Sound Forms in Motion

Things rise and fall, gather together, disperse, and reform as diverse elements come and go, bringing about changing atmospheres and conditions.

Listening perception in environmental or spatial contexts suggests arrangements of aural forms and events according to a different order than those structured in musical terms, reflecting separate and distinct aspects of beauty and interest as well.

Semblances

The reality of media is that of imagery.  These are representations of forms and concepts.

Such ideas, particularly those of a visual and auditory nature, do not supersede the phenomena of existence, but rather illustrate various aspects of experience according to a broad spectrum of artistic perspectives.  Of these, some will enhance perception and understanding while others intentionally obfuscate or politicize their subjects.

As an artist, I seek lucidity, clarity, and directness; as a composer, I want the listener to hear with a sense of uplifted spirits, in touch with the inner ear of imagination.

Imagery and Mind

Verbal and sonic imagery contribute to cultural vocabulary.

Words and phrases are replete with associations, as are sounds and tone qualities of sounds.

Storm and roar, blood and thunder, the cool silences, whispering desert winds, murmuring waters, echoes of nightfall.  Context delivers cliche or evokes archetype, and accordingly both listener and composer contribute perceptions that illuminate effect and meaning.

Artifacts, Essences

Art does not embrace Time with impunity.

Music attached to particular social phenomena becomes dated, takes on nostalgic associations, and loses its original intensity and impact as culture moves beyond the range of its influences.

Detached from the temporal, classic metaphor remains vivid in poetry and prose, light and spatial qualities captured in the visual arts elevate the viewer's sensibilities, and sounds designed as lucid colorings and shadings of atmospheres retain their vitality in the inner ear.

Cultural and Personal Perception

There is no lack of music for entertainment and relaxation.

Instead, the listener does not find a great deal of music intended to enhance lucid, alert thought and creativity.  This is because music, for the most part, is considered a diversion, and it is created with that function in mind; the rhythms, melodies, and even the instrumentation that define music attract and divert the attention, rather than enhance it.  It is a self-evident fact, yet it is also true that a sound environment is generally preferable to one that is low in listening stimulation.

My goals as composer and producer are to create sonic atmospheres in which work, thought, study, reading and writing, and contemplative reflection may be enjoyed without distraction and demands being placed upon the listener, allowing the individual greater control of the environment and the activities that take place within it.

Creative Instinct

Power does not rest with the artist, but with the work itself.

The artistic gesture comes from within, and will not be suppressed.

Atmospheres in Transformation

Stillness, birds and insects in sun and heat, distant train, then wind stirring, brief showers, and the sounds of wildlife, children playing, and motor traffic.

Sound events like these form a basis for compositions and arrangements that reflect metaphoric and symbolic musical gesture, but remain for the most part in opposition to what is generally understood to be music.

Yet it is simple to understand, and its beauty speaks for itself.

Sensory Environs

Consider sound designs as stylized representations of reality, particularly the reality of the movement of consciousness and perception through the various atmospheres and events of the day.

The scattering of aural events might then serve as one model for sound composition, as variations of the emergence, clustering, and dispersal of diverse sonic forms could provide structure for others.

Participation

Auditory imagery moves freely in all environments, but may also be framed in perspective.

In composition and production, a balance must be struck; to do more is interference, to do less diminishes experience.

As It Is, Infinite

Culture is not burdened by the stilted and the linear, nor is modern perception averse to nonlinear forms.

Absurdly, obsolete models remain the norm, particularly in the arts of sound. The musical formulas remain static, serving as little more than a vehicle for stale, nineteenth century aims: essentially, to épater le bourgeois.

Like the listener, the modern composer is interested in utterly different effects, sounds, ideas, and imaginative visions.

Temporal Slip

In the archetypal setting, the sense of linear time is abandoned.

One does not escape the bonds of time and space, but may nonetheless perceive them with detachment.

This is one among many perspectives I intend to share as composer of these works.

Distillation

Human perspective is constantly renewed by exploration and vigorous, elevated thought.

Nor should sound arts be burdened by narrow interpretations and diminished limits that grow ever more inadequate to the range of popular imagination.

Promoveo, promovi, promotum.

Sound and Subtext

Diverse listeners gravitate to myriad sounds, particularly those of preferred genres of music.

These musical forms are predominately defined by rhythm, beat, melody and harmony.  Their effects are such that they may take ascendancy over consciousness, induce physical movements, reinforce sensibilities and attitudes, convey emotional states, and influence thought and imagination as well as provide diversion and entertainment.

I am interested in creating sound works that make no demands upon the listener and evoke entirely different phenomena altogether.

To Observe, Listen, and Hear

The listener will be cognizant of sounds, or enveloped by them unaware of their influences.

This is a legacy of recorded sound.  Within individual memory, illusions of music, voices, or vagrant rhythms circulate repeatedly in forms absorbed or impressed upon the listener.  Even as recently as the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries such a condition would have been considered as a rarity, if not an aberration, in terms of a sound state of consciousness.

As a composer I am interested in designing sound works that enhance listening pleasure yet produce entirely different effects, releasing the attention and, consequently, heightening lucidity of thought as well as expanding perceptual awareness.

Space of Being

Think.

Certain environments are conducive to creativity, contemplation, and development of inspired ideas.  If this is desirable, one acts accordingly, gravitating to such atmospheres and bringing one's immediate surroundings into accord with those elements that enrich them.

From my perspective as a composer, this is the art of sound as well as my purpose in bringing works of this nature into realization.

Sound Composition as Aural Vortex

Sound is naturally perceived as a complex of surrounding auditory events.

Even though one may be inculcated by experience to understanding music as linear movement of manipulated sounds through time, the listener may easily find non-linear, avant-garde yet artistic, sonic atmospheres aesthetically pleasing.

The phenomenon of hearing itself  implies the recognition of sound events in this manner, requiring no special preparation, esoteric perspective or attitude to enjoy the experience of listening to works of such character.

Wake, Art, and Artifice

Sound phenomena are fleeting, their motion through consciousness evoking a broad spectrum of persistent impressions.

Composition of sound designs to produce such effects contrasts with that of musical works crafted to be imprinted in memory, being created to reflect environmental events rather than directly engage the listener with variations of predictable patterns.

Each expresses perspectives; one reflects creation, the other, movement in time.

Transmutation

Convert the visual to the auditory.

Unify the perceptions, emotions, and intellectual impressions and express them in sound.

Influence and Release

The composer comes to terms with art by the degree to which control is desired and expressed.

It is a choice that determines the extent to which the total effect will reflect both the action of the creative ego and the force and virtue of the work itself.

Tracing the Arc of Sonic Ideas

Listen, hear, think, create.

Engage conscious awareness of both active and passive auditory perception.  Consider the totality of sounds, music, noises, and atmospheric effects that form the palette of impressions.

Arrange the composition plainly and directly, avoiding interference in the development and formation of the whole, and experience its intrinsic beauty as it unfolds.