Equanimity and Tone

Light, space, and atmosphere are conducive to evolved thinking.

Sound in the aesthetic environment enhances, but does not dominate. This is the nature of refined, or, if you prefer, critical thought, in that it is self-sufficient, highly informed, tempered by experience, and internally motivated. Thus the composer rejects bombast and predictability, holding to a vision defined by intellectual curiosity and perceptual stimulation.

Firing Line Perspective

The ebb and flow of cultural events must be viewed with a cold eye.

 Much more is happening in the creative world of individual artists than brief obsessions with absurd glamour, glorification of the banal, and the prolonged tedium of ideological power struggles indicate.

Creativity is, in itself, expansion of consciousness, and purpose either elevates or limits the gesture.

Mystery in Reality

Partly recognizable, partly outside experience altogether: this is the experience of the uncanny.

The artist can, with effort and conceptual vision, create such experiences.  For the artist as composer, the elements of sound are at play.  I say sound, not music, for the simple fact that all the elements of music are so familiar as to be without effect.  Rhythm, melody, harmony, etc., are known quantities.  The nonlinear sounds of environments in situ hold meanings within tone, shading, and movement that are not so easily recognized and perceived.

These are my interests and goals, the sounds of reality, contemplated and aesthetically stylized as listening experiences beyond the temporal and mundane.

Listening Emerges

Auditory perception evolves with variations in perspective.

The sonic environment is in a state of continual flux, and every nuance has meaning.  It is a language of tone and movement, shading and intensity and character.

Pause, consider, reflect.

One / Not One

The composer and artist, among others, is forced to view culture critically.

One cannot simply muse upon content and technique, presentation, continuity, and form, or be concerned only with aesthetic outcomes.  Social dynamics generate cultural pressures, and those coercive influences are applied toward conformity of thought and action as manifested in cultural expectations.  One must be open, yet aware, of choices that lead to subjection to societal diktat or autonomy of thought and action-- if one is to be responsible to one's work.

Distance From the Immediate

Solitude must be chosen, and sought out, as it is beyond the general state of affairs.

Clamor limits consciousness and dulls experience, contributing to all forms of decline.  To listen, and hear, is more than an aesthetic principle.  It is a survival skill, an art of being.

Revelation, or Functioning in Shadows

What the arts reveal they may also conceal, and motivations are not always transparent.

There exists a continually-reinforced cultural perspective that insists that the "unselfconscious" or "instinctive", "natural", "authentic" perspective in dealings and interactions with the world is in some undefined way superior to the way of reason and sound judgement.  It is simply a means to creation and control of predictable behavior.

What may be easily termed Enlightened perspective, to the contrary, elevates culture, relationships, the arts, and much more. Being reliable, factually based and conceptually well founded, uniting ideas and concepts in global and historical terms, it transcends the common, narrow and mundane through understanding of human nature and the human condition.  It illuminates with neither condescension nor pretense, and works of art reflecting this perspective undermine and undo, however gradually, unconscious behavioral conditioning.

Direct Auditory Impression

Subjectivity falsifies.

Acknowledge, understand, refine perceptivity.  Create by virtue of reason and experience. To listen, really listen, is no different than to think critically, that is to say, to reason objectively and incisively.

It is a learned behavior.

Stirring Atmospheres

Atmosphere contributes to attitudes and the shaping of moods.

But while mood and attitude may subjectively color atmospheres, they do not directly alter qualities of the environment.  Surroundings that intentionally reflect perspectives must be created with such total effects in mind. The same concept applies to the development of aesthetic compositions in sound.

What the surroundings suggest, the composer must hear, and translate into representative forms.

Hold Horizons Forward

Authentic expression of vast force overwhelms.

The artist as composer must act with restraint, capturing and sustaining the real dynamics of tone and color that elevate consciousness. Bombast and blather are modes of weakness, reinforcing impotence and inadequacy; the greatest potential is realized by drawing together and fully articulating the widest possible configuration of sonic forms and energies.

