Fortunes, and Reversals

The arts are not simply Reformed, as are institutions, from without or within.

Visions are conceived, old orders collapse, and culture is broadened and elevated by expressions both unexpected and unheralded.  Often this arrives at the end of any prolonged and implacable oppression, and, as is so often said, nothing is ever the same again.

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The Real and the Good

It is clear to most that appearances are not always as they seem.

Nonetheless, in terms of culture and the arts, this should be the exception, and not the rule.

A free society is one in which individuals of good will can communicate honestly and act to mutual benefit without being burdened by duplicity and avarice.  The artist who understands this will not fail to act with integrity, and it will be reflected in the artist's work as a true sign of merit, since it is, in many ways. a revolutionary expression against the falsity of the age.

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Greater Lengths

Cultural observations are, as often as not, personal matters.

Formal analysis of these issues is of no concern to anyone but the artist.  The academician regards them disdainfully, the lay person has no interest whatsoever, and the active music listener exhibits little more than subjective, emotional connectivity to the arts of sound.  Such things as aesthetic value and purpose are outside these areas of bias.

This is natural.  It is the artist as composer for whom these cultural forces determine the existential necessity for sustained effort.

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Silencing, and Open Secrets

Expression in every form is subject to the scrutiny of the thinking individual.

It will be observed immediately that expression has been compromised by the collectivist attitudes of loosely associated cultural groups.  Further investigation will reveal the extent to which this has been the status quo among ideologues in academia, media, politics, business, and industry for over a century, as it has been plainly visible.

The scenario ostensibly exists to repress individual expression as undesirable in the context of what is viewed, in collectivist quarters, as the "greater good".  In point of fact, it is nothing more or less than a means to seize and retain power by controlling cultural narratives, economic activities, and, to the extent possible, social order.

Whenever there is a rebirth of cultural expression, it is the work of individuals, acting autonomously and yet united in vision.  Unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno.

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Be or Seem

Perceptions do not lie.  They must be rightly directed and interpreted.

The issue is not one of self-awareness or self-knowledge, but rather of the capacity to distinguish appearance from reality.  Clarity does not require guidance; thus it is highly prized.

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A Half Century of Artistic Suicide

Greed is a reason, but never a justification, for suppression of cultural expression.  

When artists and commercial interests conspire to create propaganda, the lights go out, and the outcome has been the ultimate failure and utter destruction of the music industry.

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Fiat Lux

Human reality evolves culture.

Falsity is anathema to human reality.  The false narrative will not substitute for culture any more than political ideologies can substitute for intellectual acumen.  The sole effect is one of apathy, resulting in the demand for authenticity.

With the inevitable failure and collapse of the superficial and mediocre, integrity of expression arises, with inexorable force and inspiration.

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Expression and Impression

Observe the high degree of what is commonly called distraction.

Observe also the decline in perceptual capacity, the emotional attachment to being "in the moment" rather than conscious of the larger human and natural world.  The total effect is one of distress and exaggerated, frenetic self-importance.  Of course much music is designed to intensify perspectives of this nature, to fuel a "drive" toward ever-increasing hubris and vainglory.  

My compositions, in contrast, aim for the perceiver to recognize and develop a perspective that is entirely different, one closer to that of a universal awareness of both sound and sense of being.

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Surrounded

Every setting is permeated with a sonic atmosphere.

Rather than adding ambience by creating music, I am interested in transforming the aural nature of atmospheric panoramas into aesthetic sound compositions.  While I do not share the methodology at this time, the observant listener will discern the peculiar nature of these works.

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Never to Return

For the artist, the finished work is its own reward.

Nonetheless, it is more often than not difficult, painstaking, and underappreciated labor, fraught with frustration, failed experiments, and subject to the opprobrium of the ignorant and apathetic.

Those things most often lost are those taken for granted, and they are many.

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Transmission XII

Cultures bound to ideologies are, without exception, failures.

Creators, artists, writers and composers, free your minds, or remain in the shadows.

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Expansion, Diminishment

Some define the role of the composer as an author or creator of "art" as "serious music".

While this may be useful to certain people, and particularly those who adhere to general cultural norms related to music, it is a view that is inimical to wide-ranging perspectives on art and sound.  

These latter viewpoints cannot be conveniently restricted or labeled, but they are in many ways notable as modern, dynamic, individualistic, and avant-garde, though these terms simply suggest starting points for an aesthetic understanding those bound to the former are unlikely to pursue.  

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Space Time Sound

Consider the surrounding environment a vessel.

Envision, generate the sonic palette, and compose according to the idea that it is the virtue of the vessel to be filled.   From these simple fundamentals, approach new sonic atmospheres. 

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Abstract

No single perspective expresses reality.  It cannot be done.

