Percipient as Observer

Neither listening nor hearing is effortless.

Much depends upon the creative imagination of the listener.  Some seek nothing more than to fill a sense of emptiness, while others strive to expand awareness.

The artist's duty is not to make shared visions easy, but to make them possible.

Sound Poetics

Staccato bird calls, distant rains, creaking of tall oaks in the summer sun, voices over the hills.

Pursue these sounds, convert them from words into impressions, combine them in kaleidoscopic movements.

Bring forth the perception of atmospheres.

View, Focus, Redefine

The creative nature of the artist lends itself to a view of reality through the lens of aesthetic perception.

The creative act draws upon resources and experience in representing a perspective of the real, regardless of the medium employed or the context of the activity.  It is communication that informs concepts, which in turn evoke perception, or vision, if you will.

Painting, literature, sounds and music, teaching, learning, politics, athletics, sculpture and invention-- these may indeed be arts, given imagination, and all the better if tempered by moral reason and clarified by the force of virtue, these being timeless and universal.

Therein lies meaning, and most particularly that of what it means to be human. 

Scope, Outlook, Foresight

Development of artistic vision tethered to narrow forms may produce predictability of outcomes, as standard formulas particular to the musical genres demonstrate.

Instead, cultivate beauty as the inner ear of the perceptive, forward thinking listener anticipates it, in the wild.

Reason and Expression

Observe how excessive diversion and distraction blunts the edge of perception.

Consider the extent to which dullness of the intellect and of individual awareness renders emotion unreliable, even treacherous.

The artist must reach beyond the failures of moral reasoning engendered by cultural conditioning, or surrender to them.

Pop and the Fine

Similarities between the music of popular culture and that associated with refined or cultivated tastes are many, as illustrated throughout these various notes on creative perspectives and the arts.

Even so, these similarities are rarely acknowledged, as if the latter, even given its sophistication and rarefied intellectual attributes, is diminished by the understanding that the nature of both forms reflects the same focus on rhythm, melody, harmony, and other traditional aspects of music, particularly Western music.

Both have similar origins, both order sounds to similar effect, and each generates expectations in its listeners as to what constitutes music in terms of the elements mentioned. Yet neither prepares the listener for forms that are brought into being by artists who compose outside the strictures of the common and traditional.

Nevertheless, it is through the act of  listening itself that it becomes possible to hear with the contemplative or inner ear, and thereby interact with sounds designed beyond the "given", to ultimately expand the personal and cultural aesthetic in musical experience.

Pause, Perceive

Extend the immediate.

Take in the awareness of those things that go unnoticed.

Imaginative Variables

Environments contain unexpected elements that contribute to the atmosphere in unexpected ways.

In composition and experimentation, there are innumerable choices.  Each alters the total effect of the finished work irrevocably.  The extent to which the artist's sensibilities are manifest is also a choice, and my personal perspective is that the least interference results in the most compelling aesthetic result.

Each transformation ambient piece should be, more than a personal expression, an evocation for the listener's most desirable states of consciousness.

Mimesis, Abstraction

The art of transformation ambient composition echoes awareness.

As field recordings reproduce auditory events, sound designs may be composed in ways that reproduce diverse aspects of auditory perception.  The ultimate end of this process is a fullness of experience involving both active listening and passive hearing in the course of interacting with the musical expression.

The nature of such compositions, being suggestive rather than specific, lends an impression of being somewhat detached from linear time, and, with repeated listening, an impression of never sounding exactly the same.

Conjunctions

Transformation ambient music reflects the choices and the hand of the composer.

Neither solely generated by programming nor arranged according to traditional theories, the music of Black Mountain School is designed to bring separate sonic events into play simultaneously, with as little interference as possible and without particular regard for form, whereby their varied interactions combine to enhance environments and states of mind.

Fluidity

Movement over time is perceived in music as a flux or flow of sounds ordered to propulsive beats and rhythms, tightly synchronized and controlled.

