Ask Yourself

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

Ask Yourself begins with a choir of angels, a whirlwind of strumming and electronic breezes to evoke an ethereal vibe. It unravels and dissipates into the opening lyrics of the song with statements pointing back to the beginning of life in our universe, perhaps even the origin of all existence. While not an overtly religious piece of music it is spiritual and addresses a sincere curiosity about serious questions. It also expresses a viewpoint that hints at possible answers to these concerns.

“Where do we come from?

Where are we going?

So many questions and nobody knowing.”

These lines represent the basis of the lyrical motif underlying all of the thoughts and poetic phrases expressed in Ask Yourself. Everything else revolves around and refers to these fundamental frustrations with standard or even traditional responses to these philosophical questions. Along with so many questions we all face too many answers. For any serious minded individual, truth is unified and not a multiplicity of fragments forced together from different sources to create a cohesive picture of what may or may not be truth.

So how do we resolve the conflict between our questions and the answers we’re given or find through our own searching? Experience is the teacher and it is crucial we develop the sensitivity to be open to the way experience can help us learn. The results of our actions provide clues by giving us feedback. Life is a laboratory where we are conducting the experiment of our lives. Answers are revealed when the right questions are asked.

“It’s all about you and that’s all there is.”

Who else can teach us to see what is before us? Who else is there when we’re confronted with the reality of our lives and the themes that occur repeatedly? No one else but ourselves. Alone, we witness the evolution of circumstances that develop out of a combination of our decisions and actions. The impact of our choices and deeds produces the experience that we consider our lives. Everything responds to the quality of our character, which is formed from the kind of people we are really.

We broadcast who we are with the energy of our being and the most sensitive of people can detect who we are easily, but for others they are deceived by our false fronts and many masks of personality. The soul, if such a things exists, is a mirror into which we can practice viewing our reflection in private. Our experience of life is a reflection of who we are really. To learn and eventually know the truth, we must also be truthful with ourselves. The universe is a mirror and we reflect in it what’s in our soul. Just Ask Yourself.

“You are what it is. The light is within,

Underneath your skin. You are a star.”

As souls, we maintain eternality. A star is the only symbol of near eternality in our universe and yet a brief study of the life of stars in this universe reveals that even they can die. Eternality as an idea is different from immortality in that it refers to the fact of being eternal or unending, instead of immortality which is merely the condition of not experiencing death or without death. There are only three things in our universe which we conceive of as possessing eternality and they are the universe itself, souls, and God. Everything else that is alive or that exists in this universe can be imagined to somehow or in some way be able to achieve the state of immortality, but this is folly.

“Just ask yourself.”

Anything affected by change in time must of necessity age and therefore experiences decay and dissolution. Even the universe itself may one day come to an end, thus souls and God remain as the only things we can think of that might have eternality as one of their fundamental characteristics. We are what constitutes life, by animating, directing, and initiating our purposes through living, but while we are involved in this experience, we are also free, unaffected and far removed from the consequences of aging and death. We go on and some of us even come back.

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Related Music:

Ask Yourself

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Marc

https://stereothesis.bandcamp.com/

Big Cloud

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

The vibrato and minimalist riff at the start of Big Cloud represents the forces of wind, cold, heat, and light that interact above us all day, every day of our lives. This is the backdrop and environmental factors that provide us with a field in which to act and build the structure of our lives. Everything from an individual’s life, a society, a culture, flight, navigation, and all types of construction that make human life bearable occur because we’ve learned to cope with the forces of nature with the creativity of our adaptations and inventions.

The opposing forces of heat and cold interact in the sky generating a motion of air. Frost and moisture fall and rise within the dome of the earth to form clouds, rain, wind, and storm. Above us, these elements and processes operate to add beauty and randomity to the conditions in which we experience the action of our lives. The mix of earth and sky are the environment, the arena under which we live and breath the miracle of elements that make life possible for one and all.

A smooth transition indicates a harmony between man and his environment, an understanding of the laws of nature, and of how to use these laws to anticipate changes in our surroundings, thus making it possible to plot a course of action and to make long-term plans across many generations, for many years in advance. A melodic statement says it all and what it says is man is worthy of living and capable of solving the problems of survival and of being able to face existence on this planet without fear, so that he may triumph with the weapon of his mind. The theme and melody repeat until an ominous note signals a change in the weather and a confrontation between humanity and their environment.

