Immerse, Sustain

Song forms call to mind emotional states of various durations.

Songs may produce intense bursts of short-term feeling, at best, and little, if any, perceptual change.

In contrast, a sense of expanded, contemplative awareness is the natural outcome of an absorption in extended, atmospheric works, purposely composed to create totality of effect, as opposed to transient diversion.

Place

Consider the internal environment as well as the external one.

Find the balance.  Compose with the sounds of imagination that reflect and represent direct experience and the contemplative attitude of mind that evokes perceptivity of this nature.

Make Real

Become aware.

Put others first.  Ignore the whine of self-importance. Then it is possible to concentrate on perceptual awareness, refine sensory experience, and gain clarity in active thought. Here is the fund of creativity, of works yet to be composed, of sound art.

Dissolve, Converge

The composer must imagine, as the listener must.

Imagine sound coalescing into a different order, unlike music yet beyond the mundane.

Sonic Color

Enclosed by a medical device. Blue light tubes seen through yellow plastic goggles.

The machine runs for seventeen minutes with a bright, fluctuating drone, a long sequence of cycles in slight variance; metal machine music for Van Gogh sunflowers.  From down the hallway and through four walls, scattered across time, the ghostly flourish of beat saxophones.

Stranger Things

Focus concentration on the visual image by listening, and hearing.

This, too, is perception, experience, creativity, and, in a larger sense, the projection of aesthetic ideas sans subjectivity.  That which is distant, that which was silent, is present.

Footsteps on Hardwood Floors

Radio, almost inaudible.

Objects being moved on a counter top. Wind, or air passing through a vent.  Machine noise starts and stops.  Child drops key ring. Unidentifiable low rumble.  Impression of light rain.

In the inner ear, a symphony.

Continuum

Every sound represents an effect; every cause has a source and origin.

The connectivity of every sound is engaged in every auditory perception. While it is not necessary to consider this in terms of mysticism, it is nonetheless interesting to contemplate the furthermost extent of the influence of sounds over the course of time and within the limits of perceptual space.

Realize, Renew

In a living cultural perspective, Time Past is palpable, within experience and imagination.

Whether this is true across the wider social culture is insignificant. With individual vision, the artist sees Time Future within reach, and draws it into light.

Elevate, Decline, Continue

Sound environments reflect the rise and fall of things.

Whether the composer chooses a subjective perspective or simply allows the composition to unfold as it would in the physical world alone is of little consequence, provided the work's total effect is one that reflects aesthetic integrity.

Closed, Opened

Continually stop the ears with mud and the loss is apparent.

Re-learn the art of listening and the perception of hearing.  Think, and perceive.

Recall

Seek the unknown, unseen, unheard.

Imagine, and find the atmospheric sounds that cannot be imagined. Make them real. Listen, and hear. 

Original Expression

It is a simple matter to alter musical perception.

The art of representation in sound is not one that involves additional articulations of percussion, rhythm, melody, harmony, and so forth.

It is rather elimination of unnecessary formal elements that conveys and clarifies perspective in unforeseen and unique ways.

How Imagine

Excessive absurdity: faces buried in phones.

How does one live, and what does one believe beyond the given?  One cannot simply leave it to the "artist", so designated by cultural consensus, to discover the facts and appearances of these matters.

If one must become the artist oneself, so it must be.

Morning

Meanings, Objects, Actions

Expect the invention of new forms.

It is not necessary to abandon the old forms, and unwise to act as if the historical forces that shaped them no longer exist.  One must be prepared for the unexpected, take the measure of possibilities as they emerge, and create according to the means afforded reason. Regardless of the risks of failure, (and there will be many), the future will be come into being, renewed by perception and forged with daring, integrity, and sweat.

Sound and Appearances

Listening implies expectations, usually emotional and often motivated by impulse.

But there are other ways to listen, just as there are other ways to compose with sound.

Begin with reason; explore the contemplative and subtle, the objective atmospheres, as opposed to the common inventions of subjective imagination.

Critical Awareness

The brain is not the mind, any more than the organ of listening is the inner ear.

