Concept and Effect

Perception influences consciousness and state of mind.

Conscious awareness of subtlety and nuance may be learned, developed, and practiced through expression and communication, and not only in the arts.  Everyday circumstances are laden with opportunities to see, listen, hear and know reality and the forces that propel events both large and small.

These are matters of choice, and desire.

Within Being, Within Atmospheres

Perceptions, conveyed to consciousness, inspire memories, emotions, and ideas.

These, in turn, may inspire expression and representation of things perceived and things shaped by experience, in forms concrete and abstract.  These are gestures of sound and vision.

Tone Forms

Combinations of tones conjure textures.  Some suggest lightness and clarity while others evoke density and opacity.

In equilibrium and continuous movement, these shadings reflect the nature of environmental settings, whether real or imaginary, and may enhance the listener's surroundings and state of mind as well.

Extending Perception

Surrounding environments are to the ambient sound designer as views are is to the landscape painter.

The varied and changing aspects of the setting contribute the elements of composition, presences to be recognized, interpreted, delineated, and represented through the sonic media.

Artifice, Ideas, Vision

Any representation reflects the artist's perceptions and sensibilities.

These are individual aspects of the writer, poet, artist or composer.  Whether they in fact serve the art, or serve to make the art function for other purposes, is inevitably clear, as is the work's nature, and whether it is for the most part transient or permanent.

Currents, Waves, and Impressions

A broad view of cultural phenomena suggests prevailing influences that subject the senses to untoward pressures, often to enervating effect.

The inner ear responds to subtlety and sensibility, and ambient musical compositions are especially conducive to revitalizing the intellectual and emotional faculties, providing works to which the listener may respond, rather than simply react.

Approach, Response

Listen to voices, mix colors, determine limits, articulate words, observe shape, shading, movement, and expression; formulate and test theories, master processes, discipline vision; hear shadows fall.

All arts reflect being and becoming; every work is a synthesis and composition.  I want the effects of every composition I create through sounds to move the listener towards heightened, lucid awareness and elevated experience, as I desire no less for myself.

Glimpses, Echoes

Culture creates a sense of order that reflects, by degrees, social temperament and sensibility, particularly in the arts, and this is to be heard in the sonic atmospheres of diverse settings.

One accepts and absorbs the status quo or seeks other perspectives in keeping with one's nature.

This is often the existential position of the artist, the composer, and the listener as well.

Listen, hear, reflect, express.

Design, Intention, Representation

When sound mirrors nature, the aural patterns move according to the phenomena of the surrounding world, developing as do atmospheric and seasonal cycles, for example, as opposed to imitating "natural" sounds.

The composer may also follow patterns suggested by other arts and artists in any media, or by, for instance, architectural constructions and the sounds associated with specifically human or cultural ideas, events and environments.

Imitation alone can not bring forth that uncanny aspect of simultaneous strangeness and recognition that makes it possible for the experience of art to elevate awareness.

This demands the force of individual expression.

Nature and Civilization

The ear is conditioned to expect certain sounds.

Once accustomed to familiar atmospheres in the natural world and the human environment, we tend to blur or ignore the fullness of aural perception  This same attitude persists in the context of music.

It is possible to listen, and to hear, and to compose, differently, and while in concord with elevation of awareness and the spirit of the beautiful.

Timeless

Immersed in sound composition, lose temporal perception.

Continue to listen, and hear the moment now in all things.

Diffusion, Convergence

Complexity emerges out of simplicity.

Emptiness is filled, silence transformed.

Inside

In the interiors, spatial relationships alter auditory perceptions in ways the outside world does not.

Illusions of distance and direction are as pronounced as those that are out of doors, yet the listener will note more dynamic and dramatic responses to movement, while placement or adjustment of sound sources add to these effects.

As an artist must be cognizant of the balance of the elements of a painting, drawing, or sculpture, so must the designer in sounds have compositional awareness of the impact and interaction of the sonic elements in each creative musical effort and recording.

Motion Yielding to Stillness

Pause.  Observe the moment now.  Where there is stillness there will be storm, followed again by stillness.

The sounds of the Primeval are always present, interrupted only by the stormy and dramatic, the peal of thunder or the rush of the crowd.  Afterwards, there is not silence.  Listen and hear the innumerable sounds and movements within the clarity of stasis and balance.

In composition, this is aural beauty on the periphery of music, everywhere tones moving in lines and clusters, emerging and proceeding in non-melodic paths and patterns, reflecting the reality of natural settings and undisturbed cultural atmospheres.

Culture, Focus, Tone, Expression

The impact of environmental factors upon consciousness is a continuing variable in the long and short term, and one that should not be disparaged; nor should the contribution and importance of sound to setting be ignored.

Integrity of character, intellect, and emotional balance are obtained with due effort and sacrifice, and maintained by discretion, discernment, and force of will, while time and again one must defend these exacting qualities against the frailty and corruption intrinsic to human nature.  Reason demands that choices be made; lack of reason does not.

Art often serves to reflect this struggle, directly and implicitly in a multitude of ways.  This includes the sounds and imagery of the cultural atmosphere and surroundings.

Resonance and Action

Sonic imagery emerges in the awareness of listener and composer.

Perception and imagination yield aural impressions at once real and uncanny.

Finally. connections form between memory and sensory experience, concepts to be articulated through diverse artistic media, resources, and methods.

Stir of Impressions II

Emptiness will be filled, then emptied, to be filled again.

In composing, ask what sounds complement settings, with their spaces, objects, shapes, and colors. Choose these tones accordingly, set them in motion through gestures harmonious with the elements in place, and hear them settle into the silences before flowing away into memory.

Awareness, Intent, Spectrum

What sounds are actually perceived in any setting often make up an infinitesimal part of the whole of the aural environs.

In any setting, consciously pause, absorb, and identify sounds and their sources, and in doing so refine the capacity for discernment of spatial relationships, movement, tone, and meaning.

This receptivity is innate, and potentially may be developed to a high degree of realization in hearing and listening; moreover, sound designs and musical compositions reflecting such atmospheric realities are possible as well.

Cause, Effect, Mind

Consciousness acts as a filter.  It absorbs, and it projects.

The listener's state of mind may be altered by music, or it may alter the perception of music.

These are attitudes accorded to music, and not necessarily expectations related to myriad sounds experienced within settings or atmospheres generally. These latter may be perceived more openly and directly, and, from my vantage point as a composer, are of greatest interest.

Formlessness

Conformity applies to unconventional expectations as well as those that adhere to standard norms.

The way of the artist is one of perception, contemplation, reflection, and expression-- and indifference to expectations.