Four Minute Mile

One may be competitive in life, and ambitious.

As an artist, nonetheless, one challenges oneself, and oneself only. Anything else is nothing more than the appearance of a thing that has no reality in the truth of expression.

Fire, Impact

Culture changes, whereas human nature is predictable.

But cultural arts have the potential to alter ideas, attitudes, and perceptions, even to the extent of ennobling the individual.

Some artists consider these facts in terms of profound responsibilities; others give no consideration.

Museum Muse

A key to the expansion of experience is perceptivity.

Consider a reality without Warhol, Dali, Picasso, Frank Zappa, the Velvet Underground, John Cage, William Burroughs, Norman Mailer and others of merit and vision across the cultural spectrum.

And, in fine, this is reality.

Trial and Departure from Error

Observe culture at it most frenetic, overwrought, and predictable.

This is the end result of constant subjection to immediacy, or attachment to contrived "issues" and specious appearances everywhere glaring as distractions of the moment now.

Patience refines gesture. The reality of permanent things is in the abstract. Such things as love and honor cannot be placed in a brightly decorated container and sold at what price the market will bear.

It is a matter of prolonged critical thought and contemplation to gain insight into elevated experience and meaning.

Such experiences do not happen randomly or suddenly, and the arts that reflect them offer both challenges and satisfactions far beyond the temporal and mundane.

Extinction of Ideas

Without thought there is only the necessity to conform. And it is a necessity, a survival skill.

This need never be, as with thought comes foresight, yet when the human condition trends toward vanity, self-obsession, and complacency, it is an ever-present danger. Thus the connection between the ancient and modern Stoic, the Zen archer, and the 21st century avant-garde artist and composer.

All must strike the same target in darkness.

Above the Hollow

Human skill sets exist that are neither intellectual nor physical.

These non-cognitive, perceptual abilities involve persistence of engagement, acquisition of aesthetic perspectives, and experiential recognition of objective reality in contrast to cultural narratives or "mere appearances".  They are also essential to what is commonly recognized as an individual's work ethic, whether in scholarly, artistic, athletic or business pursuits.

Development of such capacities enhances awareness and perception, and expands consciousness as well, but interest in these things is rare in any age or cultural setting.

Foresight and the Unforeseen

Culture is predictable to the extent that prevailing attitudes tend to conformity.

This is the tyranny of mass mentality that demands of the artist subservience to a single perspective and its every element and aspect.

But the artist brings wind, light, and thunder, filling mere chaos with the unexpected stillness of satori and epiphany.

Overwrite Antiquity

Forgotten events are in motion.

The composer will do well to capture their forces, origins, tones and dynamic movements.

Their essential natures may be lost to contemporary understanding, but not to the modern listener, who feels their impulses in the unformed sounds of imagination.

Media Fog

Artists of integrity are never less than honest brokers of cultural information.

Artistic communication is often shadow-play, nevertheless, yet artists direct the attention to the places where they dwell, either toward light or darkness.

This understanding is the responsibility of the audience-- but it is not always present.

What is Called

Methodologies of music represent ways of controlling sound.

Yet there are other forms, other models. Every environment is a listening environment, whether music-- or control-- is present or not.

Echoes Fade, Anticipation Forms

Listen toward the silence.

The artist as composer expects time past, remembers time future, and expresses in time present.

Force of Memory

Note the collective mentality of cultural groups who demand their biases be reinforced by art.

Control of media and the public debate leads only to more control, and consolidation of power in the hands of fewer, more totalitarian, agents of the status quo.  Imagine scenarios in which "art" must be approved by the state or (other controlling forces) because specific ideas and content are acceptable, and no others.  But it is not necessary to imagine, and one need only observe these forces at work.

Time, Place, Identity Unknown

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Alt / Experiment II

Not music, but a panorama of sounds, dynamic in movement and tonal qualities.

As sounds evolve in a state of dreaming, without planning and interference, so they may be understood and brought into reality through perceptivity and imagination,

These are expressions beyond the composer's ego.  Rather, they are expressions of phenomena.

Simulacrum, or State Otherwise

Popular innovations are few.

For commercial purposes, and particularly in terms of musical forms, the rule is imitation, and thus works and performances are relegated to genre.  In the arts, this is indefensible.

There is no breathing room in such narrow confines. Survival is one thing, and commercial viability is another. But to create, really innovate on an individualistic, heightened level of awareness, one must break away altogether, even if no form exists in which to function.

Such forms, which are as yet unimagined, must be made real.

Wild Cry, Left at Great Distance

It is misleading to suggest culture is in a state of decline.

