Art Force and Attention Loops

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An attention loop is trapped attention or consciousness flowing in a circular motion. In other words, it's consciousness stuck in a feedback loop and like all forms of feedback it can be increased, reduced, or sustained by adjusting the signal input. In all forms of art, there is the potential for the creation of an attention loop. And the only factor that differentiates what can or will not create an attention loop is "art force."

In painting, the right mix of color, shape, perspective, brushstroke, brightness (or darkness), and size, all contribute to the increase or decrease of the narrowing of focus. The narrowing of the mind's focus is the gateway to the birth of a trance state.

In music, it doesn't matter if it's Rock, Dance, Pop music, Jazz, or Country, there is always a chance that one or a combination of sonic elements well crafted, composed, and arranged can shift a person into a trance state. 

In writing, the sounds of words, their numerous meanings and associations, the images they create in the imagination, and their relationship to one another all operate as a force in unison to imprint themselves on a person's subconsciousness.

In each of these artistic categories, the trick is to construct something that will attract, capture, and hold the attention of the individual audience member. When the attention passes through these three steps and remains in suspension for a period of time, that's when the artwork evolves into an experience. This is "art force" at work.

The experience itself must occur long enough to imprint the idea, melody, image, or words in the person's subconscious. The reason this is important is because in the subconscious an artistic product can freely associate with the individual's memories, emotions, and thinking processes.

This action of intertwining happens automatically and eventually reaches a limit. The action is complete when the idea, music, images, or words are seemingly soldered into the person's mental circuits where they are activated by conscious thought and powered by life energy.

The process is not unlike a digital download or software program that gets installed and neatly filed away into a part of the computer for future use.

The entire trance event happens because of the power and impact of a first impression or repeated exposure to a noteworthy piece of art, literature, or music. Only a strong artistic product has the power to captivate the mind and trap it in an attention loop.

The creation of a proper trance requires that your artistic creation possess some quality which makes it magical or transformative for the imagination. It must contain something meaningful, aesthetically explosive, daring, or new in sufficient quantity to be mentally noteworthy. As the awareness loops in a circular flow of consciousness, a light trance state is induced and is broken or deepened by the addition of reinforcing elements.

If your product has enough "art force" it will be capable of narrowing an individual's awareness in order to capture their attention. This is the first step in trance creation.

Because it's in the nature of a trance to be easily broken, as artists we must add reinforcing elements to strengthen the original stimuli. So simply stated, a trance ends when distractions occur or new elements are brought in that diminish the initial artistic impact. And the trance deepens when supportive elements are added that seamlessly reinforce the original stimulus.

 

Your mode of operation should always be to make each of your artistic creations unique, unified, and complete. Whether or not they are part of a series or larger work like a book, exhibit, or album, no matter what, each piece should be able to exist and stand on its own. A state of trance is capable of being produced with any artistic medium, although some are more efficient than others at doing so.

The allure of your work should be so strong that fascination is able to infect those who would normally not be interested in that type of painting, book, food, music, or art in general.
A defined sense of style and mastery of technical skill are your keys to full expression. The heightened sense experience that you would provide the audience should always be approached as an attempt to overwhelm them.   

 

In general, instrumental music is the most effective medium for creating attention loops, closely followed by spoken and written words. Music leads because it is action-oriented, forceful, portable, all-encompassing, layered, invisible, and repetitive. Speech, spoken or sung, shares of many of these same qualities with music, but the character of musical instruments varies much more widely than do the qualities of human voices. 

In a book, the clues must point and lead to a conclusion while hiding the remaining plot. In a recipe, the chef must find a balance between all the delicate flavors they combine in each dish. In a song, the lyrics and voice must fuse into a singular dramatic presentation. Even within the lyrics, the phrasing of words must be focus and unified around a central message. 

 

The "art force" within any aesthetic product relies on this consistency, but when an attention loop is reinforced incorrectly, the state of trance basically dissolves and disappears. All musical inconsistencies will break a trance.

Part of your final checklist should include the elimination of any inconsistencies or distracting elements. You may need an independent observer to help you see your work with fresh eyes or an objective viewpoint.

 

In fact, the whole purpose of the final checklist is to make sure that you maintain and deepen the state of trance by removing the negative trance elements and reinforcing the positive elements. If you've done your due diligence the hypnotic elements in your work should be off the charts. Over time and experimenting with different approaches you'll soon discover your own signature formulas for creating works others easily recognize as yours exclusively.

