Wind in the Ear

There exists a totality of sound that is perceived only in limited, speculative ways.

Photograph and sound recording device capture impermanence.  What is done is done.  Understand the effect subjectively and the virtue of the cause may come to light.

Listen in the lower degree to begin to hear in the higher.  Word, image, rhythm, the distortions of memory and emotional connectivity fall away.  Immersion in tones and the hidden language of tone qualities with their potential juxtapositions follows.  Song becomes sound; sound becomes vibratory being and the shackles of time and space become inconsequential.  There is no longer "music", this contrivance, but elevated experience.

One does not ask approval to create any more than one seeks permission to live.

Silesia

Every environmental setting possesses unique ambience and mood.

One need not look beyond one's own familiar environs to grasp the unique character of a place, even in terms of different times of the day.  Variations may be profound, and these afford the composer singular sounds and associated events for contemplative reflection and artistic expression.

Treasures to be illuminated, the myriad aural images, both subtle and startling, to be discovered in diverse places, serve as reminders of each individual's distinctive perceptions and perspectives.

These are the spirits of time and place that contribute to the essences of geographic reality and the human experience, regardless of their historic backgrounds or personal connections.  If these prove distractions, set them aside, and engage the extraordinary qualities of atmosphere in the fullness of their presence.

To Listen, To Be

Human character is revealed in various ways, among them word, deed, bearing and attitude.

Contrary to most popular received wisdom on this subject, consciousness and identity are profoundly shaped by arts and culture.  Nature and nurture play separate roles, as do politics, economics, and the forces of history in the human condition, yet the personal and individual are directly influenced by the arts in their myriad forms. To pretend otherwise is delusion.

Yet one listens, but does not hear; one absorbs, but does not deliberate, one chooses, but remains in the dark about the possibilities.  Even so, to consciously gain awareness beyond such limits, states, and circumstances is to move from the shadows into the light.  And it was ever thus.

When the purpose of art is a contemplative one, the higher its ideals, the more beautiful its sounds and visions, and the greater the meaning to be found in its representations, the stronger, deeper and wider the growth of personal, cultural, and spiritual experience will become.

Superfluity

Meaning is enhanced by stylization and degraded by exaggeration.

Generic music runs its course and becomes devalued, the perceived similarity of all of it rendering it meaningless to the casual listener more interested in nodding to rhythm than contemplating the poetic lyric or the well-executed improvisation.  The accessibility of recordings, in terms of sheer numbers, is absurd; it would be impossible to listen to more than a fraction of them in a lifetime.

Thus the composer, by virtue of imagination as well as existential necessity, must create works that are sui generis.

Complement, Totality

Merge thought and sound.

Such an experience suggests not linear movement through time, but expansion of being.

Sangfroid

The natural state of things is neither random nor chaotic.

Cultural disorder is always reflected in music, but this is a contrived appearance. The true disorder of noise, confusion, disturbance, agitation, and illness is found in the unquiet mind, and represented by stylized musical compositions and performances that speak to diverse levels of individual alienation and social unrest.

While this may be interesting, for what it is, it is rarely necessary or desirable, even when it rises, as a footnote to history, to the level of art.

What is essential is clarity and balance in the face of reality, whether it rises in tranquility or through a fierce act of will, and the creative courage to realize these virtues in works of vigorous, well-reasoned expression.

Mobility

Constant movement perpetuates the illusion of freedom.

Most music will further augment this appearance.  But it is no more than this, an appearance only, at times a delusion, thoroughly subjective and emotionally vapid.

The world is not still, and continues apace, forces in motion traveling inexorably toward their respective outcomes.  This is the realm of the real, and the establishment of one's correspondence to it, whether in accord or estranged, is a matter of reason and will, or deficits thereof.

Clarity arrives with illumination or disillusion, brought about through accident or by contemplation and reflection. Consider sound works created to engage thought and preserve equanimity as meditations on the journey of life.

Auditory Engagement

As an active process, listening identifies and analyzes; as a passive process, hearing perceives as one is otherwise engaged in other activities.

With this understanding, sounds may be designed for entirely different purposes than those typical of most musical compositions, and for more interesting and creative pursuits than relaxation and simple diversion.

Atemporal Music

Out of radio and recording technology emerged the three to four minute popular song.

Even so, modern innovations in technology and musical artistry extended the length of recorded works, highlighting the subtleties of composition and expression evident, by the mid to late nineteen fifties, in albums such as Miles Davis' Kind Of Blue.

Now, for composer and listener, time is of far less consequence, and the aesthetic of creative listening anticipates sound works reflecting the nature of these profound changes in both audio recording and the experience of music.

Rise

Ideas must be expressed, concepts realized, and works of art created.

One may have no expectation for remuneration, or appreciation for efforts of any kind.

There are no incentives for creation beyond the need to reach for something, anything, greater than the given mediocrity.

But art will be.

Technique, Style, Impression

The works of an artist stand as manifestations of that artist's will.

