Emergence, Convergence, and Dispersal

Historically, music sounds nothing like auditory phenomena in the world at large.

Rather than seeking to express the personal, I compose and create by listening to the surroundings, considering the various aural impressions within, then finding and combining sounds that re-imagine, reflect, and represent the experience.

Plainness and Intricacy

Find nature, find being.  This is simplicity.

But this presupposes "nature" to be outside awareness. It is not. Such an idea is, like many, only a delusion of subjectivity. Birds and wildlife enter and cross the grounds; outside the pull of the Earth's gravity, one is weightless. The extent to which analysis has meaning is valuable, and beyond that, it is a pointless exercise, an obstacle to discernment.  To lose consciousness of one's true nature is a failure of rationality.

Eliminate the excessive; broaden the focus, extend the senses, and understanding follows.

The composer would do well to begin creative endeavors with this thought in mind: out of the simple evolves the complex, yet complexity expands into simplicity.  

Background, Being

Sounds, unceasing, go unheard.

Attention is fixed elsewhere in the scheme of the mundane, of work and play.

It is possible to know and hear the moment now in the surroundings, to sense with the inner ear the totality of experience, and to realize more aural beauty, in the imagination, than the sounds of music alone evoke.

Formless Change

What will be, is not now.

Putting aside the common ideas of music, think of sounds composed like a pool of water, clear and beautiful, but indistinct; still, yet contained in a flow impossible to fully grasp, measure, or capture.

Sonic Fields

Begin with the idea of creating something other than music using aesthetically complementary sounds.

Reproduce sounds as they occur spontaneously in human environments as well as in natural ones. Treat the studio as an instrument in developing and manipulating sound elements and aural effects.

Set aside musical ideas in favor of gesture, collage, layering, and striking placement of tones and lines. Consider any and all possibilities in growing the composition.  Contemplate and evaluate the total effect until, with alterations, additions, eliminations of fault and failure, and realization of integrity of expression, the work is finished.

Energies

All things are in constant motion.

Out of stillness comes action, and each produces effects on the other.  This is a fundamental dynamic of sound, however subtle or wide-ranging, whether spontaneous and natural or contrived.

Centering Surroundings

Sounds are perceived, identified, located, and separated in the perceptual process.

Listening actively makes these distinctions clear, yet they take place just the same in the course of passive hearing.  One will note the unusual, ignoring the rest, and still be conscious of the quality of the atmosphere.

In approaching ambient sound design, I am interested in composing with these perceptual processes in mind as well as in the juxtaposition of complementary tones, lines, and so forth, giving attention to the sensations produced by sounds as well as their musicality.  While atypical of the ambient style in general, such methods contribute to originality of total effect in Black Mountain School works, making them distinctively different in sound and nature from those of other stylists.

Immersion

Aesthetically appealing sounds are considered musical as distinguished from noise and other sounds that impact negatively upon the sensibilities.

Thus there is virtue in moderation and balance in developing sound works that emphasize sustained effects. When subtlety of sound and expression is abundant, perception is enhanced and the listener becomes more thoroughly involved in the experience.

Certainly these are desirable outcomes, and particularly so with works of an experimental or avant-garde nature that aim to communicate in ways that are out of the ordinary.

Widening

Huxley concluded that the brain is a filter, one that spares consciousness the shock of perceiving all things simultaneously.

Thus the creative object of the composer is to assemble the elements most attractive to the listener's receptive awareness in such a way as to extend both active listening and passive hearing. As this is the way one perceives sound outside the framework of music, so it may be a different way to bring a composition to fullness in the listener's inner ear.

Shifting

Sounds are perceived, in their continuous manifestations, according to the nature of the listener.

But sounds may alter perceptions, mood, and consciousness. Blazes become glowing coals, winds rise and die down, to stir again, and arrival moves gradually toward departure.

So it is with the composition of sounds and tones that are not shaped into music, but into forms that reflect perceptions of the surrounding world.

Aesthetic, Function, Meaning

Art acts upon the senses, emotions, and mind.

Inspired by music, the dancer moves, while mood and thought follow.  Yet as art inspires, so the composer and listener explore and discover.

Territories of Imagination

Memory, association, feeling and thought are stirred by musical tones and structures.

The composer produces the atmosphere; the listener envisions and moves through the landscape.

Impression and Force

The arts always stand firm in the face of banality.  The contrast between the two is clear and real.