 

And don't be afraid of running out of ideas. It's the nature of creativity to always be flowing outward. Don't hold back or reduce the intensity of your expression. Believing that you'll run out of ideas is the only way you can be held back, that idea alone will stop the flow of ideas.

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Related Music:

Center of Chaos

Grande Finale

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Related Article:

 The Ethos of Rhythm and Scales

Connection, the Contribution of the Artist and Viewer: Sketches in Line and Sound (Part 1)  

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Marc

http://stereothesis.com/




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The Essence of Music: The Organization of Sound

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GET “SONIC WEAPONS: The Official Stereo Thesis Music Sampler FOR FREE.” To get your FREE full-length album…click here.
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The discovery and organization of consonant and dissonant tones brought about a variety of tonal relationships which gave birth to a variety of tuning systems including our current notion of scales.

A scale is simply a series of tonal relationships consisting of consonant and dissonant tones. Regardless of the tuning system one is using, notes and scales are the fundamental elements of every tuning system.

Some of the tuning systems which have existed in the West include Pythagorean Intonation, Mean-Tone, Just Intonation, Well Temperament, and Equal Temperament.

In Western music, the basic building blocks of composition come from the Equal Temperament system (A=440 Hz), its 12 notes, and their frequencies. 

To illustrate what tones (or specific frequencies) are allowable within the Equal Temperament system, look up the frequencies of the Equal-Tempered scale. As you look over the chart notice how the column listing frequencies show “gaps” between the notes. Even though the frequencies between the allowable notes are themselves tones and in another tuning system may qualify as notes, in Equal Temperament they are simply discounted frequencies and unused sonic material. 

Every musician is capable of broadening  their compositional approach to include an expanded definition of what a note is and how many notes a scale can be comprised of.

To all intents and purposes, a note is any frequency that can be produced by a musical instrument and heard by the human ear. And a scale is any quantity of notes which have been designated or selected for use in a given musical context.

So a note is any tone which exists in the acoustic range of human hearing from 20Hz to 20kHz and a scale is any series of notes allowed to be used for a musical composition, whether it consists of 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, or 12 notes.

Adjusting your musical framework to incorporate these ideas into your own compositional approach will compel you to invent your own scales, experiment with alternate tunings, string tensions, and a variety of scale sizes because the limit of what can be formed into music isn't dictated by ancient texts and musical scholars, but by the range of human hearing (every frequency from 20Hz to 20,000 Hz).

An artist not only creates with existing materials, but is also capable of manufacturing the very materials with which they create. If the painter can manufacture their own pigments by extracting color from flowers and the juices of brilliant fruits and the dancer can choreograph movements limited only by how well they can make the human body flex, then the musician can experiment with performing feats of tuning and inventing scales.

Ultimately, music is merely intelligently organized sound wave frequencies. Therefore, any system or set of tones can be utilized for the purpose of composing music.

The challenge then for musicians is to expand the range of frequencies with which one works. In doing so you'll discover consonant musical sounds in surprising ways as well as exotic forms of beauty by taming the dissonance of odd tunings.

So in the end, the dividing line between what music is, and is not, is determined by whether or not it is organized by an entity possessed of intelligence as opposed to a random collection of sounds and noise.

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Related Music:

The Haunting

Life of a Butterfly

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Related Articles:

Hook and Earworms

Music and Trance States of Mind
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Marc

http://stereothesis.com/

To support Stereo Thesis with a financial donation securely through PayPal, click here.

The Lonely King

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DOWNLOAD “SONIC WEAPONS: The Official Stereo Thesis Music Sampler FOR FREE.” To get your FREE full-length album…click here. _________________________________________________________________________

The Lonely King is a rich and successful man whose lonely because he doesn’t have the right kind of woman to enjoy his wealth with.

Part of his affliction and need for companionship forces him to imagine the type of qualities he’s seeking in a partner. And in imagining the partner he finds himself wandering from one bad relationship to another one all in an effort to find his beloved.

The tragedy is that for all his success in every other area of his life he can’t seem to thrive in this area where human beings are concerned.

For him, he’s always been able to spot quality investments as well as superior products and services to take advantage of, but when it comes to women, he’s unable to rely on his judgment to locate quality females.

His frustration stems from the fact that people are deceptive and present false fronts to make good first impressions. The problem with this practice of most people is that you might discover who the real person is in the relationship when it’s too late.