Illusion and Cold Light

As an artist, one may not be devoted to the arts at the expense of life's necessities and long survive.

Yet neither may a consumer culture deny the value of the arts while appropriating the contributions of artists. A society that accepts and condones blatant thievery of intellectual property will ultimately incur the consequences of both brutish ignorance and unrestrained self-indulgence.

Regardless, the artist, poet, and composer will not be silenced, nor the dancer paralyzed.

Shifting Cycles

Assume the perspective of media consumer, if you will.

What is revealed is suggestive.  Obviously, media usage reflects and reinforces a shallow sense of self-absorption and self-promotion, and the popularity of particular diversions and entertainment arts reinforce this.

These are the representations of reality that appeal to the common imagination, and that provide the supporters of this culture the climate it deserves, for a time.

And, as the historical record indicates, none of it will have any place in the future.

What is never certain is whether it will be replaced by more of the same, or rather by endeavors that demonstrate a leap of vision worthy of human individuality and civilization.

Beyond, Within Earshot

As the artist may see, so the composer may hear.

It is not possible to measure the immensity of variation in such perceptions.  It is not possible to say, with absolute certainty, that there is no more to experience than the mundane and temporal world.

Listen for shape, color, tone, movement and spirit, and hear more than mere sound.

Throughout the Singular Wave

The contemplative is always revolutionary, because it is beyond the mundane.

The path to realization of the contemplative in aesthetic expression can only be difficult in theory and execution, because it must always be uniquely representative of a greater world beyond the ego of the artist or composer.

There is no middle ground.  The total effect of the work will be effortless and transformative for the percipient, or nonexistent.  And this is beyond the will of the composer and artist.

Above Sensation, Light and Sound

Aesthetic experience is, in a broad, general sense, meaningful reflection evoked through art.

The aesthetic sense, beyond its profound contemplative significance and its contributions to elevated states of being, also seizes upon false perception and dispels illusion.

Thus it is wise to cultivate this clarity of experience, as it extends into critical observation of culture, politics, and other representations of reality.

To Sense

Emotion is energy, whether active or passive.

But emotion is neither vision nor clarity of purpose, and each requires reason.

One must rebel, first and foremost, against irrationality. The artist must see, and the composer must hear, those things that go unseen and unheard in the self-immolation of superficiality and the tyranny of the media-directed spirit of the day, else perish in mediocrity.

The shadows fall in the surrounding world as if the presence of something uncanny announces itself, seizing the attention as if by mystic force.  It is here, an opportunity for shade against the heat, and it appears suddenly and strangely to the distracted mind, as if it is always no more than a mere image, and light years away from common experience.  Lose the facts of reality and lose culture, and life.

Direction

One must be culturally aware.

This does not mean one must necessarily be a participant, but to be cognizant of events, ideas, and attitudes is essential to critical awareness, even if one moves contrary to prevailing winds.

Collapse and Rise

Time and distance are inconsequential.

The true obstacles to vision, art, and progress are evil, intentional ignorance, and complacency. As always, they appear novel, appeal to the instincts, and ultimately impede elevation of the spirit.

There can be no compromise in the name of art. No compromise whatsoever.

Élan Vital

The art of sound, as I see it, contributes to sustaining the light of reason.

The aesthetic moment is one of clarity of consciousness evoked through experience of art, and yet it is outside the awareness of all but a very few. Though it may be refined, and overanalyzed to an absurd degree, it is merely a moment of vigorous insight into life itself and the act of living with awareness and grace.

It is available to all, sparked by perception and cognition, unfettered by politics, identity issues, cultural disputations, or the influence of the juggernaut of digital mass media on the collective zeitgeist.

It requires nothing more than recognition of the contemplative means by which such understanding is conveyed.

Pause, reflect.  Listen, and hear.

Stand Fast

When reason is forced to yield to emotion, doors close, gates are locked.

Art unstops the eyes and ears.  This cannot be real and be compromised.