Distraction does not elevate; diversion does not last.  Meaning and beauty always endure, regardless of time, place, and medium.

Circumference, Expanse

Awareness of limits contributes to the efficacy of processes, including those involved in musical composition.

To oppose, overcome, deconstruct, or disregard limits is not the same as conceptualizing different limits altogether, and acting accordingly.

Contexts and Contents

Convert impressions of environmental sound elements into elements of composition.

Every setting is different and produces unique effects.  The sonic events produced in diverse settings, and those produced in the same settings on different occasions, offer practically infinite impressions that may contribute to any number of atmospheric compositions.

Deep Distances

Composition with sound can often be an exploration carried forward by forces of memory.

To "paint" with tones, lines, and placement of sounds evokes impressions that can be traced to their origins and projected toward unknown outcomes, neither to necessarily fail nor thrive, but to collapse or expand, supported not by rhythm, melody, harmony or meter, but by the impetus of vibrations and combinations that extend and diversify as they develop.

Spaces and Sources

Self-expression is many times of secondary importance in the arts.

Fundamentally, it is the communication of reality that, for some, demands representation. There is no room for the personal, or the spirit of the times, or critical debate.

The ideas and emotional perspective of the artist must be subsumed into the totality of the work.

Spectrum of Echoes

Events leave impressions.

These images of imagination, experiences, and sounds form the composer's palette.

Total Effect

Experience time present in the sounds of the surroundings.

While the sounds of such atmospheric events are not typically considered musical, they may be given form in artistic and aesthetically pleasing ways that anyone may enjoy.

The goals of these compositions are to enhance contemplative thought, lucid mental images, concentration, and composed reflections upon feelings.

Axis, Whorl, Atmosphere

The listener is at the center.

The spectacle is staged:  lights and visuals of every kind intensify the sound performance.  Like video, it exists for the eyes, not the ears, yet it completes the circuit of attention, as do sound designs for films that augment action and emotional scenarios with fitting music and effects.

Outside the spectacle, the listener is free to do other things and to move about, engaging in both passive hearing as well as active listening: auditory perceptions are altered accordingly by these movements.  Musical ambience may be composed and recorded for such contexts, to be enjoyed and engaged in such a manner.

Fullness of experience is far greater than anything mere spectacle can provide.

Close, Distant, Indeterminate

Musical variety exists within a frame of reference generally defined by cultural and personal taste.

Move past those boundaries and beyond their time and place altogether.  Listen for the beautiful, determine what makes it so, and create ways to bring it into being.

Engagement, Structured and Non-linear

Consider the shapes and intensities of sound waves along with the position of the percipient within the sonic field.

The perceptions of the stationary listener differ from those of the mobile one, for whom the totality of the listening experience undergoes change with movement.

The majority of musical performances and recordings are designed in terms of arrangements of direct, focused listening, including the free-flowing area of the dance floor.

Consider, conversely, recordings designed for the mobile listener, and sound performances structured for the mobility of both listeners and sound sources.

Sounds, Presences

Day to day reality presents the listener and observer with a practically infinite number of sound events, yet most of them go unnoticed.

These are raw materials, from which beauty and meaning can be seized and expressed through stylized, artistic forms, reflecting the ways they occur and are perceived in natural and cultural environments.

Art Music

Definitions are indifferent things.

Experience of art is its meaning.

The Specious and the Authentic

Immured in the conventional, the sensational, the effortless and the obvious, one may fail to discern the bold as well as the sublime.

It is a grievous error to mistake ideology for education and wisdom.  Likewise, artistic representations may evoke perspectives of reality, but do not suspend facts.  One listens, one hears; yet perceptions are only as reliable as consciousness is unburdened by bias and cultural constraints.

As artist and observer, composer and listener engage, so do they imagine, reflecting the rise and fall of all things.

Permeation

A sealed system inevitably decays.

Narrow the idea of music to variation within stylistic boundaries and there is no growth or change.

Expand, then, all aesthetically pleasing sounds onto the sonic canvas, unburdened by expectations.

Media, Perception, Existence

Representations of experience and experiential reality engage listener and observer.

One may contemplate and interact, but even so, both ways of engagement suggest transcendence.

There is always the possibility of experiencing, and communicating, what is not yet seen, or heard, or known.

Thought, Action, Direction, Reality

Simply put, what lies beyond the horizon comes to light in the imagination.