So when the deception fails and the false front fades, the Lonely King is left standing there staring at a stranger.

In the end, the curse of his condition puts him in a situation where when it comes to women he can’t live with him and can’t live without them, so he’ll try and try again doomed to be fooled and to continue making the same error in his relationships.

To hear the track "Lonely King" from the album Verbatim by Stereo Thesis...click here.

Marc

http://stereothesis.com/



To support Stereo Thesis with a financial donation, click here.

The Essence of Music: Harmonics and Timbre

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GET “SONIC WEAPONS: The Official Stereo Thesis Music Sampler FOR FREE.” To get your FREE full-length album…click here.
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When a musical instrument’s body vibrates it does so in halves, thirds, fourths, and so on. These divisions of a vibrating body produce what are known as Harmonics.

So whether it is a string or brass instrument, it is the relative strength and unique combinations of the Harmonics that produces not only Tone, but also timbre.

Timbre (pronounced TAM-ber) is the unique voice or quality an instrument has. It’s what differentiates the sound of one instrument from another.

Timbre makes it easy to identify an instrument by its “sound.”

In today's music environment, electronics makes it possible to artificially change the Timbre of one instrument and give it the quality or character of another. 

Another difference between noise and tone is that notes either do or do not share harmonics with each other. If they share many harmonics, then they are considered consonant (pleasant sounding).

But if they share few or no Harmonics, they are considered dissonant. Two or more sounds are considered dissonant, especially when they heavily clash or vibrate out of tune with each other.

In some music traditions and genres of music note relationships that clash heavily or vibrate out of tune with each other are sometimes desirable qualities. 

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Related Music:

Skydive

Gothic Temple

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Related Articles:

Hook and Earworms

Music and Trance States of Mind
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Marc

http://stereothesis.com/

To support Stereo Thesis with a financial donation securely through PayPal, click here.

The Basics of Alternate Tuning

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DOWNLOAD “SONIC WEAPONS: The Official Stereo Thesis Music Sampler FOR FREE.” To get your FREE full-length album…click here.
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The universe of alternate tunings is a fascinating subject for a guitarist. Alternate tuning encompasses two areas: microtones and Western tuning. In Western tuning, you find that only 12 notes are used to create almost all of the music you can find today in analog or digital formats. With microtones, you find that the note variation can virtually be limitless. Microtones as a whole include the 12 notes in Western music, the notes in between those 12 notes, as well as every other frequency which can be produced with a musical instrument within the range of human hearing.

For a guitarist, the 12 notes appear on the fret board of a guitar usually as standard tuning. Its standard tuning that produces the scale and chord shapes all student of the guitar learn from their first day of training.  I suspect that nearly 90% of all guitarists never explore alternate tunings or microtones, but instead always use standard tuning for every one of their compositions. There’s nothing wrong with composing in standard tuning, but composing in standard tuning has its limitations and drawbacks.

First of all, it’s too easy to get lazy about learning new ways to use the guitar. And once you get lazy about anything it’s typical to fall into boredom because there’s no challenge, and because you’re not being challenged, you can become frustrated. When you can’t find anything new and everything kind of sounds the same, it’s hard to come back up because you lose interest. Now while there might be lots of techniques to learn to make your playing sound better or different, you never really learn anything new about the guitar, fret board, or tuning. So the only options available to a guitarist to get new sounds out of standard tuning is through learning more techniques, different styles (blues, jazz, Bossa nova, etc.), and using pedals (electronics). Without these approaches the sound of the guitar will essentially sound and feel the same.

Alternate tuning techniques offer a great way to open up new sonic possibilities on the guitar. Many professional self-taught and underrated guitarists recommend alternate tuning techniques to their students who feel stagnant about their creativity with the guitar. It’s because alternate tunings force them to learn new scale and chord shapes as if they were new to the guitar except the difference is that they have all the training of an intermediate or advanced player. The moment you change the low “E” string down to a “C” or tune the second and third strings to the “A” note, you simultaneously changed the entire structure of the fret board. In the blink of an eye, all of the scale and chord shapes you learned no longer apply.

