Revolt

Unequivocally, the arts propel culture.

Media and its delivery systems are mere conveyances.  It is content that imparts the richness of human experience, or paucity thereof.

The artist must strive for the heights of consciousness and refinement of vision, indifferent to success or failure, else, even in the prime of age, suffocate in a miasma of subjection to immediacy, the ever-present puerility of mediocrity.

Painting with Sound

The setting begins in a silent way.

But the canvas is never completely blank.  Experience and reason suggest mood; tone color forms, brightens and shades the atmosphere; patterns move within limits, as do sound perceptions altered by movement.  Aural events emerge, evolve, and disperse over the course of the work, one of aural imagery, emotion, and imagination, enhanced by the individuality of the composer's palette and the listener's state of mind.

Without Expectations

Bring perception of the uncanny into being.

Combine sounds and the settings each suggests-- beach arcade, distant desert, and the breeze down an antique hallway, for example.  Separately they are heard and known; yet together they mingle to evoke a sense of simultaneous strangeness and familiarity.

While the mundane, that is to say, the generic, is instantly recognized, that which is not easily grasped awakens a sense of awe, and with it, curiosity and questions.

The way of the artist is to move in such directions.

The Moment and the Contemplative

The inner ear captures meaning and aural perception, absorbing these as knowledge and memory.

Reflection yields creativity, in both art and life; it enlivens and elevates the sensibilities of listener and composer alike.

Works in Development

The processes of perception, sound, and art are a constant with the composer.

Every engagement with the work calls for refinement, and every moment of understanding requires patience, moral reason, intuition, and clarity of consciousness.  There is neither gain nor loss, only the expansion and persistence of change.

Elements and Principles

Random sounds or contrived, unstructured sounds are merely those things and nothing more.

Aesthetic sound composition need not be subject to the structures and generic forms of music, yet it becomes elevated by virtues found in the visual arts, which include balance, contrast, unity, and such subtle aural features as those of tone, color, line, movement, texture and direction.

Brought into being accordingly, the relationships established between diverse sounds, tones, and juxtapositions of aural imagery create atmospheric effects of great beauty and interest that neither standard musical stylings nor indiscriminate auditory gestures capture.

Air of the Day

Seize awareness of the surroundings, that is to say, take conscious notice of transition in movement and atmosphere in place.

Sidewalk, recreation hall, vacant lot, country road, dunes, riverside trail, apartment balcony, school campus, boat dock, high plains, old growth forest, shopping center, wildlife sanctuary- brimming with sounds.

Given musical form, representations of natural, spontaneous sound events may engage the ear in the manner that listening takes place in non-musical environments.

Motion Perspective

Movement through sonic space produces a wide range of perceptual effects.

Innumerable sounds collide and mix in combinations of distorted flux and bright clarity, whether the percipient, the auditory imagery, or both are in motion.

Compositions may be designed in such a way as to reflect these peculiar events, and production may enhance them, yet they are most pronounced in environments that are suited to activity. Whether set within astutely crafted art installations or well laid out living environments, open, fluid areas provide the most desirable situations for music made for heightened and immersive listening.

Gain, Not Loss

Release sounds from common structures.

Let them flow without consideration of tempo, beginning, middle, end.  At first the effect is strange, and understood, through cultural conditioning, within the narrow confines of disorder, or falling apart.

Yet with subtle framing and a minimum of interference on the part of the composer, these sound elements may evolve into forms and patterns of aesthetic beauty, and this points in the direction of the greater order of things.

Eccentricities

Look deeply in the places where others briefly glance.

Listen carefully for the sounds that go unnoticed in the course of things.

What is strange is the fascination with spectacle, absurdity, and the specious distractions that ensnare the imagination; what is real is direct experience, insight, and the flux of the timeless moment.

Mood, Idea, Emotion

Sounds direct the mood of the listener, sometimes directly and at other times unconsciously.

This direction of impression and reaction is clearly a primary role of sound in film and in other media. Such is the manipulation of sentiment.  Excitement, sadness, fear, rage, suspense, and so on may be generated by auditory and visual imagery, even when the result is existentially absurd.

To encourage emotional reaction rather than thoughtful response obviously devalues reason.  To do so through musical bombast and other means of over-saturation of the senses is common. These are the tools of propaganda and other forms of cultural influence and control.

I compose works in opposition to those that produce such effects, designed to balance and liberate feeling, being, and state of mind.

Mysticism, Science, and Art

Trace the arc of imagination forward, beginning in the remote, historic past and projecting into the distant future.

Sounds emerge out of thin air in delicate points of light; manipulated into juxtapositions that please the artist and listener, they expand, rise, contract and fall like soap bubbles from a child's toy, to collide, coalesce, disperse, and form again as new tones and patterns.

Imagination finds ways of expression through technology, and the latter inspires again the former.

Field, Impression, Expansion

While the eye is more attuned to such subtleties as shading and depth, the ear may become more acute with proficient, artful listening.

Yet the argument that there is no more time for such things follows.

Time must be made.

The alternative proposes casting aside heightened awareness and perceptivity, and with these, elevation of the mind and spirit.

Variables and Intensities

A wide range of experience exists between conscious listening and unconscious hearing.

Music, for the most part, is intended to dominate attention.  To the extent that this occurs, perceptual experience is reduced by varying degrees as listening awareness is concentrated on pulse and force.

Consider sound as an art form; rich auditory imagery is the primary element and focus of imaginative listening, and thus is given ascendancy over others.  The role of rhythm, percussion, melodic "hooks" and so forth is reduced or eliminated altogether, as it negates or contributes little to the total effect of atmospheric images in dynamic motion.

The result is not simply a different form of music, but becomes, in fact, a different way of listening.

Convergence III

Conceptually, there is no challenge and little of interest in the production of mere chaos.

Neither is disorder, whether simplistic or extravagant, unique or artistically consequential.

Aesthetic purpose and order contribute to depth of meaning and a desirable total effect in any artistic setting, and statements of absurdity and disarray are both plentiful and pointless.

It is the convergence of such essential elements as emotion and idea, concept and action, vision and renewal, that reflect creativity of a vigor and stamina that speaks to the elevation of both culture and the individual.

Sustained Equipoise

Contrast completes experience and establishes fundamental insights.

Thus these compositions developed around observations of naturally occurring atmospheres reflect, by degrees, the asymmetric representation of sounds "in the wild" and the balanced perspective of the composer's aesthetic vision and purpose- that of heightening awareness in ways that carry over into everyday consciousness.

Stray Impressions

Regardless of medium, the artist recognizes art as others do not.

Yet regardless of socioeconomic status or education, anyone may recognize work that approaches universality and the sublime.

Thought, Imagery, and The Real

Certainly, the processes of thought may interfere with experience, even contradict perceptions.

But idea must conform to reality; reality will not conform to it, nor will mere narratives that contravene the order of the real sustain themselves. No theory alone will translate noise into music, and the art of sound will be brought into being with aesthetic meaning and beauty, or it will not be.

Sound, Emotion, Attitude

Rhythm and melody attract and engage perception and concentration.

Rather, consider sounds that are combined in artistic forms of aural imagery that allow free reign of one's attention.

Unfettered from tempo and repetition, the listener may experience the music as part of the physical setting, one that is accommodating to a desirable state of mind.

Listening Consciousness

The perceptions of the ancients differ little from those of the modern day, if the writers and historians are to be believed.

Yet the moment now is filled with sounds, even to the point of being burdened by them. Composer and listener must distinguish between listening with intent and purpose and absorbing- or ignoring- sounds that are thrust upon them.