Perceive sounds in spatial environments and give concrete expression to their forms in ways that may be reproduced as aesthetic atmospheres.  This is the artist as composer's point of view and stated goal, informed by personal aesthetic sense, cultural history, science, and the inner ear, rather than by music.

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Silence

Where expression is shackled to ideology, inauthentic expression is all-pervasive. 

Even where every form of speech, art, and action appears to be accepted, what cannot be expressed are opposing viewpoints, which are taboo and "unthinkable".  The result is that true perceptions may not be revealed.  The insight that consciousness implies soul cannot be spoken where the idea of the existence of a "soul" is not countenanced by those whose understanding is predicated upon falsity.

The artist, as renegade, must live according to the way of the warrior.

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Gordian

Totalitarian cultures function in the same manner as cults.

They create mysteries, and enemies.  They inform every need of all initiates, who are conditioned to provide all answers to all questions except the ones they are not allowed to ask. They tolerate only a single perspective, and those who see differently are "the other", thus evil. Every aspect of society is permeated with a single ideology that cannot be undone.

Individuality is, consequently, forbidden, because ultimately freedom will overcome.

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Restoration

Only the individual can take initiative and responsibility.

Within culture, there is order as well as disorder.  Neither is permanent, regardless of which is desirable to one cultural faction or another.

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Will and the Real

Culture will be free, and freely develop, or it will not be at all.

Subjected to the coercive force of ideology, and particularly that of a collectivist nature, culture invariably fails entirely, becoming absurd.  This cannot be stopped, and has come to pass generally.

It can, however, be overcome and restored, for the simple reason that it cannot compete with free thought and expression.

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High Strangeness IV

The wealth of the artist is in the work.

At its highest level, the work is no more than expression of the real, the known, and the unknown.

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Significance and Choice

Ideological observations, or "statements", are of brief duration.

Consider, in contrast, the timeless expression of universal beauty and strength art may attain, and the value of the work it demands.

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Exercise XVI

Observe contrasting methods in all forms of action.

Evaluate possible outcomes resulting from spontaneity on the one hand, and restraint on the other. Consider the potential effects of impulsive force and that which is refined; note the nature of both reaction and response. Determine ways in which these forces come to a state of equilibrium, and apply these assessments, as warranted, to creative action.

Put simply, weigh the diverse means to attain total aesthetic effect, and experiment without regard to success or failure.  In this manner, much is revealed.

Extend and Elevate

Recognize the reality, rather than only that which is the appearance of reality.

With this recognition, the realization of direct perception may be grasped and sustained.

In any art form, this is a difficult concept to express, and it is no less so with the art of sound.

Nonetheless, it can and will be done, and those who are willing will listen, and hear.

A Wave of Sound

See beyond the moment now.

The past is a wave, the present, a balance.  Time Future is all becoming.

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Light and Direction

Modern rationality is by no means required to discard tradition.

Nor is the contemporary, popular mind always dependent upon unreasoning emotion.

What is critical to cultural perspective is the ability to distinguish between appearance and reality, and this is no less true for the independent thinker, the warrior, the artist and the composer.

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A Call for Toleration, As If It Were So

Put simply, the contemplative reveals insights into reality and being.

Conversely, the archaic nineteenth century concept of scientific materialism, as it was called, asserts adherence to an understanding that the only reality is that which may be measured and quantified, and in this manner all there is may be known and understood, without limits.

Since that time, cultural diktat has demanded slavish, unspoken acquiescence to this concept among the self-styled "intellectual" classes, academic, political, literary, and "artistic", and there can be no questioning the absolute nature of this doctrinaire humanist approach without social ostracism.

More often than not, it is the sole determinant for inclusion in any contemporary cultural milieu.

Nonetheless, I compose, as a free individual, in the philosophical traditions of Boethius, Lao Tzu, Epictetus, and those who perceive a higher, universal order and power, with the consciousness of a human spirit and soul.

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Wave Pools

Perception and impression prefigure expression.

Thus the art of sound is formed within an individual sense of aesthetic space and sonic beauty.

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Underground

The creative mind imposes its own limits.

If it is necessary to act outside and beyond culture to maintain integrity, it is a sacrifice made in the name of the future, and that is how it will be.

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None So Blind

Introspection yields expression, through insight and individual perspective.

Collectivist culture knows only a shallow sameness, incapable of recognizing originality and refusing to acknowledge its existence.

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Contemplative Depth

To hear, to see, perception must be freed of distraction in the guise of the marvelous.

Where specious excitement and frenetic sight and sound imagery cloud the day, the inner ear is stopped and the eye of imagination is blinded to the real.  Discard this clutter, choose awareness.

The nature of elevated consciousness and expression welcomes immersion and clarity of being.

