Axis, Whorl, Atmosphere

The listener is at the center.

The spectacle is staged:  lights and visuals of every kind intensify the sound performance.  Like video, it exists for the eyes, not the ears, yet it completes the circuit of attention, as do sound designs for films that augment action and emotional scenarios with fitting music and effects.

Outside the spectacle, the listener is free to do other things and to move about, engaging in both passive hearing as well as active listening: auditory perceptions are altered accordingly by these movements.  Musical ambience may be composed and recorded for such contexts, to be enjoyed and engaged in such a manner.

Fullness of experience is far greater than anything mere spectacle can provide.

Close, Distant, Indeterminate

Musical variety exists within a frame of reference generally defined by cultural and personal taste.

Move past those boundaries and beyond their time and place altogether.  Listen for the beautiful, determine what makes it so, and create ways to bring it into being.

Engagement, Structured and Non-linear

Consider the shapes and intensities of sound waves along with the position of the percipient within the sonic field.

The perceptions of the stationary listener differ from those of the mobile one, for whom the totality of the listening experience undergoes change with movement.

The majority of musical performances and recordings are designed in terms of arrangements of direct, focused listening, including the free-flowing area of the dance floor.

Consider, conversely, recordings designed for the mobile listener, and sound performances structured for the mobility of both listeners and sound sources.

Sounds, Presences

Day to day reality presents the listener and observer with a practically infinite number of sound events, yet most of them go unnoticed.

These are raw materials, from which beauty and meaning can be seized and expressed through stylized, artistic forms, reflecting the ways they occur and are perceived in natural and cultural environments.

Art Music

Definitions are indifferent things.

Experience of art is its meaning.

The Specious and the Authentic

Immured in the conventional, the sensational, the effortless and the obvious, one may fail to discern the bold as well as the sublime.

It is a grievous error to mistake ideology for education and wisdom.  Likewise, artistic representations may evoke perspectives of reality, but do not suspend facts.  One listens, one hears; yet perceptions are only as reliable as consciousness is unburdened by bias and cultural constraints.

As artist and observer, composer and listener engage, so do they imagine, reflecting the rise and fall of all things.

Permeation

A sealed system inevitably decays.

Narrow the idea of music to variation within stylistic boundaries and there is no growth or change.

Expand, then, all aesthetically pleasing sounds onto the sonic canvas, unburdened by expectations.

Media, Perception, Existence

Representations of experience and experiential reality engage listener and observer.

One may contemplate and interact, but even so, both ways of engagement suggest transcendence.

There is always the possibility of experiencing, and communicating, what is not yet seen, or heard, or known.

Thought, Action, Direction, Reality

Simply put, what lies beyond the horizon comes to light in the imagination.

Erase distinctions between intellectual, artistic, and social perspectives in ways that set the tone for individual creativity in the cultural times to come.

One may quickly comprehend possibilities for the good that are real, but as yet unseen, and act upon their inspiration with courage and confidence.

Listen Forward

Imagination foresees.

Within the territory of the mind's eye, listen as well, and hear with the inner ear.

Perspective, Mirror, Impression

Consider sounds as they occur naturally, without manipulation or interference.

What is perceived as aesthetic beauty in such conditions may be renewed and expressed in artistic contexts. As stylized reflections of sound unburdened by musical connotations, such works, by their presence and effects, possess unique and subtle charms, bidding the artist to disappear and to allow the listening experience to unfold.

A Walk at Twilight

Sounds may express the gamut of human emotions, but they can express more.

Tones, lines, and juxtapositions of sonic elements are capable of suggesting metaphoric experiences of events, objects, actions and ideas.  It is possible to evoke the spiritual and the uncanny, as well as the temporal and mundane.

Effects and Reflections

Social environments engage ideas and actions according to multiple dynamics of communication.

One who gains insights into the arts becomes aware of the impact of culture upon the individual and collective consciousness; this fortifies discernment of the value, meaning, and intent behind cultural phenomena, and contributes to conscious cultivation of the personal sensibilities.

For listener and composer, this means mutual engagement of sound and imagination, unburdened by false or contrived appearances of style and manners.

Underlying Reality

Patterns and elements associated with common musical forms vary over time, but change little.

Constant sounds of change, conversely, are found throughout human and natural environments.

Let this model be reflected in aural design and composition, and auditory perception changes accordingly.

Hearing the Distant

Change, never ceasing, is a mechanism of survival.

Sounds across cultures, in the moment now, move toward wider, deeper expressions.

This is the inevitable consequence of their dynamic nature, and cannot be held in check by human desire for certainty.

Objects and Expressions

Combine images so as to suggest juxtapositions of sounds.

Take any combination of sounds and extend the forms suggested into aesthetic aural events of sustained beauty.  This is an invitation to elevated, contemplative states of mind, colored with a sense of mystery.

Cultural Flux

Change is continuous, with ideas and their associated activities intersecting myriad others at all times and places.

Thus, in artistic efforts, it is wise to apprehend the realities of opportunity and potential in expression.

Works will be, to some extent, grounded in contemporary settings while also possessing timeless qualities. Their meanings will be accessible according to the cultural receptivity, or lack thereof, for artistic representations reflecting the values of the one or the other.

The only real choice, always, is that of integrity and authenticity of gesture; anything else is nothing more than a selection between false appearances.

Living, Listening

Sound surrounds you now.

There is no silence; only listen, and hear.  Out of perception, bring forth expression.

Some, But Not All

From time to time the arts must endure a collectivist mentality.

But this is nothing more than a consequence of expanding horizons, a situation that lends itself to the consolidation of power among social, academic, and political groups bound by common interests and attitudes, but lacking, in their numbers, the virtues of individuality.

Predictably, such a way of thinking engenders a dull, insular advocacy of mediocrity with an utterly entrenched resistance to the distinctive and imaginative.

Some artists, musicians, theorists, and composers, enjoined to conformity, will succumb to cultural orientations of this nature.  For the rest, to do so is out of the realm of possibilities; it is the work that is of paramount importance.

Point Counterpoint

As this or that, I think thus and such.

Thoughts come and go, perspectives alter, notes serve their purposes as tools and reflections.

But meaning is found in the work.