; extension engages variation, leading to change and development suggestive of evolving movement.  The former lends itself to hypnotic effects, but offers little in the way of increasing significance, while the latter sustains interest by remaining, to various degrees, formless.

Life and Sound

As humanity and nature are interdependent, so are composer and listener.

Every historical period contributes sound and atmosphere to the moment now.  Every sound of the past is a sound of the future.

What listening reveals, the creative impulse expresses, in ever-expanding cycles.

Heightening

The senses, and consequently, consciousness, may be intensified by surrounding conditions.

Certainly situations fraught with hazard and risk impact and augment perception, yet those of quiet beauty and serene calm can equally awaken the faculties and elevate perceptivity above the dullness of routine.

Thus the composer's concern with the quality of aural atmospheres; the considerable effects of sonic environments upon state of mind and emotional well-being are of paramount importance and should not be underestimated.

Exploring Sound and Awareness

Listen actively, and be aware of the sounds and atmospheres of the day.

Become conscious of what is heard passively, that is to say, inattentively, as well.  Certain aural elements, for example, music, conversations, and environmental sounds will come into focus, and others will require effort to detect, if at all.  Yet each of these auditory perceptions contribute to the conditions of the environment and the state of one's consciousness in myriad ways.

Consider the implications for meaning, and being.  Here are found impressions, choices, creative challenges, and stimulation for the reasoning mind.

Conceptual Sound Design

Simply put, the aim of a work of transformation ambient music is to develop and sustain expressive sound imagery.

Compositions of this type are not programmed; the composer takes an active but subtle role involving choice and manipulation in generating and combining the various elements that make up a work.

From my perspective, this means the artist disappears in the atmospheres created.

Aural Illumination

Qualities of tone and atmospheric sounds are often accurately described as being light and dark.

Metaphoric representations such as these are based not only upon perception, but also on emotional and intellectual connotation. Accordingly, the composer chooses tones and the materials of the sonic palette based upon the ways in which they may be juxtaposed and developed to create the desired total effect.

Ultimately, beauty may be discovered in both the shadowed and the luminous.

Scale and Force, Flash and Thunder

Aural patterns occur in diverse environments in unique ways.

Patterns associated with bird calls or construction sites may be of relatively short duration; others, such as cyclical, seasonal sound phenomena exist over greatly extended periods.

In composition, aim for colors, tones, and combinations that reflect and express the synergy of these conditions in ways that capture the fullness of their aesthetic powers.

Surrounding World

Depth of attention is difficult, but revealing of beauty.

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

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

Force of Suggestion

Light and vibration evoke sight and sound.

Mind and feeling capture state of being through the artistic medium, and the way of perception is the way of art.

Against Certainty

Indoors or outside, the listener moves through sounds of activity.

The observant composer will note the manner in which these sounds combine, evolve, and stimulate aesthetic interest.  Every movement brings perception of variety and diversity; beyond the composer's touch, no sound design developed accordingly will resemble another.

Sound Decoration

Art is expression; it is functional in ways that are of aesthetic, social, and cultural value, while at the same time it may also be simple, pleasant, and superficially attractive and undemanding.

Given deeper thought, it may be of great value to the individual, becoming so to many.  Beauty is not to be feared or held in contempt; the artist may embrace as well as transcend.

Range, Horizon

Every recording in existence is potentially within access.

The listener's knowledge and perception, being effectively without limits, depend upon well-reasoned discernment in approaching musical experience.  It is with this understanding that the composer is impelled by the historical forces of music and sound art, yet does not follow.

Clearing Fog

The superficial and sensational govern irrationality, and this is nothing new.

Yet as open and perceptive thought transcends the pointless and mundane, so listening awareness becomes more acute and attuned to sounds of a different order; boredom with naive, rude clamors yields to curiosity regarding subtlety, diversity of experience, and refinement of the inner ear.

Control Environments

Every element of culture and society competes for collective attention.

Consider what is to be gained by dominating consciousness, emotion, and the cognitive processes. Still, one may choose a personal perspective, making those efforts necessary to reveal degrees of objective truth, rather than blindly accepting the given.

My views on art are shaped accordingly, with the atmospheric works I compose being conducive to contemplative surroundings and clarity of thought.