Consider sound compositions devoted to the realization of environmental conditions in terms of emergence, dynamic flux, and dispersal.  Such works will reflect deliberation and action as well as individuality of perception and expression, yet they will remain impersonal by design.

The listener will be immersed in atmospheres that have led the composer to vanish from the scene.

Quietude

The natural order of things reflects tranquility.

Just as naturally, cycles of intense activity, storms, and violence shatter the stillness, but afterwards, the clarity of the undisturbed flow of life returns.  Within this flow and these cycles lies the sense of musica universalis, for those who listen, and hear.

Boundaries, Distortions

Media constructs processes of continuous manipulation.

Perceptions may be altered, truth divided in terms of fact and plausible fictions, reason narrowed, subverted, or both, and attention drawn to presentations of spectacle that have no basis in reality.

But let us look beyond the sensational, the superficial, and the absurd.  There is far more to life, music, and art than these hollow appearances.

Crossing the Mind

Contemplation may be considered an art of observation and reflection, while meditation is generally practiced as immersion in the inner consciousness.

Both engage states of mind and being that transcend self-absorbed existence, attachments to material possessions and consumer culture.  In doing so they contribute to the development of spiritual values and refinement of perception.  Each elevates the intellect, enhances emotional moderation and fortifies sensory acuity.

For speculative music and sound art to complement these virtues, composer and listener will do well to envision and realize their forms accordingly.

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Fusion and Individuation

Experience is a continuum overflowing with words, imagery, and sounds.

The unconscious, in perceiving, adapting, and transforming, shapes the content of dreams and the faculty of imagination in myriad ways, contributing to realization of what Socrates and Plato called self-knowledge, and thus to illuminating reason and expression.

This leads to a quest for listener and composer alike, that of seeking the musica universalis, or "music of the spheres", outside the reach of the mediocre and the mad.

Heed, Harken

Attention, as a function of attitude, places value on specific things.

To see and hear contemplatively is to give attention to the fullness of experience.  The senses inform, but cannot value; this is a function of will.  Art may reflect and represent, but only the mind and spirit realize meaning.

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Realization Through Sound

Atmospheres created artificially range from the minimalistic to the extravagant.

But I am interested in speculative arrangements, and speculation involves genuine possibilities, not absurdities or fantasy settings. There is much more happening in the world perceived by the senses and the mind than it is always possible to apprehend.

Spirits of Place II

Sound environments reveal and establish tone, mood, and situation.

The composer's attitude may be apparent, but it is not of primary interest to the listener.  Nor should it be.  It is the set of conditions the listener experiences through sound that suggests the richness of the composition.

Ear, Brain, Sound, Being

Failure to experience and develop the contemplative spirit is, in point of fact, debilitating.

Contemplation and reflection nurture the imagination, clarify ideas and emotional states, reinforce analytic thought and strengthen independent will.

For music to lend its force to such essential conditions of consciousness, it must be composed and produced in ways that focus on the arrangement of those elements of sound that contribute most to immersive, atmospheric environments, within which the mind is as liberated as the physical body can be while dancing or engaged in athletic activity.

Dynamism

The shadow absorbs in stillness, the fire illuminates in motion.

Certainly there must be impetus to create.  But there must be vision and the application of reason, will, and force.

Murmur and Thunder

Observe simplicity expressed in ways grand and ethereal.

The greatest of things are of the most direct and uncomplicated clarity.

Appearances As They Are

Expression, ranging from the legitimate and real to the specious and fraudulent, makes and leaves impressions on the senses, mind, and emotions.

Just as judgement is false if not based upon facts, so the sound of the authentic experience must have a foundation in the genuine, that is to say, in viable settings or environments, rather than in contrived and spurious ones.

The Searching Ear

Stillness is external and internal, in the nature of living atmosphere and of being.

Observant, listening and hearing impressions great and minute, ordering and analyzing the mundane, the fantastic, and the curious: perceive surroundings, shades of meaning, and attitudes of mind.

Timeflow

What is heard:  the essentials for human functioning, then the media.

What is missed:  the subtle, the environmental, the aesthetically pleasing, the elevated, the uncanny; virtually anything outside the realm of the self-centered.

Fusion

In rich combinations of sound, separate elements sustain their distinctive qualities in relation to each other.

This occurs within the naturally developing atmosphere of any setting, without interference, according to probabilities and happenstance.  The composer, following this model, initiates a blending of tones, patterns, and the like, contributing such modifications as enhance the aesthetic properties of the work.

From my perspective, the less the designer intervenes, the more the "organic" atmospheric qualities of the ambient composition are enhanced.

Personal Culture

There exists what might be called a common narrative, that is to say, a culture of the events of the moment.

Within this cultural narrative are social, political and academic forces, influential in the development of arts and entertainments directed toward establishing and manipulating the public's, and especially the student's, ideas and attitudes.  This is the established milieu of various types of artists.

There also exists, outside these boundaries, an entire universe of experience and expression.

Fire and Frost

One may convey the infinite through understatement.