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Simplicity, Expansion

Sounds coalesce.

Sensory experience suggests order, through a spectrum of degrees and myriad perspectives.

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Essential Meaning

Expression is far more than repetition.

For expression to elevate, there must be epiphany.

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Authenticity

Insight reveals reality beyond appearances, in life and in the visual arts.

That same insight reveals false appearances as well.  So it is for the composer in creating and sustaining atmospheric effects through sound.  Falsified experience sounds forced, frenetic, or artificial in emotional content, tone, and mood, while genuinely immersive atmospheres evoke contemplative settings conducive to the expansion of consciousness.

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Listen, and Hear

Language is music, laden with meaning.

Every perceptible sound is charged with intimations of equal moment, if we can but read them.

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The Spark, Once Struck

One role of the artist is that of the Bearer of Light.

Strength of expression is force of mind and will.  Against adversity, it will never yield.

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Artist and Medium

Control what is possible, let go what will be fulfilled beyond interference.

This is the virtue of gesture, the reward of practice, and the fruit of experience.

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The Singular Voice

Of course art is a reflection of politics.  But it is only a reflection.

Culture, as a whole, presents a reflection of politics. This is visible in the degree to which freedom of expression may be pursued by artists.  Otherwise, the political is of little worth when compared to the cultural.

It is only when political power usurps culture, as it has over the past decades, oppressing the arts and forcing the artist into a subservient role, that totalitarian cultures may surreptitiously rise in darkness-- but ultimately this unnatural, anti-human power can only meet a rapid and complete decline in the face of forces demanding freedom.  These forces are expressions of human will that will never remain silent.

Take heed.

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A Catalogue of Aural Auras

Art reveals a reality outside the ordinary.

Listen, and hear.

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Shadows, Out of Limbo

Observe those who strive for free expression that has not existed within their lifetimes.

Historical awareness awakens in these individuals the sense that a void exists where once free thinking and bold creativity thrived.  But commercial culture has been manipulated to create a collectivist mentality for a half-century, and its failures are everywhere present and oppressive.

To alter this course of events, individuals must rise, stand together as individuals, support one another yet remain self- reliant, and embrace the potential of the future without concern for present calumny and condemnation.

Rust and Wrought Iron

Choice and action define the power of the individual.

It is the difference between change that evolves and change that is made to happen.

Let it Bleed

Reduced to caricature, art reflects trifling experience.

There is no value in the superficially clever, embracing, as it does, condescension and mockery.

There are immense debts to be paid to humanity, works to be accomplished through life-long sacrifice, and unforgiving realities to confront.

Heavy Lifting

Think. Ideas have consequences.

Artistic expression in the service of ideology is no longer art, and nothing more than propaganda.

The Futurist

"Futurist" perspectives range from the absurd to the nihilistic to the truly Modern.

The "Year Zero" point of view is particularly odious, requiring a ridiculous conviction that erasure of all human history, combined with an utter faith in one or another asinine views of  "human nature" as essentially "good", will produce an egalitarian Utopia.

The Modern Futurist perspective is simple: Elevate objective possibility into existential reality.

Art Not Art

One need not be a Zen master to observe the absurdity of many so-called attachments.

Consider this in the context of the plethora of shallow, sensational "connections" found in every form of media.  Expression without meaning or value, nonetheless, is not cast aside unless by choice.

Obligation

Observe and express clarity.

Eliminate the unnecessary and irrelevant. This is commitment, and self-reliance.

Credibility

Possibility will not always be realized.

The alternative is of no value, no virtue whatsoever. It is nothing, and without possibility at all.

That is the choice.

Purlieu

Any setting is replete with sounds.

Cultural and social conditioning contributes to the suppression of auditory perception.

The disposition to "not hear" sounds present in the environs, once overcome, presents the listener with an expansion of perceptual acuity, and offers the composer a palette of infinite variation.

Istigkeit II

Clarity of expression entails risk.

Do not confuse "vision" with dissembling.  Listen, and hear.

Fitting Imperfection

To understand the experience of reality is to walk through walls.

The small, apparently insignificant gesture elevates expression, revealing what is beneath notice.

Order and Flux

Reality is unchanging, though perspectives alter any understanding, and much remains unknown.

Culture and society form a continuum of change that constantly evolves beyond the grasp of historical perspectives as the heretofore unimagined becomes commonplace.

But as ways of life, art, and expression, these are subject to unchanging reality.

Expression, Reaction, Response

Total effect is a goal in various fields of endeavor.

In crafting the outcome of any creative work, it is worthwhile to note that numerous effects may be developed to generate both unthinking reactions and reasoned responses, and to remember that all responses will reflect, to varied extents, the regard with which one holds the audience for the work.