Art and Action

One muses, one gives due consideration to ideas, thinks creatively, and communicates.

Environments conducive to contemplative thought allow free reign of imagination and conscious focus of attention, so atmosphere can make a vital contribution to such things as problem solving, analysis and evaluative work, conversation, and reading. The aforementioned activities, being essential to any information-based culture, require the vitality of sound compositions that specifically enhance state of mind and critical thinking.

The composition and production of music serve innumerable purposes, yet most are directly related to entertainment and diversion.  Increasingly, the evolution of culture will demand changes in the arts of sound to accommodate that progress, and the art of listening will change accordingly.

Reflections and Shadows

There are schools of thought that consider disorder and distracted states of mind to be cultural norms that an unspecified "we" must acclimate ourselves to in order to cope with contemporary reality.

Supercilious posturing and rationalizations concerning failures of self-possession and restraint aside, it remains for the artist to counter untenable views and simplistic visions by example.

Works representing clarity of consciousness and moral reason afford far greater understanding than argumentation and debate allow.  One capable of original thought will exercise that ability.

Waiting

Abandoned military vehicle parked at the edge of the woods, seen across an open field.

Suddenly, perspective changes; senses are heightened, and sounds of whippoorwill and insect appear very clear and close.  Yet nothing extraordinary is taking place, beyond a quickening of consciousness.  A zone is crossed and a transition from one state of being to another occurs.

Men appear in service uniforms, place surveyor's tools in the back of the vehicle. The engine engages; sound of approach.  They wave.  Friendly.  They drive away; the sound of the motor recedes down the road.  Now crickets, tree frogs, perhaps.  Rustle of leaves.  Distant drone of air traffic.

Conversation turns to other things, and sounds go unattended.

Such is one example of the manner in which sounds may be perceived with altered awareness; when listening attention turns to sound settings that contrast with the paradigms of music and expectations are set aside, the peculiar force of auditory perception is enhanced in striking ways.

Imagery in Consciousness

Sound is ephemeral, but leaves lingering impressions.

In its familiar forms, sound is structured to seize and hold attention, and is thus focused on patterns played out in time as a vehicle for expression of idea and emotion, whether simple or sophisticated, utilizing the same elements of music.

Lay aside these common elements, and observe how formlessness in sound liberates thought and feeling, releasing awareness within atmospheres conducive to contemplative activities.

Regard and Response

Experience of art entails engagement with its scope, content, detail, and meaning.

Perception encompasses wide ranges of attention, from general awareness to intense focus. For the artist as composer, this occasions a broad range of colors from the palette of sounds, transformative manipulation of diverse sonic elements, and designs to beguile the discriminating listener, one who has grown increasingly bored with bombast and orhwurm.

Presences

Sounds communicate the essences of reality.

Consciousness, perspective, sensory impressions, ideas, and emotions informed by sounds convey, in turn, experiences to the individual and the culture at large.  Always in flux, the myriad attributes of these experiences, both personal and social, reflect states of being and of civilization as well. For the artist as composer, every contribution is one of practically unlimited meaning,

Artificiality and Detachment

Pop culture, like any other, has periods of vitality and decline. Historically, prolonged decline foreshadows extensive change.

Conversely, at a distance from the vicissitudes of popular attention, music composed to enhance clarity of perception engages emotional balance and intellectual vigor.

Terra Incognita

Think in linear terms and move accordingly.

Predictability has its virtues, depending on outcomes and goals.  Methodologies and techniques, for example, are crafted to assure specific outcomes that can be reproduced.

If, on the other hand, it is necessary to set aside the given in order to reveal unknown possibilities, there will be no advancement without acceptance of risk, and linear thought is an obstacle to be overcome.  This is a choice among many the artist must make in pursuit of aesthetic integrity.

Projection of Imagining

Somewhere in time past, something is happening that directly impacts the moment now.

Even in the moment now, it can be heard in time future, with the will to listen to the inner ear.

Visual Sounds, Sonic Symbols

Imagery shares like qualities in visual and aural forms.