Popular culture is perpetually in a state of decline, based, as it is, upon the notion of "living only for the moment".  Forward-thinking is anathema in such conditions, which are always characterized by absurd emotionalism, squandered passion, insipid vainglory, and the stale idea that some ill-defined, nebulous "we" are "all in this together".

I am interested in art produced by individuals, for individuals.  In composition, it is always my goal to expand, not limit, and elevate consciousness.

This, at all times, defines my perspective on the modern world.

Order of Progress

The way of the artist is that of the individualistic gesture.

Of course this is existential rebellion, in opposition to the common, the mundane, and the self- righteously complacent everywhere manifest in contemporary culture at all times.

Who will think, rather than be told, will reach beyond the surface of appearances.  For the artist as composer, this is the critical choice between music that now exists and sounds that must instead be brought into being.

Intent and Obscurity

One does not simply demand an audience.  That is absurd.

For the artist as composer, the listener and audience are interested in the works, and certainly not in the bleating of the self-styled public artiste, for whom the world is a stage and pretensions to a sort of special genius are the order of every day.

One would think there is little time for such nonsense, yet, in fact, the stage is always set for the hosts of competing entertainers to enter what can be generously called a contest for popularity. Here, all the financial rewards and associated glamour of "show-business" and the like take special precedence.

But this is not art, of course, and those who see art as a higher calling can only regard such attitudes with disdain and contempt.  And these are the people for whom the artist is compelled to work, that is to say, like-minded individuals.  Thus the artist understands this audience will be reached in ways that are unrelated to clamor, fanfare, and extravagance, and that further, in cultural terms, this audience is the largest, most diverse, and most supportive of all.

Clairaudience and Reason II

The truly simple is often difficult to grasp.

Similarly, complexity will not mislead perception if fundamentals are understood.

Forge and Will

The artist may be moved by an inner voice, or directed by others.

Therefore, events may determine outcomes, and outcomes may, indeed, determine events.

Reasoning Music

The aesthetic environment is by nature a "thinking" environment.

Responses to the vicissitudes of life according to the art of reason are simply superior to frenetic, emotional reactions to the ways of the world.  The art of sound is not simply meant to fill a void.

As composer, I bring sounds together as representations of the physical, aural nature of the world with the purpose of revealing both the dynamics of atmospheres and those of the imagination.

Cycles, Vibrations, Fasces

Listeners display curiosity, flexibility, self-possession, and respect for the arts and artists.

Consumers want conformity, particularly in thought and action, with little cost or consequence.

Any cursory survey of popular music immediately reveals well-defined contrasts between the genuinely creative work and the fabricated reflection of popular opinion.  There are myriad implications.  And they are not worth my time, listener, or yours.

Equanimity and Tone

Light, space, and atmosphere are conducive to evolved thinking.

Sound in the aesthetic environment enhances, but does not dominate. This is the nature of refined, or, if you prefer, critical thought, in that it is self-sufficient, highly informed, tempered by experience, and internally motivated. Thus the composer rejects bombast and predictability, holding to a vision defined by intellectual curiosity and perceptual stimulation.

Firing Line Perspective

The ebb and flow of cultural events must be viewed with a cold eye.

 Much more is happening in the creative world of individual artists than brief obsessions with absurd glamour, glorification of the banal, and the prolonged tedium of ideological power struggles indicate.

Creativity is, in itself, expansion of consciousness, and purpose either elevates or limits the gesture.

Mystery in Reality

Partly recognizable, partly outside experience altogether: this is the experience of the uncanny.

The artist can, with effort and conceptual vision, create such experiences.  For the artist as composer, the elements of sound are at play.  I say sound, not music, for the simple fact that all the elements of music are so familiar as to be without effect.  Rhythm, melody, harmony, etc., are known quantities.  The nonlinear sounds of environments in situ hold meanings within tone, shading, and movement that are not so easily recognized and perceived.

These are my interests and goals, the sounds of reality, contemplated and aesthetically stylized as listening experiences beyond the temporal and mundane.

Listening Emerges

Auditory perception evolves with variations in perspective.

The sonic environment is in a state of continual flux, and every nuance has meaning.  It is a language of tone and movement, shading and intensity and character.

Pause, consider, reflect.

One / Not One

The composer and artist, among others, is forced to view culture critically.

One cannot simply muse upon content and technique, presentation, continuity, and form, or be concerned only with aesthetic outcomes.  Social dynamics generate cultural pressures, and those coercive influences are applied toward conformity of thought and action as manifested in cultural expectations.  One must be open, yet aware, of choices that lead to subjection to societal diktat or autonomy of thought and action-- if one is to be responsible to one's work.