A struggle ensues. The push and pull of factors of man’s survival against the brutal forces of nature uncaringly proceeding with their unfeeling motions of death and new life born of the old. Storm, fast moving winds, wildfires, earthquakes, flood, avalanches and much more all contradict what the human mind can conceive and what he builds with his hands. But nature, in truth, is not against Man. The correct view is that Man must learn the ways of nature of mitigate the damage those processes will inflict on his desire for permanence and immunity from the laws of nature. While these are noble goals to strive for, they will never be realized as the keynote of this universe is time and for time, change. Things change and Man must learn to accept change or nature through the environment will force him to change whether He likes it or not.

When the forces of nature seem to attack and Man’s emotions bid him to protect his creations, he experiences fear and grief from loss. Loss of possessions and the lives of those he loved, prolong these emotional states, but these too are experiences from which he learns to cope with nature of her vicious changes. Apathy is that state where all he can do is watch all of what he built get washed away and flattened by a more powerful force that his ability to design and build what he imagines.

Man is a force of nature in himself and can live despite the liabilities that living exposes him to from birth. The bridge is a sad statement underscoring a comprehension of loss and the element of change that all people must come to terms with as a result of being alive. This section ends with a courageous note and a strong phrase leads into it to point to the hope of rebuilding everything that was lost, but by persistence can be regained yet in a different form. Destruction and rebirth form a cycle of life that becomes new growth by sweeping away the old.

What will survive in the aftermath and live to thrive another day? No one knows for sure, but those who do have a responsibility to prepare for those who will come one day soon in the future to make their own contributions to the survival of our species on this and other planets. Normalcy returns, those who have gone into hiding come out, we gather to examine the damage, and from there we begin to rebuild. The danger has passed and life must go on. We bury the dead, clean up the remains, and settle in for a new beginning. Up in the sky a Big Cloud hovers as a sign of what has just occurred, but it soon becomes distant and dissipates with the heat of the sun and eventually disappears.

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Related Music:

Big Cloud

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Marc

https://stereothesis.bandcamp.com/

Price Per Play

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

What is the value of the music experience to the consumer?

In the past, the value of the music experience might have been more connected to the community as music was likely one of very few entertainments the people could enjoy together. Moreover, the value of music and the music experience itself was more allied with live performance rather than selling volume units of CD's, records, or mP3 downloads.

The question here today is not whether or not music was better in the past compared to now, but whether or not the price of music is correct relative to other artforms?

When measured by each unit, by far, photographs, paintings, sketches, sculptures, DVD's, and any other kind of art you can think of is worth far more per unit than music. The only rivals to music in terms of art or entertainment are T.V. and film. Even though more people spend more of their time listening to music or attending a live music performance, music still receives far less monetary appreciation than do other art forms. 

Let's look at this issue another way. If a photograph or painting by a famous artist is valued at $5,000 or $15,000,000 and thousands of people flock to see either one of them at a museum, their values don't change or they might actually go up. But what happens when you buy a digital download or a musician releases a new album?

First of all, the price of a digital download is automatically priced at $.99 no matter what demand is like. Also, the label prices the entire album where it thinks demand will help them to recoup their cost from the production, promotion, and marketing costs related to the project.

But here are some essential differences between other art forms and music. In general, no part of the public ever gets to touch or own the original copies of an artist work unless they buy it. In other words, the general public never gets to own a Picasso painting, unless they can outbid another buyer. However, the general public can buy a poster size print or an art book full of samples of Picasso paintings along with biographical information concerning his development as a person and artist over time.

But with music, the general population almost always gets to have the thing itself. The music is the thing. The master copies of songs produced by a musician or composer are the equivalent items to original paintings by master artists. The master copies are what the labels and producers want to own, but the general public just wants the experience.

But if music is art then it should be prices accordingly in similar terms as art other art forms. A copy of an original photograph by a highly-acclaimed photographer will cost the consumer less than the original. Same thing goes when it comes to copies or prints of original paintings.

With music, though, many people mistakenly believe that composers and musicians are selling a performance when really they're selling ideas or a shared emotional experience. Music is a means of communicating ideas and emotions with sound waves made by instruments and/or voices.

In basic economics, we learn that the price of something goes up when demand increases, and that the price of something goes down when demand goes down. So in theory, as demand goes up, price goes up and when demand goes down, price also goes down.

So then why is the price of a song or piece of music stuck at about $.99 per track? Even if the music is in demand, the price never changes unless the artist wants it to, but under no other circumstances. 

