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MUSICA PRO ECOLOGICA
By Eric Stokes
For eons mankind has been conquering Nature. Now he is beating it to death. Music, if only merely for its own survival, must actively oppose this. All of our music must take up the recurring, fundamental themes of our time: Ecos, the land ethic, the connectedness of all things and forms of life, the created purities of earth, air, fire and water.
To the extent that we composers and musicians do not focus our music on these themes we shall be standing aside while the planet, which sustains our art, sickens and dies. Taking up these basic themes we will show how music can give more than shallow entertainment or trendy sensationalism. We will show how it can serve the life-preserving causes of our time on Earth Island.
©Copyright 1990 Eric Stokes
THE PHONIC PARADIGM
By Eric Stokes
Traditional music institutions (symphony orchestras, string quartets, bands, choruses, etc.) embody assumptions and attitudes as to what is “musical” and what is not. The choice of personnel, the instruments in use (and their tunings), the design of the buildings where they perform and the way the organizations present themselves in performance constitute a fixed, largely unchanging concept of “music.”
In the Phonic Paradigm such assumptions and attitudes do not pertain. Instead we hold that all sounds are innocent until proven guilty; that in their innocence they enjoy inalienable rights to proceed from any point of the compass, out of any height or depth however near or far as so ever called forth by their composers or any other compelling life force.
To realize these things most fully we practice a native grammar in which non-institutionalized sonic resources play the major part. They include things such as ice, leaves, stones, seed pods, files, hinters’ wild animal calls, scissors, cutlery, zippers, gloves, files, hunters’ wild animal calls, glass, springs, etc. Each movement of the Phonic Paradigm is centered on one or a few of these natural inflections and puts into practice some of the conjugations.
The performance of this music looks to that time when people will have true Sound Galleries where all music’s may find their best places. These Sound Galleries will be stripped of the institutional prejudices which continue to hold our native music’s hostage to alien, backward-looking practices and artistic colonial powers.
©Copyright 1980 Eric Stokes
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