That's OK, though, because the interruptions only serve to help me to reflect on what's really important here. And sometimes those things that are really important are worth dwelling on long enough to keep my goals in perspective.
I'm talking about inspiration, here. Designing sound and composing are things we do because, well, that's what we do. We can't wait for the muse to descend from heaven and whisper in our ears speaking French. Work has to get done. But isn't it great when you get it?
The main thing is the environment in which you compose. Take my environment, for instance. I don't get to spend much time at home until the off-seasons. When I am at home, I'm so focused on composing and sound design that I often fail at paying attention to my family and my living space. This all came to a head as I was keeping my children at home away from daycare and travelled over the holidays to visit friends and relatives. I live in the Mississippi Delta in a double-wide on what was probably at one time a cotton field. In fact, there's farmland just beyond my back yard. The trouble with the cold, rainy season after the fields have been plowed under is that wild animals suddenly find themselves homeless and decide that humans aren't bad roommates.
So it is I find my home infested with mice, which might be tolerable if not for that SMELL. At first we just trapped them. But at this point we've found we can't get rid of them fast enough. We've now resorted to a particularly brutal poison--brutal in the sense it's a slow-acting poison that is cruelly attractive to the animals. My only thoughts this morning were towards thoroughly scouring away the filth in the living room. In place of composing or working on the Yocka Sound project, all I wanted to do was clean house. All day. And rearranging furniture at my wife's request (she feels compelled periodically to do this and today was a good day for it).
The smell improved a little, but the kitchen still reeks. After being completely exhausted from cleaning the living room, I no longer felt motivated to be quite so thorough in the kitchen. We decided to settle for finding any remains that might be the source of so strong a scent. In the process, we frightened one of our uninvited residents which I followed to an unintended entrance. I sealed the entrance (a hole underneath the central AC unit) and resumed my search, satisfied for the moment that there seem to be no more corpses to be found. We'll resume our housecleaning at a better time. For the moment we are elated that things seem to be improving.
Ladies and gentlemen, it's time to clean house! It's time to celebrate our children's birthdays. It's time to spend more time with our loved ones. And in all we do, it's time to find inspiration. Even if it means putting off important work for a little while, we have to find that extra burst of energy or at least clear our channels of energy to let it flow the we way we need it to.
So what does ol' Rho find inspiring? Well, I'm a Southerner. Mississippi, for what it is and isn't, inspires me. The trailer park inspires me, or at least shapes my mood and the creative direction I decide to take.
I've become an avid fan of the "True Blood" series for a variety of reasons. First, I find the deep south setting to be truly fascinating. Bon Temps is representative of small, isolated communities that time forgot. You can drive around the Mississippi Delta and get the same sense of traveling back in time. It's also representative of the kinds of places where uneducated freaks and weirdos are the norm and it's the vampires and other monsters that make up the echelons of high culture and civilization. Equally fascinating (beyond the obvious relevance to my way of life) is the whole pastiche they've created by combining drama, comedy, and soft-porn to make bold, serious AND satirical socio-political statements.
Anyone who knows me well at all can vouch for my disdain for all the vampire craze that has captured the fascination of our youth. I've seen all the Dracula horror flicks and especially "The Lost Boys" (you HAVE to love the 80's!) enough to know that vampires are evil and destructive. I find it unpalatable to accept anything relating to vampires and present day "vampire culture." And yet I find "True Blood" really speaks to me. While I'm vacuuming and mopping the living room floor, I'm passing the time with a "True Blood" first season marathon streaming off the DVR.
Is something wrong with me? I hope not. We don't have to understand those things that put the fire in our bellies. But we're foolish to ignore it. The question here is this: How do we take these things and put them to music? "True Blood" appeals to me in spite of my disgust for anything vampire-related because it reaches my sense of irony and humor. It reminds me that I'm allowed to dwell on the silly and/or grotesque in my own work. Just when I feel that maybe aesthetically I'm headed in the wrong direction, it tells me "Hey, it's OK to be stupid every once in a while." It doesn't have to be about what everyone else is going to like as long as it expresses what you have to say in your work. And while it's trendy to be ironic or retarded these days, we also have the freedom NOT to act like idiots as well. I do believe that there are absolutes in this world--but they don't have a place HERE.
You can make up your own mind about your likes/dislikes. Same thing with sound/music. The key is the generative process that leads you to create. Where does inspiration come from? A silly TV show? An unwelcome guest? Your daughter's first words at one year? That quirky synth SFX you heard on the radio? You can't always wait for it. But it's great when you have it. And it isn't always that far away.
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