Transit

Absent reason and virtue, there is clamor.

In the rise and fall of things, storms subside and reality returns to its natural state. Upon reflection, listener and composer discern between conditions that are auspicious and those that foreshadow weakness, collapse, and loss.

Every creative work is a contribution to culture. Within the culture the work is embraced or rejected, yet the artist must be indifferent to this.  Advancement or decline will proceed in either case.  What is of moment is expression and perspective, from which the future will spring.

Tradition and the Modern

Creative impulse intersects with past expression in terms of universality and the permanent things.

These permanent things retain their vigor and value beyond temporal boundaries. They are the ideas and values reflecting self-evident good in all cultures, and while time may alter their expression over generations, it does not erase them.

Every work of every composer and artist reveals a raw measurement of what they know against the vastness of what they do not know.  In the fullness of time, things that cannot now be perceived will become manifest, yielding more to be imagined.

Placing Noise at a Distance

Choose to listen.

This apparently simple suggestion is fraught with absurd complexity and indecision, neither of which is worthy of comment.  Suffice it to say that one should refuse to allow oneself to be subjected to the meaningless and contemptible, making time instead for those things of aesthetic value that reflect the virtues of beauty and moral reason.

Revolt

Unequivocally, the arts propel culture.

Media and its delivery systems are mere conveyances.  It is content that imparts the richness of human experience, or paucity thereof.

The artist must strive for the heights of consciousness and refinement of vision, indifferent to success or failure, else, even in the prime of age, suffocate in a miasma of subjection to immediacy, the ever-present puerility of mediocrity.

Painting with Sound

The setting begins in a silent way.

But the canvas is never completely blank.  Experience and reason suggest mood; tone color forms, brightens and shades the atmosphere; patterns move within limits, as do sound perceptions altered by movement.  Aural events emerge, evolve, and disperse over the course of the work, one of aural imagery, emotion, and imagination, enhanced by the individuality of the composer's palette and the listener's state of mind.

Without Expectations

Bring perception of the uncanny into being.

Combine sounds and the settings each suggests-- beach arcade, distant desert, and the breeze down an antique hallway, for example.  Separately they are heard and known; yet together they mingle to evoke a sense of simultaneous strangeness and familiarity.

While the mundane, that is to say, the generic, is instantly recognized, that which is not easily grasped awakens a sense of awe, and with it, curiosity and questions.

The way of the artist is to move in such directions.

The Moment and the Contemplative

The inner ear captures meaning and aural perception, absorbing these as knowledge and memory.

Reflection yields creativity, in both art and life; it enlivens and elevates the sensibilities of listener and composer alike.

Works in Development

The processes of perception, sound, and art are a constant with the composer.

Every engagement with the work calls for refinement, and every moment of understanding requires patience, moral reason, intuition, and clarity of consciousness.  There is neither gain nor loss, only the expansion and persistence of change.

Elements and Principles

Random sounds or contrived, unstructured sounds are merely those things and nothing more.

Aesthetic sound composition need not be subject to the structures and generic forms of music, yet it becomes elevated by virtues found in the visual arts, which include balance, contrast, unity, and such subtle aural features as those of tone, color, line, movement, texture and direction.

Brought into being accordingly, the relationships established between diverse sounds, tones, and juxtapositions of aural imagery create atmospheric effects of great beauty and interest that neither standard musical stylings nor indiscriminate auditory gestures capture.

Air of the Day

Seize awareness of the surroundings, that is to say, take conscious notice of transition in movement and atmosphere in place.

Sidewalk, recreation hall, vacant lot, country road, dunes, riverside trail, apartment balcony, school campus, boat dock, high plains, old growth forest, shopping center, wildlife sanctuary- brimming with sounds.

Given musical form, representations of natural, spontaneous sound events may engage the ear in the manner that listening takes place in non-musical environments.

Motion Perspective

Movement through sonic space produces a wide range of perceptual effects.

Innumerable sounds collide and mix in combinations of distorted flux and bright clarity, whether the percipient, the auditory imagery, or both are in motion.

Compositions may be designed in such a way as to reflect these peculiar events, and production may enhance them, yet they are most pronounced in environments that are suited to activity. Whether set within astutely crafted art installations or well laid out living environments, open, fluid areas provide the most desirable situations for music made for heightened and immersive listening.

Gain, Not Loss

Release sounds from common structures.

Let them flow without consideration of tempo, beginning, middle, end.  At first the effect is strange, and understood, through cultural conditioning, within the narrow confines of disorder, or falling apart.

Yet with subtle framing and a minimum of interference on the part of the composer, these sound elements may evolve into forms and patterns of aesthetic beauty, and this points in the direction of the greater order of things.

