Cycles and Permutations

Both order and change suggest meanings that may be sensed, if not fully understood.

Things rise and fall.  Change will occur.  The concrete, impermanent and material reflect the ideal, the permanent and abstract.  The artist perceives and represents the moment of experience, and the old becomes the new.

Entity, Abstraction, Existence

Poetic works combine elements of language in constructions of verbal imagery.

As a composer, I am concerned with tones and their juxtapositions, the atmospheric imagery of real environments, and, like certain poets, with the depiction of visions and realities not perceptible by the senses.

Expression, its Dynamics, and the Unexpected

There are those who would govern culture, control its expressions, dictate its directions and outcomes.

They are nameless and many, but such perspectives are ultimately absurd, Utopian, and impotent in the context of reality. What cannot be predicted cannot be controlled over time.

For the artist, it is simple, and cannot be otherwise:  Do what must be done.

Into the Valley

The excesses of musical creativity and performance are easily forgiven in light of the emotional intensity the arts of sound bring to bear upon creator and audience alike.

Left unchecked, such creative impulses may nonetheless drive the artist into grievous error, and the foundations of celebrity subcultures have little in the way of sustaining the spiritual faculties necessary to avoid shallow and absurd commitments to base, often brute perspectives.  One attains the genuine heights without, or in spite of, mere appearances and the welter of human ignorance, even in its most refined forms.

Facing the existential realities, one understands the meaning and purposes of art, considers, and acts accordingly, or falsely, if the understanding is false.  And it was ever thus.

The Furthest Reach

The nature of art has long been considered one of spiritual expression.

For the composer, like any other artist for whom this tradition holds, sound is a material reflection of the greater ideals, and the creative act is a leap of faith.

To Be Free

The fog of noise in daily life may go unnoticed in the course of work and play, but it is no less oppressive.

Freedom is a responsibility that demands individual choice and action, if it is to be experienced at all. Society, politics, and culture play numerous and critical roles in the exercise of free will and human reason, but the contemplative and meditative have a crucial place as well.

Thus the impetus and purpose for these compositions and recordings.

Distant Echoes Remaining

Much is ignored, much goes unheard.

Of the surrounding world, what remains beneath the attention, that is to say, at a far distance from perceptual focus, can beggar the imagination of all but the child, who remains constantly alert to its cosmos of wonders.

Yet growing accustomed to these, the child moves on, forgetting, wandering into fantasy.

Like Water III

Sound events take place in expanding waves.

A single perspective suggests sound moves in a linear fashion through time, as in the development of a narrative ballad.  When multiple perspectives combine, however, through consideration of various aural effects such as spatial form, emphasis, shading, contrast, unity, and so forth, sound-- and time-- lend themselves to different perceptual interpretations and expressions.

Wavelengths

Listening yields meaning.

This is not to propose that such meaning is always apparent, even to the listener. It may be necessary to adopt a more objective perspective to ascertain the numerous possible meanings a sound, piece of music, or pattern of sounds suggests.

What is certain is that some compositions (and recordings) will have sustained, timeless value, while others are dated to particular settings and events, and still others are silly, frivolous, and disposable.

Then there are the ultimate sounds, the archetypes-- the storm surge, mountain wind, desert night and urban cacophony-- the screams and whispers at the origins of all that may be heard and expressed.

Natural Touch

Consider the natural environment as a template for sonic art, or, if you will, expression of musical form.

Given that the intended outcomes are at the fringes of music, it is nonetheless expression that reflects, modifies, expands upon, and explores auditory events as they occur in the natural world through the prism of the composer's percipience and aesthetic perspective.

Fancy and Gravity

Poetic thought, regardless of its forms of expression, creates juxtaposition and contrast.

Reader, viewer, and listener may interpret according to their best lights, yet the expression remains, over time, sharpened by conceptual understanding yet obscured by shades of cultural change.

Where to Begin

Sparks fly and may be traced to their origins.

Musicians create patterns.  What is rather more interesting is to discover patterns, particularly in the order of things in which no patterns appear to exist at all.

These are images in sound of the living world, those that set the inner ear of listener and composer ablaze with recognition.

Aware

The arts of sound convey emotions, ideas, and spiritual states of being.

The artist projects and objectifies experience as expression and as a learning process, extending and confirming knowledge while establishing perspectives at a distance from the boundaries of time and space.

AM / FM

Changes in atmosphere may be observed continually.

This requires a contemplative approach, one honed by the practice of distinguishing perceptual subtleties. In recorded sound, it is the difference between hearing a finely delineated composition through compatible audio equipment and the same recording through "earbuds"-- it is a matter of choice and discrimination on the part of listener, composer, and producer.

Dreamtime

Sounds reach consciousness through the senses and resonate in memory.

Accordingly, the listener responds, the composer creates, and the evolution of aural imagery unfolds in ways both concrete and ethereal.

Point of the Spear

Science can not reproduce all phenomena, nor replicate consciousness.  It cannot be free of human error, and it can be misused and misinterpreted for non-scientific ends.

Still, science can be an art, and a means to exploration of ideas and concepts impossible to reach otherwise; I, like numerous artists, am indebted to scientific method and study for the capabilities and inspirations technology provides.  Imagination expands with technology, as does science, mutatis mutandis, with imagination.  There is often a great deal of confusion related to the experimental in music and sound, simply because such works are, in many cases, ill-defined and the result of  so-called "spontaneous" events.  While these certainly have their place, for works to be the outcome of experimental processes, they must be considered in the abstract, that is to say, in the postulation of theories, and follow procedures designed to be replicated in order to attain desirable outcomes.

It cannot be overly stressed that this sense of a fundamentally scientific approach is at work in every Black Mountain School composition and recording. These are works created by intent, not accident.

Clairaudience and Reason

Consciousness, and certainly human consciousness, is, according to contemporary evidence and understanding, a rarity in the known universe.

As artist and composer, I hear things that are not present to the ear, sense their objective reality, and bring these atmospheric, auditory images into being through electronic media in ways that were not possible as recently as twenty years ago.  These are works of the inner ear, to be communicated as such to the listener, offering peculiar perspectives in hearing and listening that may contribute to balanced states of mind as well as encouraging clarity of percipience.

Out of the Vasty Deep

Rustle of leaves.  Unfamiliar cries of a strange, wild creature.

Walking out, experience vestigial perceptions of sound imagery impressed upon forgotten ancestors.

Unrevealed Waves

Pause, and listen consciously.

One may take the greatest of care, yet still sense that much goes unobserved. Increasing awareness, one gains comprehension of consciousness and the world.

Therefore, whenever possible, the composer clarifies, interprets, and explicates the imagined through representations of the real.

Breakdown: A Simple Analysis

Social norms and expectations limit perceptivity, particularly in terms of sound and music.

Immured within these limits, the listener becomes accustomed to the various generic forms found at all times and places within the music media, and rarely ventures outside the ordinary frames of reference.

Both composer and discriminating listener understand the importance and value of aesthetic forms beyond the commonplace, and thus it is incumbent upon the composer to bring the unexpected into being in ways that not only "break the mold", but are also capable of altering perceptions in ways that are both beautiful and desirable for all those who would take time to listen.