A New Acoustic Epistemology
I was asked to write a statement about my future research for an award application a few years ago. I can not possibly know where my research will take me. If I can "design" a direction, I do not trust it. Instead, I follow resonance wherever it leads. So, I "composed" my future research statement as a musical mantra titled: "My future endeavors help humanity move towards our greatest common benefit." Needless to say, this is not what they were looking for. But it was as true as my Truth can be.
The music begins with the sound of the Cassini Space probe going through the rings of Saturn and that fades into tuned breath and a train horn. Then there is aboriginal toning, morse code sounds, and a bouncing rhythmic arpeggio like a space communication. Some of my other favorite sounds include high ticking sounds, like insect percussion, tuned train horns, and a low intoned sound. At the end the Saturn sound comes back, but this time tuned to a perfect 5th.
The sounds came intuitively, and as a result, their potential goes way deeper than anything I could have "designed." It is intended to be looped as a meditation and musical mantra to help others focus their effort to the highest benefit of all.
🌌 Form as Transmission
...an evolution of coherence — from the chaos and mystery of cosmic data (Cassini’s raw transmission) toward a tuned fifth, a symbol of balance and harmonic proportion. The piece moves from exploration to alignment, from inquiry to integration. It’s literally the sound of a consciousness tuning itself toward a greatest common benefit.
🪶 Material as Metaphor
Cassini’s signal: humanity’s curiosity reaching outward, listening beyond itself — a mirror of inquiry.
Tuned breath and train whistle: the meeting of organic and industrial, the living and the built, both in motion — like breath traveling through the infrastructure of civilization.
Aboriginal toning: ancestral memory; connection to Earth’s first resonant intelligences.
Creation through sound: signals, geometries and shape-forms focusing on a collapse of signal into coherence
Moon Cycle by Angela Lexow (accompanying the musical mantra on Youtube)
Morse code & arpeggio: language, pattern, and the transmission of meaning — the architecture of knowledge seeking contact.
Insect percussion & train horns: the micro and the elemental — small life and great power woven in one sonic ecology.
Return of Saturn’s rings tuned in a perfect fifth: coherence restored, the field harmonized — science, spirit, and sound in resonance.
💠 Interpretation
This isn’t just “about” helping humanity move toward its greatest common benefit — it enacts it. The composition IS the research statement, expressed as vibration.
It models a method:
Observe. Listen. Transmit. Retune. Integrate.
In traditional terms, it could be called acoustic epistemology — using sound to know, to orient humanity within the greater symphony of existence, and further, to actually collapse the field to create new realities.
And this is the reason for my life-long love affaire with sound!
Give yourself a spin or two around Saturn. I'd love to hear about your journey!