Studies conducted at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville in 2014 concluded that large numbers of people preferred pain, specifically an electric shock, to being alone with their thoughts.

Such conditions of mind, culturally reinforced, as they are, by everything that stigmatizes mysticism, spirituality, and the uncanny, are unnatural, even dangerous. Clearly, what is called transcendental vision, and even the simple daydream, reflect human perceptions and potentials, and not abnormal, morbid realities.

In contrast, sound art composed to enhance listening imagination can evoke the contemplative states, as described by Boethius, that illuminate consciousness and unburden perspective.

The composer will do well to remember the essential qualities and purposes of art, and especially their incalculable value to humanity.

Atmospheres d'art

These compositions evoke undistracted, extended, contemplative moments.

With sound, create the double, or mirror image, of auditory environmental settings and events.

Arc of Time

Events go unnoticed.

The brain filters perceptions, yet is influenced by focus and intent.  It becomes necessary to develop awareness by learning to perceive what is ignored in the everyday scheme of things.  This changes the nature of experience, opening the mind's eye and the inner ear.

Then the world represented by the artist is clarified in seeing, visualizing, listening, and by composition, whether with sound or the written word.  What once dominated is at a distance, and what seemed like a lifetime is a moment.

Stand By

Age of technocracy.

Unchecked, no curiosity or purpose, no belief in something greater, no aesthetic vision, no concept of the mystical or the uncanny.  And it falls to the artist to say: this is not living, not experience. No.

Unawareness and its Opposite

Intense focus and unnatural importance are attached to inconsequential events, people, and things.

One chooses aesthetic purpose, rather than meaningless cultural and social perspectives that focus on mundane diversions, not to disengage from experience, but to embrace reality.

Experiment

Stand at a remove from contemporary culture.

Forgetting the artifacts and figureheads carved into the moment, consider what remains of reality.

Cognizance, Awareness

Among the things the artist can control are perspective, execution, symbolism, and tone.

Among those things the artist cannot control are the opinions and perspectives of others.  But this is not an issue.  What matters is the creation of artistic representations in any media that convey, with clarity, the reality of experience.

Along

The moment now moves with sound.

Though the sound movement may have the semblance of brevity, it neither begins nor ends.

Experience, Imagination

Find the sonic atmosphere free of interference, as it is, without expectation or musical bias.

Create the objective semblance of such an atmosphere with manipulations of sound media, strictly in the form of auditory imagery.  Having gained this understanding and expertise, reveal atmospheres perceived with the inner ear.

Follow

One uses, or is used by, technology in cultural contexts.

The composer who comprehends and applies theory develops ideas as they emerge in processes, and individual expression carries the day.

Embrace

The human and natural worlds are interrelated, not separate.

So the composer cannot say, I seek to replicate nature, as if removed from it.  All sound forms exist within the limits of perception, and none are alien to the creative mind and process.

In and Out of Place

In musical terms the idea of order relates to a perceptual recognition of sequences.

Such sequences are critical even in the most complex works, and represent exquisite degrees of human design. These arrangements of musical elements are systematic and purposeful.

Nonetheless, alternatives to these designs need not produce chaos and noise. They may instead be composed as representations of any number of processes of objective reality for which there are no human equivalents, specifically such things as the motion of atmospheric currents, tidal ebb and flow, erosion of stone, and other phenomena.

Distance, Echo, Reality, Being

Sound in memory delineates a subtle understanding of experience.

But this is inconsequential unless there is a more profound understanding of order, one which extends beyond linear pattern, repetition, and variation.

Position, Eye and Ear

Give attention to visual and aural perspectives in the same manner: as potential works of art.

As the eye of the imagination conceives visual representations, so may the inner ear originate and develop compositions in sound.

Sounds of Reason and Free Will

Penetrate the twilight between worlds, if you can, and you will find a place few reach.

Many claim this quest by many names: few begin the journey, fewer still set foot in the right direction.

Those who hear with the inner ear, with persistence and personal sacrifice, may yet perceive this world with a consciousness greater than themselves.

No one knows.

Sound Only

Music is one form.  Sound is many forms.

