Light and Direction

Modern rationality is by no means required to discard tradition.

Nor is the contemporary, popular mind always dependent upon unreasoning emotion.

What is critical to cultural perspective is the ability to distinguish between appearance and reality, and this is no less true for the independent thinker, the warrior, the artist and the composer.

Ambimusica.com

A Call for Toleration, As If It Were So

Put simply, the contemplative reveals insights into reality and being.

Conversely, the archaic nineteenth century concept of scientific materialism, as it was called, asserts adherence to an understanding that the only reality is that which may be measured and quantified, and in this manner all there is may be known and understood, without limits.

Since that time, cultural diktat has demanded slavish, unspoken acquiescence to this concept among the self-styled "intellectual" classes, academic, political, literary, and "artistic", and there can be no questioning the absolute nature of this doctrinaire humanist approach without social ostracism.

More often than not, it is the sole determinant for inclusion in any contemporary cultural milieu.

Nonetheless, I compose, as a free individual, in the philosophical traditions of Boethius, Lao Tzu, Epictetus, and those who perceive a higher, universal order and power, with the consciousness of a human spirit and soul.

Ambimusica.com

Wave Pools

Perception and impression prefigure expression.

Thus the art of sound is formed within an individual sense of aesthetic space and sonic beauty.

Ambimusica.com

Underground

The creative mind imposes its own limits.

If it is necessary to act outside and beyond culture to maintain integrity, it is a sacrifice made in the name of the future, and that is how it will be.

Ambimusica.com

None So Blind

Introspection yields expression, through insight and individual perspective.

Collectivist culture knows only a shallow sameness, incapable of recognizing originality and refusing to acknowledge its existence.

Ambimusica.com

Contemplative Depth

To hear, to see, perception must be freed of distraction in the guise of the marvelous.

Where specious excitement and frenetic sight and sound imagery cloud the day, the inner ear is stopped and the eye of imagination is blinded to the real.  Discard this clutter, choose awareness.

The nature of elevated consciousness and expression welcomes immersion and clarity of being.

Ambimusica.com

Simplicity, Expansion

Sounds coalesce.

Sensory experience suggests order, through a spectrum of degrees and myriad perspectives.

Ambimusica.com

Essential Meaning

Expression is far more than repetition.

For expression to elevate, there must be epiphany.

Ambimusica.com

Authenticity

Insight reveals reality beyond appearances, in life and in the visual arts.

That same insight reveals false appearances as well.  So it is for the composer in creating and sustaining atmospheric effects through sound.  Falsified experience sounds forced, frenetic, or artificial in emotional content, tone, and mood, while genuinely immersive atmospheres evoke contemplative settings conducive to the expansion of consciousness.

Ambimusica.com

Listen, and Hear

Language is music, laden with meaning.

Every perceptible sound is charged with intimations of equal moment, if we can but read them.

Ambimusica.com

The Spark, Once Struck

One role of the artist is that of the Bearer of Light.

Strength of expression is force of mind and will.  Against adversity, it will never yield.

Ambimusica.com

Artist and Medium

Control what is possible, let go what will be fulfilled beyond interference.

This is the virtue of gesture, the reward of practice, and the fruit of experience.

Ambimusica.com

The Singular Voice

Of course art is a reflection of politics.  But it is only a reflection.

Culture, as a whole, presents a reflection of politics. This is visible in the degree to which freedom of expression may be pursued by artists.  Otherwise, the political is of little worth when compared to the cultural.

It is only when political power usurps culture, as it has over the past decades, oppressing the arts and forcing the artist into a subservient role, that totalitarian cultures may surreptitiously rise in darkness-- but ultimately this unnatural, anti-human power can only meet a rapid and complete decline in the face of forces demanding freedom.  These forces are expressions of human will that will never remain silent.

Take heed.

                                                      Ambimusica.com

A Catalogue of Aural Auras

Art reveals a reality outside the ordinary.

Listen, and hear.

Ambimusica.com

Shadows, Out of Limbo

Observe those who strive for free expression that has not existed within their lifetimes.

Historical awareness awakens in these individuals the sense that a void exists where once free thinking and bold creativity thrived.  But commercial culture has been manipulated to create a collectivist mentality for a half-century, and its failures are everywhere present and oppressive.

To alter this course of events, individuals must rise, stand together as individuals, support one another yet remain self- reliant, and embrace the potential of the future without concern for present calumny and condemnation.

Rust and Wrought Iron

Choice and action define the power of the individual.

It is the difference between change that evolves and change that is made to happen.

Let it Bleed

Reduced to caricature, art reflects trifling experience.

There is no value in the superficially clever, embracing, as it does, condescension and mockery.

There are immense debts to be paid to humanity, works to be accomplished through life-long sacrifice, and unforgiving realities to confront.

Heavy Lifting

Think. Ideas have consequences.

Artistic expression in the service of ideology is no longer art, and nothing more than propaganda.

The Futurist

"Futurist" perspectives range from the absurd to the nihilistic to the truly Modern.

The "Year Zero" point of view is particularly odious, requiring a ridiculous conviction that erasure of all human history, combined with an utter faith in one or another asinine views of  "human nature" as essentially "good", will produce an egalitarian Utopia.

The Modern Futurist perspective is simple: Elevate objective possibility into existential reality.

Art Not Art

One need not be a Zen master to observe the absurdity of many so-called attachments.

Consider this in the context of the plethora of shallow, sensational "connections" found in every form of media.  Expression without meaning or value, nonetheless, is not cast aside unless by choice.