September 22, 2003

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  Sounds Growing up as a member of a rather large city, surrounded by the constant sounds of living, I’ve grown quite fond of silence. It is my belief that sometimes in order to hear the nuances and subtleties of sound, one has to diminish the over abundance of acoustic information constantly flooding our ears. Everyday I feel the need to quiet my world in order to truly listen. Now I will do nothing but listen I will be no more than an observer With my eyes closed I will experience the ordering of tones Sounds in combination Temporal relationships producing Unity and continuity A composition My beloved musica   In one of the more contemporary definitions, John Cage has declared: “Music is sounds, sounds around us whether we’re in or out of the concert halls.” He said this in reference to Thoreau’s Walden, where the author experiences in the sounds and sights of nature an inexhaustible entertainment. Today all sounds belong to a continuous field of possibilities lying within the dominion of music. Little by little all the conventional definitions of music have been exploded by the activities of musicians: anyone and anything that sounds. It is difficult for all to agree on what music is or ought to be. Lovemaking Spring Oceans Thunder Whispering Landslides Breathing You What is the determining factor in defining what is good music? What makes you listen again? Is it a revolutionary style? Breaking the restrictions of chords, ordinary harmony, bar lines, and tempered scales. Or perhaps an innovative use of harmonic inversions and dissonance. Maybe your mind doesn’t think theory. Do you focus on the performance? An extraordinary technique – singing, humming, moaning. The intricate sounds of soft harmonies and melodic improvising. A pure tone that simply takes over your body like nothing else. Whatever it is, we all have our favorite sounds stored deep inside of us. Never to be forgotten. Even as I type these words I can hear them…in silence. Can you?

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