Even though we live in a period of time where master paintings are selling for millions of dollars, the price of music is stable at $.99 per download. Looking around for digital music on Amazon you'll occasionally notice downloads selling for $1.50 or $2, but not often. 

The point here is: more plays = lower cost per play.

100 plays of a $.99 download = .01 per play

10 plays = $.09 per play

In my estimation, there's just no way that $.99 is the value or true price of the music experience that the audience receives when they listen to music they really connect with and enjoy often. Instead, the value of that experience is what the artist or consumer says it is. Therefore, price, when it comes to music, is an agreement made between the artist and consumer about the value of the experience they both think they are giving and receiving through the music.

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Related Music:

Lucky Ducky

Mystery Meat

The Zealot

____________________________________________________________________________

Marc

http://stereothesis.com/

Remember to join our mailing list.

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

Music is Art

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

In the modern era, musicians and composers have an opportunity to claim their status as artists equal and in many cases superior to other art forms and disciplines. 

Before recording, there really wasn't a way for composers and musicians to package and sell their compositions other than through performance or notation. 

In terms of performance, apprentices would learn from master musicians and the tradition would pass along from master to apprentice through the centuries. Throughout this process performance after painstaking study and practice was at the heart of the discipline.

Eventually, a notation system evolved which allowed composers to write down their ideas in order to preserve them, work them out on paper, and to communicate these ideas from person to person. Notation actually made music portable although a music score was not the end product, but rather a means of communicating the end product which was the music itself translated by musicians and performed live. 

Unfortunately, the weakness in the notation system lay in the interpretation which may or may not have been an accurate portrayal of the composer's thought and direction. The system wasn't perfect but it was a step in the right direction to where we are today.

As you can see, performance and portability were two essential steps that needed to be taken before we could arrive anywhere close to the final step of communicating the artist's ideas exactly as they intended. It's in this final step where music crosses over from a communal activity and into a medium similar to painting, sculpture, photography, and other crafts. 

Notice how almost every other art form and craft produces a physical product that can be bought, owned, sold, and circulated as an asset or personal possession. Whereas in the past, music lacked the ability to produce a physical product and therefore could not be bought, owned, sold, and circulated as an asset or personal possession. But this has all changed today.

Now, music can produce a physical product and like other art forms can be bought, sold and owned. But interestingly, the same technology that gave birth to the music recording industry is also destroying that industry and making more difficult for musicians and composers to maintain control over their work. 

Bootlegged music and other types of illegal duplication are pushing the price of the music experience so far down towards zero ($0) that each composer, musician, songwriter, and band have to consider themselves a brand in order to promote and market themselves according to a business model of their own choosing. 

This isn't necessarily a bad thing only because the artists can now decide how they want to package and sell their music. Selling digital downloads is just one type of package, other forms include music DVD's, box sets with the artist's autograph and photos, touring, creating T-shirts and other paraphernalia as well as composing for T.V., film, and video games. Each of these packages is made up of products, each with their own price model, mark ups, and profit potential.

Music is art and now has the potential to be sold by artists directly to buyers, but now it's up to the artist to determine whether or not they'll only sell music or if they'll also package their music with other products. Each artist has to determine what kind of music business they're going to run and try different approaches to find out what works, what doesn't work, and how much of a living they can make doing it.

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Related Music:

Utopium

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Palace of a Goddess

__________________________________

Marc

http://stereothesis.com/

Remember to join our mailing list.

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The Atmosphere of Music

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

Sound disturbs the air molecules in a space and causes vibrations to agitate against every part of the body. When sound is organized into music, it fills a space with sonic vibrations of a particular pattern and that pattern is what  affects the mind, activating the emotions, restructures the atmosphere within an environment to create a mood.

Well-designed music causes mass hallucination during a music experience. When people gather in groups to listen to music, the patterns that emerge from the speakers perform their magic and the music experience takes hold of every person present on two levels.

Firstly, the music experience is interpreted by the individual according to their own emotional development and personal history, which allows them to relate to the music and mold it in a way where it seems it was made just for them.

Secondly, the music experience produces an atmosphere which blankets a group of people and collectively they share a common experience that shapes their perceptions in the moment. Whatever they see, feel, and hear during the music experience in this context is a mass hallucination, since it can only be seen, heard, and felt by them and no one else outside of the space being filled with the atmosphere of music.

When it is wisely used and carefully selected, music can reinforce or shape a mood by creating an atmosphere that surrounds, envelopes, and fills everyone within a space with a pattern of thought transmitted from the composer.