Consider, in contrast, a continuity of sounds more deeply reflective of the manner of fluid dynamics, with internal currents, variations in pressure and depth, velocity, temperature, and other associated phenomena.

Rather than flowing according to the framework of an arrangement, as in a channel or canal, such a concept opens, alters, and expands the settings and scenarios in which musical movements occur, producing multifaceted forms-- tone clusters and lines, for example-- and directions, as does water in rivers, lakes, and oceans.

Stylization

The sounds of nature and human environments are not random, but part of a larger connectivity.

Sounds and visions and perspectives may be reproduced, and consciousness directed; they may also be suggested, and consciousness extended, elevated, and, above and beyond mundane expectations, liberated.

Clarity and Magic

Observe the multitudes of distractions and diversions, the ideological issues and the expectations associated with cultural and social norms.

In contrast, clarity of vision may appear to be of supernatural origin.

The Obvious and the Subtle

Emotional impression and critical interest are conveyed by words and music.

The sublime is conveyed by tone, mood, and atmosphere.

Shading

Shift focus from the obvious.

The critical sounds are masked by beat and rhythm.

Avenue, Trail, Broadcast

Sounds in the wild-- whether in distant fields or urban areas-- are unpredictable and asymmetrical.

A listener does not commit these soundscapes to memory, as may be done with a popular song or favorite musical work.  For the most part, music is created with the intent of imprinting memory, appealing to mnemonic devices both auditory and verbal in ways that are essentially artificial, with improvisational forms presenting the most variations within a musical arrangement.

While artificial, transformation ambient music is designed to create sonic atmospheres in ways similar to those that occur in the wild, or in conformity with sounds as they simply happen while moving through various environments.  Not meant to be committed to memory, yet appealing to the inner ear, they remain fresh and retain interest over time, enhancing settings and states of mind as well.

Perceptions in Obscurity

Accepting the "given" in regard to music, all the elements of understanding fall into place.

The listener then enjoys certain types of music, dislikes others, or is neutral in point of view regarding them. There is nothing to think about; either it provides subjective pleasure or it does not, whether it is a masterwork filled with passion and spiritual intensity or it merely has a good beat and you can dance to it.

The detached observer takes a different perspective, recognizes the various aspects of music for the effects they produce, considers their myriad forms and patterns, and notes the variables and extremes in dynamics, sophistication, technique, presentation and instrumentation that define the genres and appeal to both the popular and refined tastes and sensibilities.

Set aside the given of  "musical appreciation" along with the fashions, the attendant subcultures, the platitudes of "show business", and it becomes certain there is much more to the art of sound than adherence to cultural norms and well-worn styles.  Freed from form and formula, sounds and tones, in pattern and combination, can enhance consciousness and elevate experience in ways far beyond those to which listeners are accustomed.

To listen and to hear is prescience.

Sensation and Thought

Within and without consciousness, perceptual imagery takes objective and subjective forms.

See and hear, remember and imagine, and as artist, sculptor, dancer, writer, composer, communicator, express by giving form and being to experience.

Not Hearing, Not Listening, Not Music

Fragments of music pass through consciousness throughout the waking hours.

Sometimes these fragments linger after encountering a piece of music, and other times they simply arise spontaneously out of memory.

Consider whether this is a positive or negative effect, whether it is a pleasant diversion or a distraction, a disturbance of concentration, focus, and consciousness generally.  Certainly it is a common effect, and not abnormal in its commonality, but neither is it necessarily desirable.

An interesting secondary effect of the peculiar transformation ambient compositions discussed here is that the listener does not experience these "ear-worm" auditory perceptions while listening to them. They apparently disappear immediately, as if unhooked or detached from the listener's awareness, and the compositions do not take this form later, after listening.

It is a different way of encountering musical sounds altogether, reflecting prolonged efforts in the way of experimentation, contemplative discipline and aesthetic observation.

Currents

Genre music develops according to parameters of composition and style.

Currents of air and water move according to volume, density, gravity, the diverse shapes of topography and other influences like temperature or human intervention.

Release sounds from common form and formula to develop and aurally transform in similar ways.