Eccentricities

Look deeply in the places where others briefly glance.

Listen carefully for the sounds that go unnoticed in the course of things.

What is strange is the fascination with spectacle, absurdity, and the specious distractions that ensnare the imagination; what is real is direct experience, insight, and the flux of the timeless moment.

Mood, Idea, Emotion

Sounds direct the mood of the listener, sometimes directly and at other times unconsciously.

This direction of impression and reaction is clearly a primary role of sound in film and in other media. Such is the manipulation of sentiment.  Excitement, sadness, fear, rage, suspense, and so on may be generated by auditory and visual imagery, even when the result is existentially absurd.

To encourage emotional reaction rather than thoughtful response obviously devalues reason.  To do so through musical bombast and other means of over-saturation of the senses is common. These are the tools of propaganda and other forms of cultural influence and control.

I compose works in opposition to those that produce such effects, designed to balance and liberate feeling, being, and state of mind.

Mysticism, Science, and Art

Trace the arc of imagination forward, beginning in the remote, historic past and projecting into the distant future.

Sounds emerge out of thin air in delicate points of light; manipulated into juxtapositions that please the artist and listener, they expand, rise, contract and fall like soap bubbles from a child's toy, to collide, coalesce, disperse, and form again as new tones and patterns.

Imagination finds ways of expression through technology, and the latter inspires again the former.

Field, Impression, Expansion

While the eye is more attuned to such subtleties as shading and depth, the ear may become more acute with proficient, artful listening.

Yet the argument that there is no more time for such things follows.

Time must be made.

The alternative proposes casting aside heightened awareness and perceptivity, and with these, elevation of the mind and spirit.

Variables and Intensities

A wide range of experience exists between conscious listening and unconscious hearing.

Music, for the most part, is intended to dominate attention.  To the extent that this occurs, perceptual experience is reduced by varying degrees as listening awareness is concentrated on pulse and force.

Consider sound as an art form; rich auditory imagery is the primary element and focus of imaginative listening, and thus is given ascendancy over others.  The role of rhythm, percussion, melodic "hooks" and so forth is reduced or eliminated altogether, as it negates or contributes little to the total effect of atmospheric images in dynamic motion.

The result is not simply a different form of music, but becomes, in fact, a different way of listening.

Convergence III

Conceptually, there is no challenge and little of interest in the production of mere chaos.

Neither is disorder, whether simplistic or extravagant, unique or artistically consequential.

Aesthetic purpose and order contribute to depth of meaning and a desirable total effect in any artistic setting, and statements of absurdity and disarray are both plentiful and pointless.

It is the convergence of such essential elements as emotion and idea, concept and action, vision and renewal, that reflect creativity of a vigor and stamina that speaks to the elevation of both culture and the individual.

Sustained Equipoise

Contrast completes experience and establishes fundamental insights.

Thus these compositions developed around observations of naturally occurring atmospheres reflect, by degrees, the asymmetric representation of sounds "in the wild" and the balanced perspective of the composer's aesthetic vision and purpose- that of heightening awareness in ways that carry over into everyday consciousness.

Stray Impressions

Regardless of medium, the artist recognizes art as others do not.

Yet regardless of socioeconomic status or education, anyone may recognize work that approaches universality and the sublime.

Thought, Imagery, and The Real

Certainly, the processes of thought may interfere with experience, even contradict perceptions.

But idea must conform to reality; reality will not conform to it, nor will mere narratives that contravene the order of the real sustain themselves. No theory alone will translate noise into music, and the art of sound will be brought into being with aesthetic meaning and beauty, or it will not be.

Sound, Emotion, Attitude

Rhythm and melody attract and engage perception and concentration.

Rather, consider sounds that are combined in artistic forms of aural imagery that allow free reign of one's attention.

Unfettered from tempo and repetition, the listener may experience the music as part of the physical setting, one that is accommodating to a desirable state of mind.

Listening Consciousness

The perceptions of the ancients differ little from those of the modern day, if the writers and historians are to be believed.

Yet the moment now is filled with sounds, even to the point of being burdened by them. Composer and listener must distinguish between listening with intent and purpose and absorbing- or ignoring- sounds that are thrust upon them.

Transcending the Verbal

The observer, giving due consideration to the limits of expression through language, will recognize that tone communicates in ways both subtle and profound.

The poetic extends toward the philosophical; the philosophical, toward the ineffable. Tone quality in sound, in its capacity to convey those things that cannot be articulated in words, may approach the imaginative and the sublime through combinations of aural imagery impossible to attain otherwise.