A vinyl record, cassette, CD, and mP3 file interpret information on a sound system, but they are not the music. Music is what is projected out into an area through the speakers. The music is what happens when all of the parts of a sound system operate properly to allow something be heard and felt.

Music is a powerful force and through the patterns that project out of the speakers, we are held in its sway and can experience things we would not be able to otherwise. The music experience consists of two levels of understanding and feeling, the individual and the collective, but all of it comes back to the way music works on the mind and our emotions. By hitting us on two sides, music touches us deeply and makes its impression on our psyche on a nonverbal, almost precognitive basis.

What is heard and felt is what’s called the music experience. The music experience is not an act or performance, but rather is what the composer wants you to hear and feel while their music is creating the atmosphere you’re sitting in.

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Related Music:

Who's Eating You?

Rear View Mirror

Bodies in Rapture

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Marc

http://stereothesis.com/

Remember to join our mailing list.

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

Emotion as Forms of Color and Texture

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GET “SONIC WEAPONS: The Official Stereo Thesis Music Sampler” FOR FREE. 

To get your FREE full-length album…click here. ____________________________________________________________

There are two methods of creativity: combining or rearranging existing elements into new structures or inventing elements with which to create forms and structures. One method is related to discovery and extraction whereas the other method is pure creation - bringing into being something from nothing, or thought alone.

So in the first case, the artist is taking existing elements and shaping them into something interesting or unique relative to what others have done with the same set of ingredients or elements.

In the second case, the artist is forming new materials, out of thin air, and putting them together into a unique combination that is specific to their artistic vision. This is the method which was used to form our universe as is believed in the theory of Creationism.

Of the two methods of creativity only the first method or locating materials, extracting them, and arranging them into unique and pleasant forms is what artists on Earth are capable of using in music and sketch.

Color is a quality shared by the sketch and music.

With the sketch the issue of color is primarily with the harmony of color, blending of hues, and shading (relative brightness and darkness).

Similarly, music possesses the quality of color, except in music color can be expressed in timbre, dynamic elements, volume, composition and dramatic performance.

With timbre each instrument or sound in a piece of music possesses a certain quality that helps to identify and define one sound from another. In other words, each instrument has its own voice and can  be identified and not mistaken for another.

Closely related to timbre is texture, which is the harmonious (or disharmonious) blending of different types of timbre. Combining a variety of timbres within a composition is what develops a textural soundscape in each piece of music. When musicians layer several instruments or voices with different timbres, what they are in effect doing is constructing texture.

Texture in music comes across either as a visual or tactile sensation. Where we can describe a sound as sharp, piercing, smooth, jagged, rough, dirty, deep, or shiny, then in a crude way we were describing timbre in the form of texture or other tactile qualities.

The harmony or disharmony of the timbre into a pattern of texture is what forms the basis for emotion in a sketch or a piece of music.

With the sketch, texture only becomes apparent when you mix or layer media or when you use a media like acrylic paint or oil paints which are thick relative to other media such as pastels. Texture in the sketch has the effect of literally coming off the page because it can stand up or be thickly applied to paper or canvas. This style is mostly used in fine art painting where the brushstrokes are clearly visible. But in general it’s a physical thing where the artist is turning the two-dimensional image into a three-dimensional object.

Music makes an impression on the ear, while sketch does so in the eye. The thought and care that the artist has poured into their work will finally manifest its clarity and message from the end product across space and time by leaping into the mind of the audience by creating an impression.

If the impression has meaning for the seer or hearer of a sketch or a piece of music, then the impression will rise in status within the mind and evolve into an emotional experience that connects the artwork with a person's outlook on life, their aspirations for the future, and even their emotional history.

Art has the power to inspire others by adding fuel to the desires for the future. Art has the gift of shaping a person's sense of life by becoming an essential accessory to their way of living. Art also carries with it the emotional impact the artist imbues it with and how this interacts with the past of the audience member.

When a sketch or music impresses itself deeply into the mind of the audience member, the impression evolves into emotional impact, which is what the artist is seeking when they decide to share their work publicly.

As the work of the artist approaches completion, where the shape, texture, colors, and objects are balanced or imbalanced within a sketch or in music, the piece undergoes one final test to determine its value and function. If the artwork has the ability to the serve the purpose of the artist by making a deep psychological impression that becomes a meaningful emotional impact which fuses itself into the mind of the individual audience member, then the piece has value and serves its function.

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Related Music:

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Take Me Higher

____________________________________________________________

Marc

http://stereothesis.com/

Remember to join our mailing list.

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