What can be seen and heard and understood are infinitesimally small in relation to the vastness of reality, and every expression captures but a moment's breath.

The Scent of Water

The most subtle of sounds enhances the most rarefied degrees of perceptivity.

The small things matter, revealing meaning, reviving memory, and elevating imagination.

Context, Meaning, Aural Impressions

Sonic images, like the visual, are symbolic of emotions, ideas, and the spiritual.

Properly understood, listening and hearing convey the vision of the composer, directly and through implication, to the experience of the listener.

Artificial Creativity

To dismiss the artist and deny tradition is the end of culture.

Advanced technology does not endow one with vision and imagination, but with ways and means, for individuality is indispensable, and works of greatness, the achievements of free will and moral reason, come from no other source, as history proves time and again.

Curiosity and Expression

Manipulated experimentally, sound imagery produces diverse results.

It is the artist who must determine aesthetic value in composition and design. Some experimental sounds will be no more than noise, while others yield the elevated and beautiful.

Simply put, one chooses accordingly.

Authenticity

Fidelity is the difference between passion and perceptivity.

Subtlety in sound conveys what extravagance and sheer volume can not.

In Hearing of the Unseen World

At the intersection of life and art is mystery.

Consciousness grasps, and realization measures what can be known against what remains unknown.

Symmetry

Order, proportion, balance.

But these alone are simply appearances, and may be no more than easily contrived artificialities; the aesthetic sensibilities are engaged and expand through myriad perspectives, direct perceptions, and appreciation of imperfection as well.

Message

Every work of art is a communication.

It says, "This is reality, this is the world, this is a story about life and experience."

Advance

The unorthodox envisions progress, yet requires risk.

Whether in theory, approach, or execution, advancement of creative thought through unconventional means may ultimately yield value and significance, but for the artist, the work is its own justification.

Cynosure of Sounds

Chaos to order, and again to chaos, to order, ad infinitum.

Perceived differently: a fabric woven of being and becoming, reality of continuous change.

Ease and Difficulty

Art engages subjective emotion as well as objective perception.

The percipient forms impressions and responds accordingly.  The artist, nonetheless, may choose to gratify the aesthetic temperament of an audience, seek to shock the sensibilities of another, or remain indifferent to anything other than the art itself.

The Depths Beneath the Surfaces

Perceptions must be more than the equivalent of a cursory glance, a brief awareness.

Hearing, one absorbs atmospheres; listening, one interprets and understands.  These are different levels of consciousness than those of moving to rhythms and nodding to beats.

But the way of the sounds, and of their intent, must be different as well.

Cycles and Permutations

Both order and change suggest meanings that may be sensed, if not fully understood.

Things rise and fall.  Change will occur.  The concrete, impermanent and material reflect the ideal, the permanent and abstract.  The artist perceives and represents the moment of experience, and the old becomes the new.

Entity, Abstraction, Existence

Poetic works combine elements of language in constructions of verbal imagery.

As a composer, I am concerned with tones and their juxtapositions, the atmospheric imagery of real environments, and, like certain poets, with the depiction of visions and realities not perceptible by the senses.

Expression, its Dynamics, and the Unexpected

There are those who would govern culture, control its expressions, dictate its directions and outcomes.

They are nameless and many, but such perspectives are ultimately absurd, Utopian, and impotent in the context of reality. What cannot be predicted cannot be controlled over time.

For the artist, it is simple, and cannot be otherwise:  Do what must be done.

Into the Valley

The excesses of musical creativity and performance are easily forgiven in light of the emotional intensity the arts of sound bring to bear upon creator and audience alike.

Left unchecked, such creative impulses may nonetheless drive the artist into grievous error, and the foundations of celebrity subcultures have little in the way of sustaining the spiritual faculties necessary to avoid shallow and absurd commitments to base, often brute perspectives.  One attains the genuine heights without, or in spite of, mere appearances and the welter of human ignorance, even in its most refined forms.

Facing the existential realities, one understands the meaning and purposes of art, considers, and acts accordingly, or falsely, if the understanding is false.  And it was ever thus.

The Furthest Reach

The nature of art has long been considered one of spiritual expression.

For the composer, like any other artist for whom this tradition holds, sound is a material reflection of the greater ideals, and the creative act is a leap of faith.

To Be Free

The fog of noise in daily life may go unnoticed in the course of work and play, but it is no less oppressive.

Freedom is a responsibility that demands individual choice and action, if it is to be experienced at all. Society, politics, and culture play numerous and critical roles in the exercise of free will and human reason, but the contemplative and meditative have a crucial place as well.

Thus the impetus and purpose for these compositions and recordings.

Distant Echoes Remaining

Much is ignored, much goes unheard.

Of the surrounding world, what remains beneath the attention, that is to say, at a far distance from perceptual focus, can beggar the imagination of all but the child, who remains constantly alert to its cosmos of wonders.

Yet growing accustomed to these, the child moves on, forgetting, wandering into fantasy.