The origins of my ideas sometimes are a byproduct my joy in creating chaotic collisions of idea or sounds and trying to find a sum in those two ideas when they shouldn’t add up.
I’m fascinated by how forcing a relationship between two things, any two things, interrupts the my brains need for logic and its laziness in wanting to do what is normal or expected, and creates interesting and unexpected results as a by product. When two things that don’t relate collide, there is a unique opportunity to find symmetry, symmetry that doesn’t or shouldn’t exist, or one that no one else has found or seen given the parts are so disparate.
One way I create sonic chaos is by playing sound roulette. Lets say I have a sound design challenge, let’s say make a space ship (chaos element #1). I open my sound library browser, I close my eyes and type in something randomly on my keyboard and hit return. Whatever sounds show up in the browser list (chaos element #2), I try to attach or extract a meaning or connection between it…and the sound to be designed.
So let’s say the sound that shows up is a wood ratchet. What can we do with this? Perhaps this suggests that the propulsion system of the spaceship is non-steady state and “fluttering”. Perhaps the wood construction of the ratchet indicates that the spaceship should have a mechanical feel, rather than an electronic or synth based feel. We can extrapolate this idea forever to help us focus on the task in ways that the normal, logical brain wouldn’t. It’s in the search for these clues that our minds open up in ways we didn’t expect. Perhaps only because we forced it to?
The key is to intentionally and regularly apply one random item against an item that needs context. Back to the space ship. I might be sitting in the studio and thinking about what to make it out of and I remember a conversation my wife and I had at breakfast. Let’s force that into the chaos generator. What was that she said about not being able to afford our auto insurance? Wait, auto insurance is what we buy to protect ourselves and others from catastrophe. What else protects us from catastrophe? Well maybe vaccines. Wait a minute, I have this great recording of the MRI machine in my doctors office, made a really crazy pinging vibrating hum. That’s a great sound for a space ship engine room. Voila!!
I could go on like this for days. It can easily end up like a miserable 20 questions game gone on too long. Chop it off after a few iterations. But you can see how this approach might jog your creative side into areas that you wouldn’t naturally gravitate to.
My dad used to importune me regularly to “change my scenery” as an exhortation to take vacations because of how good they are for ones health and sanity. Get out of the house, experience more life, return and use that to your advantage.