One thing I like to do sometimes is remove or change the sequence of strings on my guitars. For example, I have one guitar that I use to explore microtonal music, which only has the 4 middle strings of the guitar. On another guitar I recently acquired I found that the guitar was missing the “D” string. When I unveiled this guitar I held it for a few minutes and started playing it. After some minor adjustments to the strings I found several beginnings to new material that needs further shaping. But my immediate reaction to why someone was getting rid of it were “This person was only able to play the guitar one way. They were not able to find the music the guitar wanted to make, for whatever reason he wasn’t able to hear the guitar,” so that’s why they were throwing it away. So this guitar only has 5 strings, two low strings, and three higher strings with a gap between the 3^rd and 5^th strings. Needless to say I’ve kept it this way and am using it for further alternate tuning study.

There are terrific little booklets available on- or off-line that recommend different string settings, so if you find yourself a bit overwhelmed at first, get a copy of one and try the recommended tunings in the book. And remember if you find yourself writing new material in an alternate tuning ALWAYS take notes and write down the tuning you used for that piece. Two of my favorite alternate tunings are EADAAE for six strings and for 5 strings, ADGB and E(flat), removing the 6^th string. Try them. But if you collect guitars then you might get to a point where you always use 1 or 2 of your other guitars specifically for exploring alternate tuning. Now if you’re determined you’ll have to let your training, your hands, your ears, and your mind guide you through the new fret board environment. Many guitarists who use this angle of approach report that a lot of new material pours out of their guitars every time they change tunings. And I have no doubt that the same will happen for you. The most wonderful thing about using alternate tuning techniques is that the guitar can never get old. With alternate tuning techniques you must be active beyond just playing notes and using various style techniques, instead you must also reformat the fret board to a given mood or changes in preference.

In Classical Indian music, the sitar players call this approach to tuning for mood, times of the year, and song type – ragas. Ragas are the ultimate alternate tuning system developed over thousands of years. Modern guitarist can benefit from knowing a little about how ragas are used to give the artist even more freedom of expression on their chosen instrument. With alternate tuning you’ll also find that the resonance quality of your guitars will change dramatically, and in some cases they may even sound like completely different guitars. Also, harmonies will shift so you might find open strings or doubled notes adding unusual characteristics to your composing. Even distant notes sometimes come within reach to give you access to strange scale shapes that leap rather than step up one note at a time. Through it all if you decide to try alternate tuning you’ll notice your interest in the guitar will increase, you’ll think more about the guitar, your ear and pattern recognition will improve, and you’ll feel like you’re on a path of discovery.

To help get you going in this new field of creativity, here’s a quick video showing how easy it is to set up a new tuning and what kind of attitude is best for using this approach to playing the guitar. I hope you enjoy it.

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Related Music (in alternate tunings):

DirtSlow

Snake

Jaam
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Related Articles:

The Definitions and Applications of Microtonal Music (Part1)

The Essence of Music: Frequency, Timbre, and the Organization of Sound
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Marc

http://stereothesis.com/


To support Stereo Thesis with a financial donation, click here.

Connection, the Contribution of the Artist and Viewer

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DOWNLOAD “SONIC WEAPONS: The Official Stereo Thesis Music Sampler FOR FREE.” To get your FREE full-length album…click here.
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After working on developing the skill for making and coloring sketches, I only recently have felt comfortable sharing them with others in my personal life and now I am sharing them with my readers. In congruence with my idea of “creativity overflow,” which I describe in my article “The Overflow of Creativity: Why Artists Need to Find New Areas to Conquer, New Worlds to Explore,” I’ve found it necessary to find new artistic outlets for my creative impulses. Partly encouraged by a dear associate and by my own curiosity, I’ve achieved a level of skill that I’m happy with and suit my purposes as an artist. And now I’d like to share some of my thoughts with you about my experiences as a sketch artist and how it relates to my work as a musician.

As a sketch artist, my purpose is to achieve a communication or a conveyance that shapes an impression. I’m not going for perfection, but rather I’m allowing the viewer to contribute some their own artistic vision to my images in order to fill them out to completion. Both, my sketches and music are illustrations intended to form moments – instances of miraculous agreement or enjoyment (or disapproval) – between myself as the artist and the viewer or listener as a fellow participant. I consider it my job to give them (their minds) just enough of the visual pieces to work with in order to convey an image that they can receive and add something to in order to form a final picture within their mind. I consider it my job to seek a contribution, in other words, I want a certain level of involvement from the viewer. I need the attention of the viewer to get engaged in the shaping of the image and the only way I feel to do that is to in some way leave something out, or to permit a missing piece to exist in which they can put something in.

