🤔 "Artists are highly disposable and their audiences largely dispose of their common fate." 😀 (AR, 2019)
Objectives
Standing up for a more balanced mind and world outside.
Symbolism of simultaneous tunes
Alex Ruis assumes a subtle influence of the underlying symbolism on the minds of listeners. At the very least, the underlying symbolism consists of monophony, homophony or polyphony. In the latter cases also super- and subordination and dominant to equal parties. He experiences equality and freedom when listening to free contrapuntal music. Dictation and subordination through copying behavior in imitative music. Followership, sometimes suppression in homophonic music. Even in no-obligation styles.
Because influence of music often acts on all that lives unconsciously and subtly, people can easily take it for granted. To counteract feelings of unimportance and other psychical disharmony, Alex Ruis builds his music primarily on stylish simultaneous, equal tunes. Which, incidentally, are not intended to imitate each other. Different tunes express equally different attitudes, opinions, moods, etcetera.
To be clear, he does not consider otherwise composed music to be wrong. But that music describes a reality less desired by him. His music is meant to be complementary, enriching and beneficial. Offering a non-prescriptive opening to another world. Nor is the method of composition a matter of principle, rather a different-than-usual approach.
If you take into account hypersensitivity as a prerequisite for appreciation, you could still assume that he is doing at least 700,000 listeners (0.01% of 7,000,000,000 people worldwide) a favor by releasing part of his music. If you further assume that the music industry* will not cooperate without great financial gain, he will achieve only a fraction of that during his lifetime.
Financially, he wants pro-rata compensation for all his efforts, and that is definitely more than parts of the music industry pay. Therefore, do not expect extensive works, nor wide availability of his music until 'reasonable and fair'** compensation is paid.
Unfortunately, in writing this article, he has reached listeners who are not part of the target audience. He also thanks them for the effort of listening and hopes they did not suffer any unpleasant consequences.
According to Alex Ruis, releasing his music is not a dream, but a contemporary technical and market opportunity that he is realizing based on a dormant desire.
Please feel free to share your thoughts on this music via the social media above.
Intended effect of music
Much music is meant for relaxation and entertainment, experiencing beauty and the like. Alex Ruis goes beyond those purposes. According to him, life itself and music in particular is about finding harmony in time and space. Therefore, in music his mission is to balance feelings, thoughts and actions through the influence of moods. Those who do not wish to experience this should not listen too much to his music. Simple, because algorithms of streaming services and most radio programmers ensure that you will have little acquaintance with his music. Those who DO wish to experience, must take enough of that to themselves. What is too much and sufficient will be different for every person.
Subordinated voices
Still, lower and especially middle voices in music often are made less important by composers. The middle tunes usually are not less important than the upper or lower tune. Their importance may be different than that of the other tunes, but they create the music together. Which is the core concept of syntunes. In the minds of many people similar values stand.
Syntunes
Syntunes are pieces of music that largely consist of stylish simultaneously performed tunes or melodies. These are attuned to each other in such a way that they chord together and thus form the whole harmony. You should avoid accompaniment and mutual imitation between the tunes. Incidentally, a piece of music can more or less meet these conditions. Some pieces of his EP Simple Syntunes are quite free in this regard.
Connecting genres
For decades, composers and songwriters have attempted to connect pop and rock music with classical music. Most famous have been bands that have adapted well-known works by classical composers for band. For example, listen to music by Sky, Emerson, Lake and Palmer and Exception.
Although this is a secondary goal, Alex Ruis incidentally connects electronic, pop, rock and classical. By mixing elements of these genres to his preference. Think of harmony, counterpoint, form and instrumentation. This is because he grew up in an environment where one genre does not preclude the other.
* According to him, music industry could more aptly be called money industry. In which the most important links - composers, arrangers and performers - are the least rewarded for their efforts. As a result, music, like many valuable things, loses out to greed for money.
** He suspects that "reasonable and fair" needs to be quantified before large parts of the music industry will care.