Erase distinctions between intellectual, artistic, and social perspectives in ways that set the tone for individual creativity in the cultural times to come.

One may quickly comprehend possibilities for the good that are real, but as yet unseen, and act upon their inspiration with courage and confidence.

Listen Forward

Imagination foresees.

Within the territory of the mind's eye, listen as well, and hear with the inner ear.

Perspective, Mirror, Impression

Consider sounds as they occur naturally, without manipulation or interference.

What is perceived as aesthetic beauty in such conditions may be renewed and expressed in artistic contexts. As stylized reflections of sound unburdened by musical connotations, such works, by their presence and effects, possess unique and subtle charms, bidding the artist to disappear and to allow the listening experience to unfold.

A Walk at Twilight

Sounds may express the gamut of human emotions, but they can express more.

Tones, lines, and juxtapositions of sonic elements are capable of suggesting metaphoric experiences of events, objects, actions and ideas.  It is possible to evoke the spiritual and the uncanny, as well as the temporal and mundane.

Effects and Reflections

Social environments engage ideas and actions according to multiple dynamics of communication.

One who gains insights into the arts becomes aware of the impact of culture upon the individual and collective consciousness; this fortifies discernment of the value, meaning, and intent behind cultural phenomena, and contributes to conscious cultivation of the personal sensibilities.

For listener and composer, this means mutual engagement of sound and imagination, unburdened by false or contrived appearances of style and manners.

Underlying Reality

Patterns and elements associated with common musical forms vary over time, but change little.

Constant sounds of change, conversely, are found throughout human and natural environments.

Let this model be reflected in aural design and composition, and auditory perception changes accordingly.

Hearing the Distant

Change, never ceasing, is a mechanism of survival.

Sounds across cultures, in the moment now, move toward wider, deeper expressions.

This is the inevitable consequence of their dynamic nature, and cannot be held in check by human desire for certainty.

Objects and Expressions

Combine images so as to suggest juxtapositions of sounds.

Take any combination of sounds and extend the forms suggested into aesthetic aural events of sustained beauty.  This is an invitation to elevated, contemplative states of mind, colored with a sense of mystery.

Cultural Flux

Change is continuous, with ideas and their associated activities intersecting myriad others at all times and places.

Thus, in artistic efforts, it is wise to apprehend the realities of opportunity and potential in expression.

Works will be, to some extent, grounded in contemporary settings while also possessing timeless qualities. Their meanings will be accessible according to the cultural receptivity, or lack thereof, for artistic representations reflecting the values of the one or the other.

The only real choice, always, is that of integrity and authenticity of gesture; anything else is nothing more than a selection between false appearances.

Living, Listening

Sound surrounds you now.

There is no silence; only listen, and hear.  Out of perception, bring forth expression.

Some, But Not All

From time to time the arts must endure a collectivist mentality.

But this is nothing more than a consequence of expanding horizons, a situation that lends itself to the consolidation of power among social, academic, and political groups bound by common interests and attitudes, but lacking, in their numbers, the virtues of individuality.

Predictably, such a way of thinking engenders a dull, insular advocacy of mediocrity with an utterly entrenched resistance to the distinctive and imaginative.

Some artists, musicians, theorists, and composers, enjoined to conformity, will succumb to cultural orientations of this nature.  For the rest, to do so is out of the realm of possibilities; it is the work that is of paramount importance.

Point Counterpoint

As this or that, I think thus and such.

Thoughts come and go, perspectives alter, notes serve their purposes as tools and reflections.

But meaning is found in the work.

Artificially Yours

Between the representation and the real lie perceptions and ideas.

Expression challenges and reflects the depth, or lack thereof, of individual experience.

Simply put, one should offer no barriers to the enjoyment of apprehension and understanding.

Sounds, Illuminated

As a medium of artistic expression, sound may be shaped in forms other than those generally recognized in terms of music, which depend, for the most part, upon elements such as rhythm, melody, and tempo.

Musicianship is expressed creatively through such things as disciplined virtuosity, instrumental eloquence, and conveyance of emotional feelings.  It is an entirely different artistic expression to manipulate media of any kind to peculiar effect.

The sound composer may choose to operate accordingly, engaging instead, as I do, concepts and gestures, regarding ideas, events, and settings in terms of transmuting perceptions into works of aural imagery.  It is a matter, simply enough, of asking and contemplating what sounds may be suggested by diverse experiences and bringing them into being.