Distance From the Immediate

Solitude must be chosen, and sought out, as it is beyond the general state of affairs.

Clamor limits consciousness and dulls experience, contributing to all forms of decline.  To listen, and hear, is more than an aesthetic principle.  It is a survival skill, an art of being.

Revelation, or Functioning in Shadows

What the arts reveal they may also conceal, and motivations are not always transparent.

There exists a continually-reinforced cultural perspective that insists that the "unselfconscious" or "instinctive", "natural", "authentic" perspective in dealings and interactions with the world is in some undefined way superior to the way of reason and sound judgement.  It is simply a means to creation and control of predictable behavior.

What may be easily termed Enlightened perspective, to the contrary, elevates culture, relationships, the arts, and much more. Being reliable, factually based and conceptually well founded, uniting ideas and concepts in global and historical terms, it transcends the common, narrow and mundane through understanding of human nature and the human condition.  It illuminates with neither condescension nor pretense, and works of art reflecting this perspective undermine and undo, however gradually, unconscious behavioral conditioning.

Direct Auditory Impression

Subjectivity falsifies.

Acknowledge, understand, refine perceptivity.  Create by virtue of reason and experience. To listen, really listen, is no different than to think critically, that is to say, to reason objectively and incisively.

It is a learned behavior.

Stirring Atmospheres

Atmosphere contributes to attitudes and the shaping of moods.

But while mood and attitude may subjectively color atmospheres, they do not directly alter qualities of the environment.  Surroundings that intentionally reflect perspectives must be created with such total effects in mind. The same concept applies to the development of aesthetic compositions in sound.

What the surroundings suggest, the composer must hear, and translate into representative forms.

Hold Horizons Forward

Authentic expression of vast force overwhelms.

The artist as composer must act with restraint, capturing and sustaining the real dynamics of tone and color that elevate consciousness. Bombast and blather are modes of weakness, reinforcing impotence and inadequacy; the greatest potential is realized by drawing together and fully articulating the widest possible configuration of sonic forms and energies.

Illusion and Cold Light

As an artist, one may not be devoted to the arts at the expense of life's necessities and long survive.

Yet neither may a consumer culture deny the value of the arts while appropriating the contributions of artists. A society that accepts and condones blatant thievery of intellectual property will ultimately incur the consequences of both brutish ignorance and unrestrained self-indulgence.

Regardless, the artist, poet, and composer will not be silenced, nor the dancer paralyzed.

Shifting Cycles

Assume the perspective of media consumer, if you will.

What is revealed is suggestive.  Obviously, media usage reflects and reinforces a shallow sense of self-absorption and self-promotion, and the popularity of particular diversions and entertainment arts reinforce this.

These are the representations of reality that appeal to the common imagination, and that provide the supporters of this culture the climate it deserves, for a time.

And, as the historical record indicates, none of it will have any place in the future.

What is never certain is whether it will be replaced by more of the same, or rather by endeavors that demonstrate a leap of vision worthy of human individuality and civilization.

Beyond, Within Earshot

As the artist may see, so the composer may hear.

It is not possible to measure the immensity of variation in such perceptions.  It is not possible to say, with absolute certainty, that there is no more to experience than the mundane and temporal world.

Listen for shape, color, tone, movement and spirit, and hear more than mere sound.

Throughout the Singular Wave

The contemplative is always revolutionary, because it is beyond the mundane.

The path to realization of the contemplative in aesthetic expression can only be difficult in theory and execution, because it must always be uniquely representative of a greater world beyond the ego of the artist or composer.

There is no middle ground.  The total effect of the work will be effortless and transformative for the percipient, or nonexistent.  And this is beyond the will of the composer and artist.

Above Sensation, Light and Sound

Aesthetic experience is, in a broad, general sense, meaningful reflection evoked through art.

The aesthetic sense, beyond its profound contemplative significance and its contributions to elevated states of being, also seizes upon false perception and dispels illusion.

Thus it is wise to cultivate this clarity of experience, as it extends into critical observation of culture, politics, and other representations of reality.

To Sense

Emotion is energy, whether active or passive.

But emotion is neither vision nor clarity of purpose, and each requires reason.

One must rebel, first and foremost, against irrationality. The artist must see, and the composer must hear, those things that go unseen and unheard in the self-immolation of superficiality and the tyranny of the media-directed spirit of the day, else perish in mediocrity.

The shadows fall in the surrounding world as if the presence of something uncanny announces itself, seizing the attention as if by mystic force.  It is here, an opportunity for shade against the heat, and it appears suddenly and strangely to the distracted mind, as if it is always no more than a mere image, and light years away from common experience.  Lose the facts of reality and lose culture, and life.

