Anomaly

Listening involves more than what is generously termed "appreciation of music".

Perceptual clarity in apprehension of tone color, texture, and grasp of meaningful aural gesture, while easily developed, are rarely challenged and elevated in the normal course of the listening experience.

Depth of listening awareness enlivens consciousness of these subtleties and develops the inner ear of imagination.  This is an inborn faculty, far too often dulled by constant exposure to the mediocre and mundane, through both trite performances and poor quality sound reproduction systems.

Everywhere

Every setting offers sequences of perceptions.

Every sequence is uniquely that of the percipient.

In terms of sound, music- including cinematic sound design- is typically arranged to attract and hold the attention while directing it through a series of auditory events.

The compositions under discussion here, as the listener may notice in sampling them, are arranged to reflect natural perceptual fields in which the percipient is afforded opportunities to direct personal attention at will within aesthetically pleasing aural environments.

Setting, Space, Movement, Being

Hear the world.

Thought moves through language, then beyond words, as sounds move beyond music.

Imaginings

Perceive directly.  Otherwise awareness will be distorted through the filters of media culture.

At minimum, consider the reasoning that informs the various narratives of cultural events.  Clearly, some perspectives are realistic, others predicated upon the emotional desire for particular outcomes.

But reality conforms to no one; change is constant and inevitable, so it is wise to act in accord with nature, and with integrity.  Set aside those frames of reference outside one's individual approaches and interpretations of ideas and events, and reflect upon the significance of personal experience.

Listen, and hear the original imagination.

Finding Time

Social and cultural conditions-- and conditioning of behavior-- place time in the context of limits.

Within such limits life is constricted and state of mind grows fatigued.  It is natural to rebel against such temporal and existential burdens.

A fitting response to these conditions is one that expands perspective beyond narrow, linear attitudes toward the dimension of time through contemplative thought and activity.

Arts that reinforce heightened states of awareness contribute to a fuller understanding of the human condition, and, from a composer's point of view, it is through the arts of sound that such illumination may arise.

Mood, Tone, Atmospherics

Consider mood in terms of sound as evoking an emotional response.

Tone, then, may be considered to reflect the composer's attitude towards the subject of the work.

Essential, from my viewpoint, is a balanced perspective lending itself to a response of equanimity, whether in the process of composition or that of the listening experience.

Cultural Perceptivity

Moved by social and cultural forces, one encounters sounds that reflect diverse experiences.

Gravitating toward the most pleasurable aural forms that offer the greatest intellectual and emotional satisfaction, some find the sense of listening itself becomes enhanced, and consequently listener and composer develop the spirit of inquiry that leads to new, even as yet unknown, forms of artistic music-
or, given the nature of aesthetic experimental work, non-music.

Simple Elements

Complexity has its origins in the plain and clear.

In the perception of sound, unadorned beauty directs the listener to depth of experience.

Sense, Substance

Art is a constant consideration for its creators.  It is a term that is not used lightly.

There are poets, painters, authors, dancers and composers who demand everything of themselves. They expect nothing in return beyond the essence of their work.

Expression and gesture are ways of knowing and being; the artistic journey is one of significance and meaning. These are things that cannot be neglected, and are not set aside or forgotten.

Sounds Out of TIme

Subjective projection of emotion is an absurd imposition on works of art.

Yet music evokes nostalgia, particularly that of time, place, and personal experience.

Sound compositions designed to enhance atmosphere and state of mind are not contrived to bring about sentimental effects.  It is not "the moment" that is created or captured through art, but rather the perceptivity it evokes or restores.  This is art formed by aural imagery in the quest for heightened awareness-- elevation of mind and spirit-- not self-expression, cultural criticism, or political activism.

One Hand Clapping

Contemplation and stillness are their own rewards, yet they elevate perceptual acuity in active life.

Sound patterns stimulate and reflect emotions and ideas; thus the constancy of the popular musical genres with their attendant social and cultural phenomena. Yet this is not the entirety of the reality of sound and the profundity of its total effect.

For the composer and listener, sound imagery can be an expression of the fullness of being, a deep apprehension of a design greater than human understanding, and ultimately, a sense of mystery and possibility.

Apatheia

Give attention to the aural events of everyday surroundings.

Communication dominates attention. News, weather, opinion, entertainment, sports.

I want to communicate sounds to free consciousness, to bring states of mind into being through auditory imagery evoking equipoise, elevation, and equanimity.

Quiet Flux

Set aside preconceived ideas regarding "music".

Imagine sounds ordered to reflect elements and atmospheres of changing environments.

Sonic Sensibilities

The sounds of cultural life reveal both the inner and outer worlds.

Society and the individual create and move according to rhythms and patterns, some common and predictable, others obscure. The wise observer and participant understands the qualities of stillness and equanimity as also essential, being moderating and balancing forces.

These are conditions the composer and listener may directly influence in the course of events, both being percipients.

Other Dimensions

Aesthetic sound art is as accessible as listening, and hearing.

The composer may experiment, theorize, and speculate, exploring the range of possible aural forms while developing individual perspectives and methods over the course of decades.  Regardless, if the purpose and effect is that of the creation of the good and the beautiful, there can simply be no greater meaning than the integrity of work itself.

Each listening experience is its own.

Environmental Processes and Patterns

All atmospheres yield unique elements.

Rambling farmhouse surrounded by fields of broomstraw, ship's flight deck, midnight forest and urban marketplace all host sonic events that may soothe, shock, amuse, puzzle, or generate any number of responses in the listener's consciousness.

Separate, combine, juxtapose, evolve: these strategies and tactics create auditory imagery in the crucible of the inner ear, to be brought into being through the instrument of the studio using both primitive and highly technological sound production sources.

Expression into Experiences

Art begins with a percipient, then evolves through myriad processes to engages others' awareness.

For the composer, the art of sound offers the peculiar qualities of precisely conveying sound imagery while, paradoxically, providing the listener with an aural field of experiences open to a broad range of associations, ideas, and emotions, with which the composer cannot possibly be aware.

As listener, the composer enters the same field of sounds and becomes equally engaged, at times in unexpected and revealing ways.

Expansion

There is always the impulse to narrow perception of objects and events to superficial, subjective definitions.

Recognize, be receptive, or reject outright. But this is not aesthetic discrimination, the discernment of expression and meaning. For the listener, and composer as well, it is a matter of thought as well as experience. Mere openness or close-mindedness is not enough to contend with the complexities of reality and appearances, and is self-defeating.

To extend one's reach toward immersion in the good and the beautiful is to elevate awareness of the unity of being.

Mind and World at Large

Aesthetic pleasure is a function of intellect, feeling, and outwardly-directed perception.

Likewise, experience, heart, and mind inform introspection and reflection. The composer would do well whose works offer enhancements to both the inner and outer worlds of understanding.

There is no debate that these are faculties of a higher order than those of impulse and egocentric motivation, yet fullness of participation in human events is often reduced to superficiality and gross simplicity, and just as often this is the outcome of personal choice.

It is not the purpose of art to make wider, deeper experience effortless, but to make it possible.

Comparative Sound Structures

Music per se is brought into being in varied contexts of relationship to forms and formulas.

Rather than work in terms of standard methodologies and genre stylings, I develop and arrange aural compositions proportioned to those sounds occurring over the course of events in diverse natural and cultural environments.  Within these limitations atmospheres arise as reflections of real-world auditory phenomena.