Tonal Flux

Sounds may be ordered according to a central tone, but need not be predictable.

One-dimensional predictability is contrary to the reality of sound and its perception.

To narrow the function of hearing to a single attitude of mind is to deny the sense itself.  The witless anarchy of chaotic noise is superior to bland, insipid sounds, but far more to be desired is the release of the mind from dull expectations- stultifying beats and rhythms- through immersion in unobstructed flow of aesthetic design.

Stoa

The artist, like the Stoic of old, manipulates perspective.

It should not be beyond comprehension that reality is not a function of the ego, nor that perceptions themselves exist to inform consciousness for more elevated purposes than self-absorbed expression.

These are points of essential knowledge, in firm opposition to inimical delusion. In terms of the arts, they lend themselves to the formulation of viewpoints established to highlight the differences between mere appearances and the real.  I say formulation in acknowledgement of the challenge that sensory impressions and their interpretations can and do present, objectivity being at times in short supply.

The composer experiences life, and is interested in sound as form and media in representing events, ideas, emotional connectivity, and frameworks for the apprehension of the world. This is one for whom the effects of music are not enough.  There must be insights.  There must be meanings.

Place and Process

Neither listener nor composer simply accepts things as they are, with no further possibilities.

If there is no room for the unconventional, there is no room for progress, or, for that matter, reality.

Aural Field

It is the listener, not the composer, who chooses the time and place to experience recorded works.

Therefore the burden is on the composer to produce the finest works possible, those made to enliven and elevate consciousness in any setting the listener may prefer.

The Receptive and the Cultivated

The reality of sound is vibration in motion.

The reality of listening is that of perceptions informing consciousness.

Because the mind is immersed in personal experience, influenced subjectively by emotion, and also directed by innumerable aspects of culture to value sounds arranged in recognized musical structures, the listener is challenged by expressions that immediately impress as peculiar and out of the ordinary.

Thus it is clear that the mysterious nature of the beautiful demands a sense of integrity and aesthetic purpose in both composer and listener.

Expansion, Contraction

The spontaneous gesture, if genuine, opens and releases expression, and communicates it in an effortless manner.

If, in fact, the spontaneity is false, and a mere expression of impulse, it denies, rather than asserts, vital urgency, and obscures the clarity it intends to convey.

In music, originating more often than not in self-styled avant-garde circles, the result is vacuous, a transparent artifice, and an inconsequential distraction that diminishes the work.

The impromptu gesture in sound will impress the listener as being free, and moreover, in accord with the consciously developed elements of a work, being equally, fundamentally, meaningful.

Stillness, Then Action

Change lingers in echoes.

To reflect is also to advance.

Walk / Don't Walk

For artist as composer, choice is change involving gain and loss.

Essentially, gain and loss cannot be issues:  each sound will exist in juxtapositions of similarity and contrast, and each note, tone, line, or movement will alter the listening experience.  The total effect, therefore, is the prime consideration, and all choices and changes must contribute to that outcome, much in the same way as do each of the painter's strokes on canvas.

After Cage

Action without effort is a little understood virtue.

It remains a rarity in the composition of sounds.  It creates neither a musical event nor a concrete presentation of art, but rather formless dimensions of aural perception intersecting being.

The Air of Creation

Art does not cease to exist because it ceases to be valued and supported.

Creative expression is a foundational element of culture and civilization.  It bridges past, present, and future time.  There have been periods, recorded throughout history, when the arts of certain societies were diminished, repressed, looted, and devalued.

Without exception, these serve as warnings.

Imaginative Probity, Elevation and Decline

Perspective, like the arts, both engages and endures cultural change.

The artist does not steal fire from the gods to see it snuffed out, whether by thieves or princes.

Event, Percipience

Listening to sounds in a setting, consider what happened before and what is to come.

To observe is to know circumstance, and what can and can not be understood, or imagined.

The manifestation of mystery begins before the artist appears and continues ever afterwards.

Force and Substance

In art, as in life, emptiness will be filled.

As the novelist and film-maker envision narratives, as the visual artist sees concepts, so does the composer hear what approaches and is revealed in the imagination.  The creative insight must be brought into being.

Mass Media and Mass Mind

The artist as composer directs perceptions beyond appearances of things.

Modernity asserts the virtue of autonomous perspective, but rarely is it developed.

As if everything is known. As if there can be no more curiosity, no more questions or mysteries.

Haunt and Habitat

Folklore suggests that every setting has a personality, or spirit.

It is a small step of the imagination to say the sound of that spirit is found in atmospheric tone of place, and that it can be impressed upon the composer to be conveyed to the listener.

Perceptual Impression and Meaning

The listening experience must be unburdened of preconceived judgments.

Rather than be led to conclusions, one may rely on awareness and insight to determine the value and aesthetic significance of artistic works.  This is the result of listening, and hearing, with the inner ear.

Discrete Transformations

As sound travels, its vibrations alter according to environmental variables.

The acoustic properties of various settings are more or less appropriate to what we know as music, which is meant to be experienced as directly as possible, whether as recordings or in performance.

What I am interested in creating are atmospheric sound designs intended to merge with environments and blend throughout them, thereby establishing aesthetically enlivened settings to be experienced in their entirety.

Abstract to Ethereal

The modern thinker engages historical concepts creatively, and with facility.

The contemporary, media-directed individual simply confuses emotion with thought, and, at worst, conflates ideology with intellect.

These musical works, from Elevation to Prescience, are conceived, produced, and brought into being with the purpose of creating atmospheres conducive to the virtues of contemplation and reflection. To view them as having effects of a mystical nature is akin to the belief, held in the Middle Ages, that the ability to read was a form of sorcery.

The Mysterious

Consciousness, perception, knowledge, culture.  All interwoven.

Things are as they are because events came to pass in certain ways.  Changes small and large led to the moment now.  What follows is not fully apparent, and cannot be predicted.

This is a formula for the creative composition of atmospheric music, if means are utilized to apply it.

If One, Then Another

Technological advancement implies perceptual change.

Beginning with the individual and personal, understanding may expand on a grand scale. Novel ideas, experiences, and intensity of communications undo limits on the imagination. Things previously known become starting points, rather than ends.

For the composer, these things suggest the exhaustion of cultural norms and the struggle for means of expression concomitant with a transformation in listening awareness.