Direct Approach

Skeptical of appearances, the artist chooses means and method of expression.

One may reasonably expect an objective perception to be taken as meaningful, in that it depicts to the greatest degree possible an understanding of the real world, yet this is rarely the case.

In communications media a tedious subjectivity is the predominate attitude, and its attendant facile projections of everything from a nihilist perspective to a spurious intellectual tone are absorbed and parroted throughout the social fabric.  Better to expect nothing, and act with autonomy, if that is what honesty demands.

Apatheia

Autonomy belongs to those who will accept it.

The artist, composer, writer, athlete or scholar is no more or less free than any other person, and is equally subject to the forces of history and the demands of the present day.  Nonetheless, it is never the case that one must allow oneself to be coerced or forced to venture one opinion or another on those things upon which such judgement is to be held in abeyance, that is to say, upon those issues that will never be settled.  What one observes are facts, what one expresses are perceptions that may be objective, subjective, or neutral.  What is of greatest importance is whether or not such an expression is real, or merely an appearance.  This is the essential nature of creative purpose.

Lacking Precedent

Seek art now.  Right now.

A vague undercurrent of uneasiness and anxiety pervades contemporary cultural perspectives.  In fine, it is the fact that the technology for creative expression is everywhere within reach, and yet the resulting creative work that should be expected is nowhere to be found.

Loss of the Contemplative

A shallow view of technology suggests that it allows the user to "defy limits".

Such a view reflects limits that technology has already brought to bear against the imagination.

Tabula Rasa to Total Effect

Sensory impressions, experiences, contemplation, abstract ideas.

Thus thoughts, choice, media, and expression, reflecting the subjective sensibilities of the artist and objective realities as well.  What is ultimately revealed is being in the world.

Fire, Forge, and Force

To re-create is not enough, and futile.

The great themes and visions must be re-formed.  All the arts, philosophies, schools of thought, aesthetic systems and methodologies shrink in universal estimation as they become effortlessly accessible, and are realized in only the most petty, shallow ways. Comprehension fails entirely, lacking all substance.

Mention the concerto, the tone poem, or "The Birth of the Cool" and be prepared to meet blank stares or pathetic dissembling. Existentialism, Taoism, Cubism, and Impressionism alike are met with all the depth of interest and enthusiasm of a dray horse.  These are, in fact, not effortless at all, and their reality will not be apprehended to any degree without arduous effort.  There is no alternative, yet shamming is as ubiquitous as it is intolerable, as if those who claim to have read Eliot or Burroughs, listened deeply to "Rhapsody in Blue", or experienced a moment of Zen have actually done so.  If it were so, indeed, many aspects of culture would be entirely different than they clearly are.

Such things as these must be brought back to life, by the force of will and creative effort necessary to illuminate them as newly, essentially desirable, and as central to human progress, as digitized information is to contemporary technology.  And this is by no means a likely event.

Within the Unexpected

Every perception awakens with sudden change.

Here, in conditions outside the ordinary, art and reality converge.

Asymmetric Effect

Predictability is toxic.

It is the death of art, and ultimately of culture. It is written on the stake driven through the heart of American rock music; it is the nemesis yet of American jazz, and of the global avant-garde, not only in music, but in every field of cultural endeavor.  Even so, innovation is quietly suppressed, or damned with faint praise, in the erroneous, elitist belief that the listener lacks the intellectual and emotional wherewithal that is necessary for forward-thinking, or, worse, that the listener is little more than a mindless consumer whose dull appetites must be directed toward the "just" ends of a kind of (commercially acceptable) political correctness.

As composer and artist, I respect the listener, and am not subject to such grotesque errors.  And thus it is that I have spent four decades pursuing and perfecting compositions and recordings that cannot be forced into a mold or followed to inevitable conclusions, even with- no, especially with- repeated listening.  I will not compromise.  I do not expect less of my listeners.

Concealed Energies

Let there be no confusion: it is the artist who defines art.

Those who say otherwise have other agendas; those who allow their art to be defined by others may be many things, but they are not artists.  The likes of these are ubiquitous, found everywhere from print media to "web presences", all embraced by "endowment" managers, cultural nabobs, academic sycophants and political bureaucracies.

I, like other artists, define my terms.  All the rest exist in a miasma of glorified fraud and waste.

This, too, is what it means to listen, and hear: to discriminate between the real and the falsified.

The Sounds You Hear

I don't "make music" in the traditional sense, though I have done so previously, for decades, in fact.

Generally speaking, music involves forms, arrangements, harmonies, melodies, genres, and a host of sophisticated and technical concepts that define it as an art form.  Boston's Berklee College of Music comes to mind as a contemporary institution focused on these matters.

I am only interested in sounds as they are encountered in the course of events, and with developing their combinations in the way of an artist applying paint to canvasses that are continually in motion with tones and imagery.

To the Purpose

The art of listening clarifies perception.

I compose accordingly, engaged in producing this total effect. This is a means to listen, and hear.

Totality

Art exists in a broad spectrum combining concepts, gestures, performances, and objective works.

Impressions, perceptions, and ideas that cannot be put into words must be articulated by other means, each of which extends the cultural vocabulary of the human condition.

Strike Counter Strike

Collective idealism can never tolerate art.

But this is an ancient idea.

Art is the expression of an autonomous individual, one who takes a measure of reality and expresses that measurement.  What matters is the discernment necessary to evaluate whether a work is a true reflection or a falsification.

Critical Clarity

"Feeling" is not reasoning.

No artist maintains credibility or integrity who claims purely subjective and emotional perspective is superior to established fact, and no such expression rises to the level of art.

Lies and propaganda may be interesting for what they are, but culture and history remain objective in judgement, and uncaring as to whether they are viewed as unkind.

The foundation for intellectual and perceptual elevation is Reason, a point of departure that is most essential, even as the transcendent sense of being rises beyond all understanding.

Impermanence, Transformation

Detachment clarifies perspective.

Reality changes, while perceptions and emotions do not always follow.

View and Variation

Art expresses belief and judgement.

Certainly this means art represents a philosophical perspective, whether viewed as a representation of reality or as gesture alone. To interpret or to simply experience any work implies a philosophical choice.  Were it otherwise one would have no choice, other than to accede to, or impose, diktat.

What cannot be expressed directly can, and will, be evoked by other means.

System

Nothing is random, but only apparently so.  It is an appearance only.

Everything has a cause, and in terms of the finished work, that is the role of the artist.

Where Monsters Roam

Observe the decline in prominence of the arts.

If technology alone directs culture, information is everywhere available and nowhere internalized.

This is a failure of the imagination generated by an extreme sense of self-importance brought on by "connectivity".  It is a state of illusion, one that dulls and devitalizes the creative sense.

Knowing

The artist creates perceptions and impressions.

These will be accepted or rejected on face value, or, in certain individuals, they will become knowledge of things beyond appearances. Who genuinely perceives, views, listens?

For most, this will remain a mystery.

The Uncanny and the Avant-Garde

Assemble elements both predictable and popular and there is nothing unexpected.

Now strip away, by degrees, these elements. That which was recognizable evolves toward the unknown, taking on an alien aspect while remaining somewhat within the realm of experience.

This is the aesthetic beauty of the unexpected, outside the bland, dull order of shock and offense.