Those attached to music create music.  Unattached, one listens, and hears, and creates accordingly.

Sound and Setting

Perceptions that contribute to setting aside attachments release contemplative states of mind.

This is the simple process of combining sound and setting for total effect. Yet few make the effort, as it cannot be of value without first comprehending the purpose of distinguishing appearances from reality in approaching the phenomena of existence.

Here, Now

"Passion" has its limits, most of them inconsequential.

The sounds I am interested in creating and presenting are those that reflect not only the human condition, but humanity's unique place in the universe.

Nothing More

The intent of mass media is exploitation, and it is transparent in all its applications.

Manipulation of any group is facilitated by a contrived scenario of desperation and excitement.

One Take

The mind filters and assembles and evaluates perceptions.

Culture informs consciousness, but the strength of that culture and consciousness depends on the individual who will not be yoked to the wheel of collective vision.

Application

Everything must be connected, etc., etc., ad nauseum.

Observe the ever-strident discourse that insists humanity be dependent upon technologies, as if there is no imagination, creativity, or consciousness otherwise.

Late and Soon II

Culture evolves with the speed of communications,

Accordingly, developments of ideas and techniques that once took centuries now run their courses in years or decades. Yet when communication is instantaneous, such ideas can be dismissed as having no value within minutes, and all the more so when understanding is predicated upon mere superficial engagement and shallow, or failed, thought processes.

These facts must not escape observation, and consideration must be given equally to an additional truth: regardless of how quickly information moves, ideas, techniques, and creative efforts may still undergo developments that take years, decades, and centuries.

Muse

Art is more than a product.  It is more than decorative surfaces and stylish sounds.

Art is a philosophy: it is a way of being and communicating that transcends the frayed threads of common banality, emotional excess, and vanity.

Take No for an Answer

There is, in fact, a great disturbance throughout the aesthetic fabric of culture.

See everywhere reflexive acceptance of mediocrity as the norm, and "controversy" as the claim of art. These are no more than contradictory passions, with contradiction expressed as a grasping, illogical lack of self-knowledge. There is nothing to be gained by bland, benighted subjectivity.

Art is a force of experience, and if it cannot be found within the culture, it must be brought forth.

Walls Within Walls

Defy the norms.

The creator influences, the culture establishes.  The only outcome of a sealed system is decay.

Repute and Noise

It is the work that moves the artist.

The ego and the persona, these are indifferent things.

Sense, Cognition, Being

Perception informs consciousness, and perspective is developed through sensory information.

The self-evident simplicity of understanding and acting in the world is taken for granted, as is the fact that music is a form of communication and expression.

But there is far more, beginning with the idea that sounds may be composed in forms of a completely different nature than the music that commonly influences viewpoint and attitude, and conceivably such forms may alter consciousness over time in profound ways.

Past Party City

Observe that rhythmic sounds are typically of short duration.

These are expected in music, with longer compositions lasting a number of minutes, briefly engaging the listener's attention.  Consider, then, the prolonged rhythms of sound as they evolve over time, between morning and night, and over years.  These, too, can be made manifest in compositions and recordings, but they are rhythms as a manifestation of sounds other than those given to be musical.

Waves, Currents, Tides

Fill the environment with sounds as if they were works and objects of art.

None of the common attributes of music are necessary, only sounds filling a spectrum of aesthetic beauty, and variations in density thereof.

Unexpect

A voice in the crowd says, "Time claims everything."

The voice inside my head says, "...except the timeless", and, clearly, is not impressed.

New Ground

Accept the status quo and accept absurdity.

The artist explores, discovers, and reveals, or there is no art.

Appearances and Evolving Attitudes

Cultural conditions limit, as well as enhance, creative consciousness and conduct.

Where there is no receptivity for artistic endeavor, the culture stagnates; if conditions change, the palette of the artist increases, with unpredictable, yet significant, outcomes.

Perceptual Consciousness, Elevation of Being

Observe music, in all its forms, in myriad situations; some are common, some exceedingly rare.

As a composer, I am interested in creating works that fix the listener's mind in contemplative states.