Subtlety, color, brightness, shading, and tone quality are important to both visual and auditory perception, enhancing clarity of understanding and experience of life as well as art.

Such appreciation cannot be overemphasized; to recognize and absorb aesthetic beauty is essentially human, and to lose sense of it tends toward individual and cultural decline.

Futurity: Evolving Perspectives

Music does not exhaust its essential qualities, but these may become superfluous to the discriminating listener.

But beyond the essential components-- instrumentation, tempo, rhythm, melody, harmony, percussion-- the listener no longer hears what can be called music, but undefined sounds in indeterminate forms.

As nothing more than inarticulate outbursts, such sounds are of no consequence.

Wrought with aesthetic purpose, however, they are of far-reaching impact and will ultimately have profound significance, rendering what is now the common fare obsolete.

The Art of Working

Artistic composition reflects method and technique, elevated by imagination.

Consequently, the spectator, percipient, and audience experience representations of reality according to myriad perspectives, from the plain and simple to the sophisticated and critical.

Regardless, labor focused upon clarity and integrity of expression conveys universal meanings.

Grasp and Release

The appeal of generic musical forms lies in their reflections of particular states of mind and emotion.

Forms in opposition rely on the same elements, particularly rhythms, and have the same appeal.

Then let us move away, outside, and beyond both scenarios, and direct the attention to different states of consciousness altogether.

Clearly,  these will be, in their diversity, more directly perceptual, contemplative, and reasoning in nature; they will be reached through different constructs of aesthetically purposeful sounds.

Shallows

The arts directly impact culture, just as they reflect it.

Among the impressions of the day are those that signal subjectivity and narrow predisposition, that is to say, intentionally incomplete perspective, on a variety of subjects.  For many this is acceptable-- it is the given, or the "received wisdom" in regard to cultural phenomena.

But the way of the artist is to broaden viewpoints, hazard the depths, propose possibilities, establish limits for their defining principles in expression (or exceed them for aesthetic purposes), and in doing so continually advance human awareness, clarifying the mysteries of life and consciousness.

To do less is to do very little indeed.

Outage

The power goes out, and most of the technology goes with it.

The ear adjusts to what we call silence as the eye adjusts to apparent darkness, and the sounds of the real surround consciousness.  This too is music, continuous music of unexpected beauty, always present yet rarely perceived.

Disconnection, Immersion

Technology may serve a variety of purposes, or be no more than a diversion.

In the former case, technology may yield increase in capability, expanding potential; yet it is clearly the latter that occupies the attention with little in the way of reward. Here, in fact, is an example of a situation in which power of choice rests with the individual will, and the artist acts accordingly.

Expression as Reflection

I want the listener to hear reality as I hear it.

By this I do not mean literally, as a recording of a particular environment would capture the sounds of nature or a cultural event.  Instead, listen through means of the stylized forms of aural imagery these compositions represent, as perceptual impressions, and hear the reality that is often obscured in the course of commonplace events.

Transit

Absent reason and virtue, there is clamor.

In the rise and fall of things, storms subside and reality returns to its natural state. Upon reflection, listener and composer discern between conditions that are auspicious and those that foreshadow weakness, collapse, and loss.

Every creative work is a contribution to culture. Within the culture the work is embraced or rejected, yet the artist must be indifferent to this.  Advancement or decline will proceed in either case.  What is of moment is expression and perspective, from which the future will spring.

Tradition and the Modern

Creative impulse intersects with past expression in terms of universality and the permanent things.

These permanent things retain their vigor and value beyond temporal boundaries. They are the ideas and values reflecting self-evident good in all cultures, and while time may alter their expression over generations, it does not erase them.

Every work of every composer and artist reveals a raw measurement of what they know against the vastness of what they do not know.  In the fullness of time, things that cannot now be perceived will become manifest, yielding more to be imagined.

Placing Noise at a Distance

Choose to listen.

This apparently simple suggestion is fraught with absurd complexity and indecision, neither of which is worthy of comment.  Suffice it to say that one should refuse to allow oneself to be subjected to the meaningless and contemptible, making time instead for those things of aesthetic value that reflect the virtues of beauty and moral reason.