Direction

One must be culturally aware.

This does not mean one must necessarily be a participant, but to be cognizant of events, ideas, and attitudes is essential to critical awareness, even if one moves contrary to prevailing winds.

Collapse and Rise

Time and distance are inconsequential.

The true obstacles to vision, art, and progress are evil, intentional ignorance, and complacency. As always, they appear novel, appeal to the instincts, and ultimately impede elevation of the spirit.

There can be no compromise in the name of art. No compromise whatsoever.

Élan Vital

The art of sound, as I see it, contributes to sustaining the light of reason.

The aesthetic moment is one of clarity of consciousness evoked through experience of art, and yet it is outside the awareness of all but a very few. Though it may be refined, and overanalyzed to an absurd degree, it is merely a moment of vigorous insight into life itself and the act of living with awareness and grace.

It is available to all, sparked by perception and cognition, unfettered by politics, identity issues, cultural disputations, or the influence of the juggernaut of digital mass media on the collective zeitgeist.

It requires nothing more than recognition of the contemplative means by which such understanding is conveyed.

Pause, reflect.  Listen, and hear.

Stand Fast

When reason is forced to yield to emotion, doors close, gates are locked.

Art unstops the eyes and ears.  This cannot be real and be compromised.

Course

Any artistic gesture is the result of will and opportunity.

The art of sound is an expression of grace, clarity, and subtlety that cannot be forced or falsified.

Passages

Difficulties arise when appearance and reality do not correspond.

A false perception is created to conceal, while the purpose of true expression is to reveal.

Before there is understanding, there must be knowledge.

This is discernment, rightly dividing the real and the unreal.

Thus the composer, engaging awareness, unites the worlds within and those without.

Art as Contradiction

Curiosity is a driving force in the arts and sciences.

Complacency and apathy assure diminishing of consciousness; this is manifest in cultural decline. Measure what is known against what can never be known. Search, discover, experience, express.

Open the hidden gates.

Leaves Turn Upward

Atmospheres speak to the spirit.

Thus the elements the composer chooses from the palette of sounds.

Self, Nature, Sound

Observe the impress of nature upon the human world, as opposed to the common perspective.

Cultures move toward the natural world and away from natural reality according to the attitudes of the moment, but of all artistic expressions, the content of musical works is generally confined to the realm of the personal and social.

Whereas surrealism, pop art, and other emotionally charged forms like abstract expressionism have their musical counterparts in such styles as jazz fusion music, one must look to the classical tone poem and modern minimalism to get even a limited sense of the art of sound being used to convey objective perceptions of the world.  There are few analogous modes of a musical nature for concepts such as those of the "still life" form, landscape painting, or impressionism, because it is a matter of exhaustive theorizing and experimentation to come to terms with such concepts as an individual artist.

But, having settled these matters, the composer is exploring unique and fascinating sonic terrain while experiencing the unprecedented effects of sounds that are at once musical, non-musical, and engaged with human reality and the natural world in balanced measure.

Inevitability

In the moment now, the vast measure of common culture will vanish beyond memory.

This is the culture that serves the purposes of low-level communications, mass movements of groups, general, underdeveloped process of learning, propaganda, fad and fashion, and the perpetuation of a dim, materialistic grasp of the human condition. Its scenarios are untenable, its characters, grotesques.

It reflects populist social attitudes for the most part, and forms a constant, yet fortunately impermanent, aspect of contemporary life at any given point in history.

The artist must remain fixed upon the aesthetic and contemplative goals of expression, and be willing to work arduously, with elevated perspectives and long-term outcomes well-formed and executed, in order to avoid, and indeed, to act freely at a far distance from such banality. To do less is mere waste, while the artist who moves forward with vigor and rationality generates forces that bring the future into being, and does so as a catalyst of change unlike any other.

For This

What will be is present now, though witnessed and heard by very few.

The art of sound is, by nature, outside the interest of what might be generously called "the media-driven consumer".  This can not be an issue for any artist, since it has no bearing upon the creative mind and process.  The composer must experience, perceive, and act accordingly.  Nothing more.

Fragmentation Broadcast

Move forward, out of the recognizable, toward the hidden doorways.

Reach a destination where sounds lose familiarity, become uncanny, nebulous, and can be identified only with great effort. Listen beyond the mundane clamors, and with these perceptions recognize the change in perspective as thought is elevated with awareness.

That is to say, throw off the shackles of subjection to immediacy: listen, and hear.