Vantage Points

Impressions vary widely with setting and attitude.

Bearing this idea in mind, traveling from one region or country to another can afford opportunities to observe aspects of cultural climate and subtleties of atmosphere that go unnoticed by both tourists and natives.

I typically have as many as a dozen works in progress at any given time, and it is most likely that something of the environments I will shortly encounter in Tuscany and Rome will find expression in several of these over the coming weeks, if not in some pieces that are altogether new.

To the Further Side

Perspectives on the transcendental and the sublime in common currency invariably prove to be as superficial as they are reflexive, even among the educated.

This is simply another form of the shallow nescience of scientific materialism everywhere on display, with its concomitant concrete thinking.  That such a viewpoint contributes to attachments, fixations, self-absorption, and a host of anxieties, passions and neuroses far too numerous to detail here is well-documented in the literature of diverse scientific and academic fields-- and it must be noted that it is not the integrity of science that is dubious, but that of those for whom it is the ne plus ultra of human understanding.

In the arts especially this attitude of mind is manifested in bland predictability and sociopolitical displays of doubtful merit, and most particularly those brought forth in the guise of the avant-garde.  

If nothing else, the pursuit of the transcendent and the sublime tends in the direction of detachment from mediocre thinking.  When this quest involves the arts, expressions of music and sound design demonstrate, rarely but lucidly, the potential to engage the moral reason and the senses in ways that surpass the narrow range of the mundane, and ultimately heighten consciousness.

Transference

Listener and composer engage perception and sounds.

This shared experience will involve degrees of convergence and divergence.

Each will bring different experiences, intellectual and emotional associations, and varied aesthetic perspectives to the work, yet both will sense a total effect.  This is the point at which communication is elevated, or fails, as such are the risks of art.

Definition

The concept of music as an arrangement of sounds over time serves its purpose as a simplification.

Contrasting the viewpoint that music is inextricably associated with melody, harmony, and other generally recognized elements of stylistic construction, my perspective is that combinations of sounds may produce meaningful, aesthetic experiences in and of themselves.

Such experiences can be brought into being through sound designs that pleasurably stimulate both active listening and passive hearing, and while these may or may not be considered music, they are no less beautiful, valuable, and elevating to perceptual awareness for being undefined.

Shadings

Art in any field or setting is creative vision.

Art is not static; it ultimately refuses to be defined, and its final destination is always beyond the moment now.

Manner and Methods

Nothing meaningful is effortless.  To devise an original, personal technique is a challenge in any field of endeavor.

Concepts, principles, and the ways and means of bringing these into being are not always apparent, and thus demand development and experimentation fraught with implications of failure that are to be expected.

There are any number of ways, for instance, of manipulating sound as an art medium, but the creation of desired effects- the expansion of atmospheric spaces, a degree of unpredictability similar to that of sounds in a real, natural environment, aesthetically pleasing arrangements of non-linear, yet cohesive, tones, notes, lines and clusters- is contingent upon factors that must be independently advanced and realized.

Such a perspective encompasses the work of a lifetime, demanding patience, persistence, and the long view.

Walk Through a Room

First see the obvious.

Notice how the attention is directed, and for what purpose.  Now perception and will are engaged.

Look where focus is not emphasized.  Take in the small details.  A piece of red thread, paperclip, cobweb; age of the furnishings, textures, stylistic features; regard how these offer a sense of human presence and unseen activity.

Why, then, are these elements present?

Following the same pattern, listen. Hear each sound and its identifying aspects.  Consider intention, reason, the tone and mood of the setting, and how these may be translated and brought into being as musical designs.

Locality

Occasionally I hear the river, and across it, the Westminster chimes of the village clock.

To the southeast, a steam-driven electrical plant drones, and sometimes roars like a waterfall.  Traffic on the surrounding highways is light, growing sparse in early evening.  This is a refuge for birds and wildlife of all kinds, a well-kept habitat.  Above, commercial and military air lanes hum with passing flights while thrush and woodpecker, chickadee, whippoorwill and hawk scatter calls and songs.

It is not these sounds, but the ways in which they rise and fall, emerge, expand, and dissipate in the environment that are of constant interest in structuring atmospheric sound compositions and designs.

Provoke the Mind

Engage unaccustomed sights and sounds.

It is the common viewpoint, rather than the common lot, that stultifies.

While the impressionists and cubists and composers of tone poems observed with human senses, they engaged cultural, scientific, and philosophical ideas regarding light, sound, and relationships of a temporal and spatial nature according to personal and unique perspectives.

Capture

Color the air.

Set aside cultural associations and emotional connotations, experiencing sound as environmental art.

Limits and Expansion

Consciousness of sound, like its effects, depends upon individual perspective.

Cultural and environmental factors place demands upon point of view.

For listener and composer, this implies a choice between the given currency of genre music and styles or sounds that spark individual curiosity.

Experience and Imagine

See and hear with the mind's eye and the inner ear.

The sound of tea roses spilling over a garden wall.  Deserted street in evening mist.  Summer lightning, early starlight, scent of salt water and wood smoke.

Voice says, "Listen..."

Sound as Music, Sound as Art

Sound is an art medium to be manipulated like any other.

Put plainly, this perspective has little to do with the fundamentals of musical composition--  melody, beat, rhythm, harmony, tempo, and so forth.  Rather, the fabrication and juxtaposition of sounds has everything to do with utilizing the principles and elements of art: lines, textures, values, forms, space, and things of this nature, with emphasis given to their relationship to tone.

As such a composer, I remain ambivalent as to whether such works should be considered music, even given their intended aesthetic appeal.  Such debate is of no importance to the listener's inner ear.

Time, Mind, and Ear

Historical perspective engenders foresight.

Hear, listen, apprehend, and approach.

Ambience and Environs

Atmospheres encompass unique variables.

Sound compositions designed to reflect and express the effects of these variables require methods and strategies altogether removed from musical processes in general, being more akin to recording and combining environmental events than arranging instrumental and vocal music.

Yet these are not random processes, but relate to the more expansive and subtle configuration of human perception and the totality of all things.

Confrontation, Contradistinction

The phenomena of existence present themselves, to be perceived and apprehended as real.

Certainly this is clear, yet it does not go without saying because appearances may be misinterpreted, sometimes intentionally, to support one's perspective or world-view, for example.  And nothing good can come of it.

Rather than stoke the fires of temperament, my intentions are to design sound works that may, in fact, subdue emotion; rather than create linear music, I establish aural settings and allow sounds to emerge as they are perceived in everyday life.  Though these pieces are directed and stylized toward enhancement of aesthetic effect, the more contrived and artificial nature of linear music, in contrast, can be distinctly observed and noted by the interested listener.

Reinvention

Tone and mood will not remain static in the rise and fall of things.

Integrity is continuity.

Stylized Points of View

Art presents perspective.

Whether visually, or through sound, movement, poetry or sculpture, representation of perception creates communication, and thereby emotional connotation, ideas, and perceptual feeling may be conveyed beyond the obstacles of distance and time.

Whether simple and direct or sophisticated and finely wrought, the value of experience is given new reality through shared personal expression.

Spirit II

These recordings represent sounds and patterns I hear in surrounding environments as accurately as I can delineate them.  

Between humorless mediocrity and mindless absurdity there are numberless variables, and outside either extreme may be found sincere gravity on the one hand with keen wit on the other.  Within the dynamic between the real and the spurious lies the balancing point of personal perception and artistic representation.

Completeness reveals itself in total effect, in art and in life.