Advance

What appears spontaneous comes about as the result of innumerable forces and conditions.

As a composer, I am interested in gesture defined by environment, that is to say, by emerging and expanding elements of tone and setting.  This is designed as a transformational process marked by an equilibrium of sustained, evolving aural imagery.

Any choices in performance or production that may modify and augment the total effect of the work are subjective in that they reflect aesthetic sensibilities, yet their implementation is determined solely by the auditory elements of the work itself.  Interference with the unfolding expression is incompatible with its outcome.

Metamorphosis

Changes in culture and changes in individual perception lead to the emergence of unexpected forms.

At first these forms are perceived as strange and unprecedented; then their origins become apparent as their effects are felt and their connections to sometimes obscure traditions become clear.

The composer acts according to the historical impulses at play in the world of outward, objective experience as well as those intimate and dynamic forces found within the seemingly infinite world heard and conceived in the inner ear of imagination.

Distances Emerge

Listening can provide a change of consciousness in ways similar to that of a journey or dream.

One leaves nothing behind, in any event, but perspectives may alter, and changes in tone, focus and perceptivity may bring about greater understanding and deeper, broader appreciation for what is real.

This is not escape, but immersion in equanimity and balance of reason and feeling.

Selective Hearing

Some will say, stepping outside the everyday boundaries of work and play, "But I hear nothing".

The listener harassed by a subjection to immediacy hears little more that what is thrust directly into perceptual awareness.  Even the value of music that should brighten perspective degrades in such conditions.

There is much pleasure, and elevation of moral reason, to be found and engaged in the sounds of stillness, once consciousness expands to listen, and hear with the inner ear- and there is much to inspire the composer and creative artist in rendering these sounds and atmospheres.

Clairaudience

Sound is always present, always perceptible.

Shaped and manipulated according to specific ideas and techniques, sounds become music.

Now listen to the sounds of the day in the course of moving from one place to another.

Imagine specific ideas and techniques for shaping and manipulating those sounds, with their unique combinations, patterns, and tonal qualities, to produce representations of atmospheric environments.

While retaining much of a musical nature, such compositions are more akin to works of art, with their various properties, than those created utilizing the elements and techniques of music.

Transience and Aesthetic Temperament

Among myriad attributes, art confronts mortality as witness to its reality.

The artist perceives and expresses, and these works are the experiences of a life seen, heard, and revealed.  There is much to do, much that can not be done, yet the way of the artist is to demand everything of oneself and very little otherwise.

Idea, Intuition, Sound, Vibration

Perceptions are limited; understanding is a subjective struggle with facts and appearances.

But every work of art corresponds, in fragments and imperfectly, to a greater design and vision.

Unknown Appearances

Hear what is not there.

Limited to expectations of listening experience, the imagination and perceptions constrict and stultify.

Discern, out of the ubiquitous familiar, those sounds that cannot be identified, remaining uncanny and out of reach. These are seeds of creative gesture, challenging artistic representation.

Environs II

In the course of the day, innumerable sounds and noises pass through consciousness.

Heard as musical constructs and given form in the imagination, such elements of aural imagery, if homely, fragmented, and for the most part unnoticed, nonetheless form an artist's palette of immense possibilities.

Opening Awareness

Varied sounds are suggestive of seasons, desirable surroundings, and serene settings or circumstances.

Still other tones and juxtapositions of aural patterns bring to mind the weathering of rocks, stillness of ocean expanses, movement of bone against muscle, and stranger, more subtle, vaguely unconscious perceptions or ideas.

To listen, and so to hear with the inner ear, is to explore and discover.

To Strive and to Revolt

Dare to do, and dare again and again.

No artist need apologize for the range and scope of individual vision and arduous work, nor tolerate ignorance in the act of bringing forth light.

Functioning

Design implies purpose.

The composer recognizes artistic work as having abstract and concrete value.  Such things as are evident in analysis and experience of sound productions- aesthetic pleasure and interest as well as suitability for the listening environment can serve here as examples- are of essential significance.

Yet beyond the beautiful and finely-rendered, from my perspective, the most desirable effects are those of illumination, equanimity, and elevation.

Narrative

Music is typically recognized in the form of arrangement of sounds over time.

Culturally, musical styles emerge and diminish in impact and influence upon the public imagination according to various aesthetic, historical, and social forces.

Setting aside this grasp of form and formula altogether, contemplate sounds as basic elements to be manipulated according to aspects of artistic composition such as balance, line, spatial relationships, tone color, patterns, juxtaposition of dynamic reference points, and so forth.  From this perspective, I work at variance with general musical methodology, developing aural atmospheres reflecting sounds as they occur and are perceived in natural surroundings as well as social environments.

