From the full-length symmetrical concept album “Symmetry”

“Ascent 4” is the final ascent of the Symmetry concept album. Symmetry is the musically symmetrical soundtrack of a journey, whether physical, intellectual, imaginative, emotional, philosophical, psychological, or spiritual. The music expresses progressive ascent towards a goal, arrival at an apex, descent, and return. Each piece corresponds to one of the shapes of ancient geometry representing the elements: earth, water, fire, air, aether. “Ascent 4” is about the element of air.

The structure of the composition reflects and embodies philosophy, mathematics, sacred geometry, harmony and dissonance, and psychoacoustics. This electronic arrangement of the composition is inspired by early, baroque, classical and neoclassical music, as well as electronic music and minimalism. The entire album is musically symmetrical, with the “Descents” as compositional reverses of the “Ascents”.

The challenge was to create a timeless meditative album, depicting a wide range of moods from tranquil to intense, within strict limits: all pieces share the same tempo, arrangement, duration, and internal structure. Themes repeat, vary, evolve, develop throughout. The Ascent/Descent pairs required the creation of sounds, chord progressions, and melodies that worked equally well forward or in reverse. Each successive “Ascent” modulates to a “higher” musical key and greater harmonic and melodic ascending movement. “Esse” (Latin: “to be”), the centerpiece and apex, itself internally symmetrical, is music of complete stasis, an arrival at the destination, a pure contemplation of a panoramic vista, perhaps even a state of enlightenment or mystical rapture. Each “Descent” mirrors its numerically equivalent “Ascent”, successively descending in chord progressions and in musical keys. One source of inspiration for this work is the ascent to knowledge as described in Plato’s allegory of the Cave; another is the meditative process and the ascent to the enlightened state of consciousness, known as “The Fourth” (Turiya), in Indian philosophy.

The hope is that listeners find this music to be an evocative soundtrack to their own journeys, and that they may create their own interpretations.

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