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Related Music:

Cappuccino

Not So Sweet

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Related Articles:

The Overflow of Creativity: Why Artists Need to Find New Areas to Conquer, New Worlds to Explore

The Music Gallery: Can Music Ever Be Valued as Fine Art?

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Marc

http://stereothesis.com/




To support Stereo Thesis with a financial donation, click here.

“Crossroads” Guitar Battle – Steve Vai vs. The Karate Kid

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DOWNLOAD “SONIC WEAPONS: The Official Stereo Thesis Music Sampler FOR FREE.” To get your FREE full-length album…click here.
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Besides the strong association that we make between the Karate Kid and every time we see Ralph Macchio in another role, the movie “Crossroads” was surprisingly well done. Although the movie is at least two decades old, it’s still a good movie about the passion music can fill a person with for learning about it, composing it and performing it live. Like most movies about music, this one too is timeless. You can watch it at any time in the future and still feel that it’s a relevant film for musicians and composers in any age or era. Albeit, it would probably be viewed for the human interest and most notably the history of Blues music.

“Crossroads” is a story about a young man who wants to come into his own as a guitarist and in order to do so begins a journey of self-discovery. He enlists the assistance of a guide and along the way starts to develop a love interest with a wayward young woman. Much of the music that gets performed within the movie as part of the plot is very well done, especially the pieces with slide guitar. [Note: The original score was written by legendary guitarist and film composer Ry Cooder. Check out his score for the long forgotten movie “Trespass.”]

As the journey finally reaches its end, the climax scene features a guitar battle between Steve Vai (virtuoso shredder) and The Karate Kid. At first from the looks of things it appears that the Kid is in over his head, but in the end defeats the master guitarist with the one ace in his pocket – his classical guitar training, which you’ll remember from earlier in the film. The feel and look of this film is similar to that of “Ray” and “Black Snake Moan.”

Marc

http://stereothesis.com/




To support Stereo Thesis with a financial donation, click here.

The Overflow of Creativity in Thought and Practice: Now Featuring Art Sketches at Stereo Thesis

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DOWNLOAD “SONIC WEAPONS: The Official Stereo Thesis Music Sampler FOR FREE.” To get your FREE full-length album…click here.
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As part of my return from hiatus I’d like to present to you a new development in my creative efforts. From now on I will be posting art sketches periodically along with articles discussing the relationship between my music and sketches. In later articles I plan on discussing some of my observations and realizations regarding the connections I discovered between the construction of music and the making of a sketch. As production begins to ramp up on a new future album release called “Oscilladrone: Ambient Works,” I figure it’d be a great time to talk about both subjects. And just out of curiosity I want to see if anyone else can see a connection between my music and sketches that I’m missing, perhaps a sense of humor, attention to detail, color or emotional tones, a playful approach, or some other quality.

[Note: I’ve found that in order to sketch architecture versus life forms requires very different mind sets. With architecture you must be very meticulous with your lines and proportioning or else you’ll get buildings and urban landscapes that look like they’re bending, smaller or larger than they really are, or shrinking the distance between your art object and the horizon far in the field of vision. In contrast, human figures whether they be shadows in the distance, faces, nudes, or human body postures such as sitting, standing, dancing, swimming or walking require much more attention to the shape of human anatomy, proportion, and the capturing of emotion or human life force. With practice, I’ve found that the number of mistakes I make is greatly reduced as well as the number of lines required to form the shape of the image I’m attempting to communicate. Employing simple and very few lines was one of the highest goals I wanted to achieve when I first began learning to sketch.]

At some point I'll have to figure out how to best organize the sketches for easy reference. I may also eventually offer a short digital sketchbook as a FREE download for promotional purposes and a larger edition for sale. Granted while finding time to produce new music as well as new sketches will be tough, it is possible with good time management. With that, here are the first series of sketches in, what I plan to be, a long line of releases to be shared over time for your viewing pleasure. So for now check these out and feel free to let me know what you think by adding a comment below.

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Related Music:

Palace of a Goddess

Cappuccino
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Related Articles:

The Music Gallery: Can Music Ever Be Valued as Fine Art

The Overflow of Creativity: Why Artists Need to Find New Areas to Conquer, New Worlds to Explore

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Marc
http://stereothesis.com/


To support Stereo Thesis with a financial donation, click here.