Anomaly

Listening involves more than what is generously termed "appreciation of music".

Perceptual clarity in apprehension of tone color, texture, and grasp of meaningful aural gesture, while easily developed, are rarely challenged and elevated in the normal course of the listening experience.

Depth of listening awareness enlivens consciousness of these subtleties and develops the inner ear of imagination.  This is an inborn faculty, far too often dulled by constant exposure to the mediocre and mundane, through both trite performances and poor quality sound reproduction systems.

Everywhere

Every setting offers sequences of perceptions.

Every sequence is uniquely that of the percipient.

In terms of sound, music- including cinematic sound design- is typically arranged to attract and hold the attention while directing it through a series of auditory events.

The compositions under discussion here, as the listener may notice in sampling them, are arranged to reflect natural perceptual fields in which the percipient is afforded opportunities to direct personal attention at will within aesthetically pleasing aural environments.

Setting, Space, Movement, Being

Hear the world.

Thought moves through language, then beyond words, as sounds move beyond music.

Imaginings

Perceive directly.  Otherwise awareness will be distorted through the filters of media culture.

At minimum, consider the reasoning that informs the various narratives of cultural events.  Clearly, some perspectives are realistic, others predicated upon the emotional desire for particular outcomes.

But reality conforms to no one; change is constant and inevitable, so it is wise to act in accord with nature, and with integrity.  Set aside those frames of reference outside one's individual approaches and interpretations of ideas and events, and reflect upon the significance of personal experience.

Listen, and hear the original imagination.

Finding Time

Social and cultural conditions-- and conditioning of behavior-- place time in the context of limits.

Within such limits life is constricted and state of mind grows fatigued.  It is natural to rebel against such temporal and existential burdens.

A fitting response to these conditions is one that expands perspective beyond narrow, linear attitudes toward the dimension of time through contemplative thought and activity.

Arts that reinforce heightened states of awareness contribute to a fuller understanding of the human condition, and, from a composer's point of view, it is through the arts of sound that such illumination may arise.

Mood, Tone, Atmospherics

Consider mood in terms of sound as evoking an emotional response.

Tone, then, may be considered to reflect the composer's attitude towards the subject of the work.

Essential, from my viewpoint, is a balanced perspective lending itself to a response of equanimity, whether in the process of composition or that of the listening experience.

Cultural Perceptivity

Moved by social and cultural forces, one encounters sounds that reflect diverse experiences.

Gravitating toward the most pleasurable aural forms that offer the greatest intellectual and emotional satisfaction, some find the sense of listening itself becomes enhanced, and consequently listener and composer develop the spirit of inquiry that leads to new, even as yet unknown, forms of artistic music-
or, given the nature of aesthetic experimental work, non-music.

Simple Elements

Complexity has its origins in the plain and clear.

In the perception of sound, unadorned beauty directs the listener to depth of experience.

Sense, Substance

Art is a constant consideration for its creators.  It is a term that is not used lightly.

There are poets, painters, authors, dancers and composers who demand everything of themselves. They expect nothing in return beyond the essence of their work.

Expression and gesture are ways of knowing and being; the artistic journey is one of significance and meaning. These are things that cannot be neglected, and are not set aside or forgotten.

Sounds Out of TIme

Subjective projection of emotion is an absurd imposition on works of art.

Yet music evokes nostalgia, particularly that of time, place, and personal experience.

Sound compositions designed to enhance atmosphere and state of mind are not contrived to bring about sentimental effects.  It is not "the moment" that is created or captured through art, but rather the perceptivity it evokes or restores.  This is art formed by aural imagery in the quest for heightened awareness-- elevation of mind and spirit-- not self-expression, cultural criticism, or political activism.

One Hand Clapping

Contemplation and stillness are their own rewards, yet they elevate perceptual acuity in active life.

Sound patterns stimulate and reflect emotions and ideas; thus the constancy of the popular musical genres with their attendant social and cultural phenomena. Yet this is not the entirety of the reality of sound and the profundity of its total effect.

For the composer and listener, sound imagery can be an expression of the fullness of being, a deep apprehension of a design greater than human understanding, and ultimately, a sense of mystery and possibility.

Apatheia

Give attention to the aural events of everyday surroundings.

Communication dominates attention. News, weather, opinion, entertainment, sports.

I want to communicate sounds to free consciousness, to bring states of mind into being through auditory imagery evoking equipoise, elevation, and equanimity.

Quiet Flux

Set aside preconceived ideas regarding "music".

Imagine sounds ordered to reflect elements and atmospheres of changing environments.