Acclimation

Observe patterns of all types.

Habitual observation refines perception.  One begins to see, and hear, what others do not.

Song and Awakening

Observe music as a series of sound patterns.

Note that tone and intensity of sound establishes meaning in a musical composition to the same extent as lyrical content and vocal delivery.  Nothing more may be conveyed than a particular mood or attitude, yet there are no known limits to the degree to which intellectual and emotional stimulation is possible through immersion in sound.

Heard, Overheard, Listening

Every listener encounters sound individually.

Some ears are open, and some are closed.  The same holds true for minds.

New Sonic Awareness

Metaphor, in its most easily recognized form, exists in combinations of words and images.

It is the composition that develops sound as extended, or "epic" metaphor that illuminates a poetic potential in listening as well as unforeseen new directions in music.

Exercise X

Set aside all knowledge and conceptual ideas regarding "music".

Postulate a theory of "music" based solely upon the ways sound phenomena exist and are perceived.

Distant Present

Culture defines; the artist refines.

There will always be a struggle between complacency and risk.

Turning Century

Accept limits.  New York, Shanghai, Los Alamos, Beale Street, under the hot sky.

Defy limits.  These include all things that are merely, but thoughtlessly and oppressively, conventional, stultifying to the imagination, and, of course, totalitarian in nature.

Engagement

Art exists for both artists and audiences.

Consider the nature of art created specifically for audience expectations, as contrasted with the idea of art as an individual expression that exists for an aesthetic purpose generally accessible to the culture as a whole. Both are necessary, yet the latter of the two is the most distinctive, forward-thinking, and essential.

And, without such a perspective as motivates the latter artist and audience, there is no cultural progress in the arts, but only repetition of the predictable.

Elevation and Declining

There are things within the power of the artist, and there are things that are not.

Self-reliance, control, and action are within the artist's power.  The failures of cultures and societies are not.  The artist observes, creates, and expresses.  All else in in flux, and it was ever thus.

Art, Being

Force nothing.

Integrity creates its own order.

Across Decades, Over Hours

Linear forms are predictable, against the nature of reality and change.

Expansive forms develop along mental and temporal dynamics, and may be applied to all conditions, all settings, all arts.  These are the critical strategies and tactics that draw out the future into the moment now.

Understand and Choose

There is personal awareness, and there is "mainstream" cultural awareness.

The former is direct, and real; the latter, indirect, forced, abstracted, and a burden. Yet some will embrace the first, while the many will be subject to the second.  It is a mystery.

Equilibrium

Fully realized expression, in final form, is the end result of applied force.

But this is primitive power, originating in expressive impulse, and it continues beyond single, separate works.  It is power that responds to focus and direction, yet refuses control.

Influence

There are truthful expressions, and ignoble narratives as well.

Some say the artist has responsibilities; others will say the opposite.

Ultimately, it is a matter of trust, for both artist and audience.

Art, Reality, Choice

Knowledge has limits.

Thus critical, creative judgement is followed by action.

In Omnia Paratus

The real world of flux, large and small, rewards the perceptive mind.

The finer the development of critical awareness, the greater the capacity for discrimination between what is, and what merely appears, to be.

In the Balance

Perception of art evokes emotions and ideas.

Thus the attitude of the artist may be everything, or nothing.

Incipient Cultural Rebellion

Culture is more powerful, and of greater value and importance, than politics.

One may follow a line of historical reasoning from Homer and Socrates through TS Eliot in poetry or Pablo Picasso in art, each of the latter giving highly sophisticated and complex visions of reality and the human condition. Academic types studiously analyze and grasp these works on the highest critical levels, yet it is entirely possible to simply appreciate them for their fine and evocative visionary nature.  Then, for no clear reason, doors close.  Creative expression in the modern terms these two artists represent becomes erratic and rare; everything in the manner of the progress they exemplified comes to a halt.  It is as if, culturally, we do not allow ourselves to think of these works as starting points to move forward, but as final statements of no further importance or value.

This absurd shift in cultural attitudes appears inexplicable, but it is not.  It is certainly not the result, as some might suggest, of these artists creating an apex of cultural achievement that can never be approached or surpassed.  To be blunt, they were original, self-motivated artists, and what they accomplished is unique to them, as is the case with any artist of merit and vision.  Neither William Burroughs in literature nor Andy Warhol in the visual arts attempted to amend or extend Eliot's or Picasso's work, but moved forward as original thinkers and creators, while culture lagged, and continues to lag, behind.  This highlights the essential nature of freedom of thought and expression, as well as the critical importance of what Eliot called "Tradition and the Individual Talent" in his 1919 essay of the same name.  What it does not explain is the cultural Sargasso in which the contemporary world has been and continues to be moored.

Yet the explanation, plainly understood, represents nothing more than human vanity and intentional ignorance.  It is the simple refusal to acknowledge human potential as being greater than an ideology of scientific materialism allows, with its attendant, singular and all-encompassing focus upon an end to history and the creation of an ideal, global state, one that incorporates centralized control of socioeconomic forces, which must be, by necessity, totalitarian.

The Universal

There is a balance in artistic presentation, particularly in sound, that is self-illuminating.

A work must be instantly accessible and simple, while simultaneously subtle and complex.

Some work is accomplished in mere moments; other work may take years, and decades.

And that is the way of the artist, to be measured in lifetimes.

Never Less

Take art for granted, and it will be taken away, usurped by mediocrity, replaced by mundanity.

Like learning, exploring, communicating, and mastering any demanding act, art is not effortless.