Consciousness and self-knowledge governed by rational thought and intuitive perceptivity clearly, demonstrably, elevate the human condition far beyond that of mindless impulse and base instinct.

This is true in every aspect of life, and remains true in the arts.

Connectivity

Clarity elevates and obscurity provokes curiosity.

Each enables the contemplation of mystery, and inspiration to imagination and action.

Lucidity, Comprehension

What is commonly called "order" contributes to predictability and routine, but order has diverse forms, not all of them strictly concerned with organization.

Certain forms of order reflect juxtapositions of the simple and the complex.  Some involve greater, more expansive schemes of perception and understanding, such as the rise and fall of things, for instance, or awareness of processes in the way of, say, emergence, convergence, and dispersal. Others are discernible as guides to movement, or to the direction of attention to specific objects or ideas.

In such ways do the arts, and particularly those involving music and sound, realize concepts of order, in clear contrast to disorder and pointless chaos.

Attention to Sound and Mind

Just as there is a difference between looking and seeing, so it is with hearing and listening.

These are matters of interest and engagement, both passive and active, direct and indirect. 

In the normal context of continual activity and distraction there is little time for deep thought, clear articulation, and lucidity of perception.  But one must make time; these are essential to being and becoming, and thus to dynamic consciousness and living.  

My compositions are designed to enhance an hour and more for contemplative listening, reflecting this fundamental attitude.

Prescience, Magical Thinking, and The Uncanny (Excerpt)

Sonic Sensibility

Wide-ranging experience lends itself to diversity in taste and the capacity for dynamic action.

Such is the nature of curiosity itself and the impulse to go beyond the "given" often established in the artistic temperament.  There is no denying this perspective has its origins in romantic subjectivity and the idea that it might be possible to order one's work according to a vision of an ideal world or life of adventure, to allow for typical examples.

But the way of the artist can often demand equipoise in gesture, a balance of forces without which expression is incomplete. For the composer, this requires leavening the passions with the clarity of reason and bringing sounds into accord with one another, particularly in the evolution of efforts to transcend customary aesthetic and musical models.

Art and Atmosphere, Sound and View

Place perception in context.

Now the composer and listener, artist and observer, given diversity of experience, may discern unique perspective as percipients.  If engaged, intellect, emotion, or the spiritual may dominate, or they may balance together.

Each point of view, initially defined by natural differences, gains a degree of unity and a sense of meaning, established by setting and circumstances.

Artifice, Vérité, Being

All representations of reality are artificial in nature, whether they express concrete objects or abstractions.

What the art reveals may be fact or fancy; one may be artfully disguised as the other.

To be deceived by a false perception of idea or event is utterly different from being briefly fooled by a recorded sound or the effect of a trompe l'oeil illusion. The latter are simply auditory and visual; the former may prove to contain the genesis of fatal errors in judgement.

For the composer, it is the difference between glamorizing the base, absurd, or benighted, and imparting the essence of the real.

Edge and Area

To realize the essence of a thing may require gradual and incremental observation and investigation; the expression of that essence demands a perspective that reveals its reality and meaning.

Often what is called the avant-garde in art is brought into being as a demonstration of possibilities, its purpose being to convey a sense of conceptual potentials that may be inarticulate and undeveloped fully, yet nonetheless indicate areas of interest that may be explored, analyzed, and refined.

Such initial expressions, on the surface, may have the appearance of mere absurdity.  Certainly there are many examples of  "sound art" that fit this description, especially in areas devoted to academic experimentation.

Aesthetic sound art, similarly, exists in opposition to "mainstream" forms, yet has, in contrast, aims centered upon elevated expression of the imaginative and meaningful through aural media.

Sonic Shadow and Light

Perceive, remember, experience, evaluate, and conceive beyond superficial sensation to distinguish appearance from reality.

Thus the artist and composer, observer, participant, and listener may engage any representation so conceived and produced as one that reveals, not only itself as an artistic form, but aesthetic truth in terms of the reality represented.

Peculiarity

When media frames perception in terms of a collective "we", the implication is that perspective is shared, when, in fact, it is given.

Such perspectives are anathema to the arts, cloaked as they are in affected intimacy while advancing the complacent attitudes of shallow authority.

In clear contrast, the way of the artist is the arduous one of singularity in outlook and expression, a viewpoint shaped by nature, temperament, intensity of experience, and dedication to imaginative beauty and meaning.