Arc of Idea and Action

Meaning implies continuity.

Left unresolved, chance and accident provide little in the way of significance.  

When intent and purpose impels action, freedom of will has profound influence in determining the outcome of events, regardless of the vicissitudes of circumstance. 

It should not be forgotten that this applies even to nuanced artistic gesture, as it contributes to the progress, and ultimately, to the total effect of finished works.

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Working

See, hear, directly.

Observe with aesthetic perceptivity, act with existential certainty.

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Some Will Understand, Others Will Not

Bring the uncanny into expression.  It is a tall order, yet it can be done.

The beginning is abstract, that is to say, theoretical.  This vision must comport with the possibility of perceptual reality that may be rendered in concrete form.  For the composer, this acknowledges the fact that sounds must be transformed and synthesized to evoke extramundane experience, and then juxtaposed and reproduced in aesthetic contexts unrelated to designs generally attributed to music, while being accessible within the sphere of art.

What the mind conceives, the hand may render.  Listen, and hear.

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Something Missing

Among many things, culture reflects the common aspirations of a social group.

Without cohesion, there is only decay, and no government of any value can provide this.  It is found in the vision of the artist, in authentic expression, and in the traditions and rituals of community.

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Singularity of Form and Content

Ubiquity and saturation have reduced all media to a nugatory state.

Feigned interest is the rule of the day.  One can no longer say, such and such a thing is "marvellous", or "unique",  Availability and repetition renders even the finest forms commonplace, mundane, and, to some extent, regardless of quality, banal.

Those seeking authentic representations of experience must discover expression that is sui generis, uncanny, unexpectedly original, and transformational.  One must go far beyond externals to do so.

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Implications

Cultural variables directly impact perspective and expression in varying degrees.

It is worth noting that some cultural groups are interested in a broad spectrum of experience, while others are conditioned to respond to extremely limited sets of expectations.

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Light of Reason

Fundamentally, one must discriminate between reality and the mere appearance of reality.

Critical discernment of this nature informs all experience, from perception to expression.

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Near Distances

Where the commonplace ends, risk begins.

Discover the unseen, and find sounds unheard.

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Illuminate

As the eye is opened, so the ear is filled, expanding awareness.

To drive perceptual acuity down to narrow limits is absurd.  One sees the world, listens, and hears, beyond the contexts of art and music.

This is elevation, of aesthetic insight and individual consciousness.

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Perspective Shift

Observe any environment carefully.

Detailed observation reveals that elements of the environment may be seen as both separate and unified forms.  With care, sounds may be composed and presented in ways that may be perceived in like manner, as opposed to methods utilizing the common aspects of musical composition and production.

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Soul Sacrifice

If one is an artist, one gives of oneself.

This is the force and the risk of art.  It is expression, and it is being.

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Great Doubt

Instinct, intellect, and intent motivate artist and listener.

Conformity, complacency, and consumerism motivate audiences.  But this is a general rule, and an observation that is dynamic in scope.  Artist and listener remain unmoved, and undeterred in the search for the creative fire that alters reality and culture.

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Fortunes, and Reversals

The arts are not simply Reformed, as are institutions, from without or within.

Visions are conceived, old orders collapse, and culture is broadened and elevated by expressions both unexpected and unheralded.  Often this arrives at the end of any prolonged and implacable oppression, and, as is so often said, nothing is ever the same again.

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The Real and the Good

It is clear to most that appearances are not always as they seem.

Nonetheless, in terms of culture and the arts, this should be the exception, and not the rule.

A free society is one in which individuals of good will can communicate honestly and act to mutual benefit without being burdened by duplicity and avarice.  The artist who understands this will not fail to act with integrity, and it will be reflected in the artist's work as a true sign of merit, since it is, in many ways. a revolutionary expression against the falsity of the age.

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Greater Lengths

Cultural observations are, as often as not, personal matters.

Formal analysis of these issues is of no concern to anyone but the artist.  The academician regards them disdainfully, the lay person has no interest whatsoever, and the active music listener exhibits little more than subjective, emotional connectivity to the arts of sound.  Such things as aesthetic value and purpose are outside these areas of bias.

This is natural.  It is the artist as composer for whom these cultural forces determine the existential necessity for sustained effort.

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Silencing, and Open Secrets

Expression in every form is subject to the scrutiny of the thinking individual.

It will be observed immediately that expression has been compromised by the collectivist attitudes of loosely associated cultural groups.  Further investigation will reveal the extent to which this has been the status quo among ideologues in academia, media, politics, business, and industry for over a century, as it has been plainly visible.

The scenario ostensibly exists to repress individual expression as undesirable in the context of what is viewed, in collectivist quarters, as the "greater good".  In point of fact, it is nothing more or less than a means to seize and retain power by controlling cultural narratives, economic activities, and, to the extent possible, social order.

Whenever there is a rebirth of cultural expression, it is the work of individuals, acting autonomously and yet united in vision.  Unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno.

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Be or Seem

Perceptions do not lie.  They must be rightly directed and interpreted.

The issue is not one of self-awareness or self-knowledge, but rather of the capacity to distinguish appearance from reality.  Clarity does not require guidance; thus it is highly prized.

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A Half Century of Artistic Suicide

Greed is a reason, but never a justification, for suppression of cultural expression.  

When artists and commercial interests conspire to create propaganda, the lights go out, and the outcome has been the ultimate failure and utter destruction of the music industry.

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Fiat Lux

Human reality evolves culture.

Falsity is anathema to human reality.  The false narrative will not substitute for culture any more than political ideologies can substitute for intellectual acumen.  The sole effect is one of apathy, resulting in the demand for authenticity.

With the inevitable failure and collapse of the superficial and mediocre, integrity of expression arises, with inexorable force and inspiration.

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Expression and Impression

Observe the high degree of what is commonly called distraction.

Observe also the decline in perceptual capacity, the emotional attachment to being "in the moment" rather than conscious of the larger human and natural world.  The total effect is one of distress and exaggerated, frenetic self-importance.  Of course much music is designed to intensify perspectives of this nature, to fuel a "drive" toward ever-increasing hubris and vainglory.  

My compositions, in contrast, aim for the perceiver to recognize and develop a perspective that is entirely different, one closer to that of a universal awareness of both sound and sense of being.

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