I’m not a huge fan of holidays in general. My opinion is fairly plain if you read this blog. Be that as it may, the New Year festivities are a particular exception. For one, it’s a global event – and as such it has broader resonance than national or regional/cultural holidays. I realize there are cultures that use other calendars, but the Gregorian Calendar is a standard that nearly everyone abides, if begrudgingly in certain cases. Even though people seem to have their own way of celebrating the event (from binge drinking to midnight religious services) in general I can get behind the idea of marking the occasion, wishing everyone well and of course taking some time aside for personal reflection.
And in the context of everything that happened to/around me on a professional and personal level, this year’s annual think time was especially welcome. I started my journey of reconciling the past 12 months by equating some of the negative events in 2009 to “objects” floating in a metaphorical toilet bowl – objects that simply wouldn’t flush until the end of the year. And while it was temporarily gratifying to find crude humor in personal catharsis, the more serious part of me kept reaching for context. Today it came together in the dime-store philosophy of perception as a personal choice. It has been stated in countless ways – people can’t always choose the events that occur in their lives, but it’s the subsequent choices they make in responding to those events that shape them as human beings. I realized that through all of the events, issues, challenges as well as the outright successes and failures I encountered over the past year, I have learned and have grown – a lot. (I know, bad grammar, so sue me) Many of my existing personal and professional relationships were profoundly transformed over the year. I realize now in hindsight that in almost every case, those changes were for the better. And likewise, many of the new relationships that developed have been positive and utterly worthwhile.
Along the way, I have also grappled with my own “is-ness”, for the lack of a better term. Well, check that – there is a better term, in fact there are several. The French call it raison d’etre, and Robert Heinlein did an admirable job of putting it in a sci-fi context with grok (which is the term I most often use). In my case it boils down to my relationship to the music I create – and in large part it’s self-resolving, but it has taken me to this point to realize that certain people understand and accept what I’m about as a composer and others simply don’t. It’s not a value judgment by any means – but it goes to where I plan to put my energy in the coming year. Previously I’ve too easily allowed people the luxury of pigeon-holing me as “the sound guy” or “the film score geek” or other monikers that are a small part of who I am. That’s going to change this coming year, or maybe it won’t for their part – but I’m certainly not going to accept that definition without a firm body of work to show that there’s more to me than their myopic assignment. The more important lesson for me out of all of this is that thinking/talking/writing about it is meaningless without action. Composers compose - and, well – I’m a composer. Toward the end of 2009 I added some cues to my demo reel that I’m quite proud of, but I’m definitely thinking and working on a larger scale than film and television projects would most likely allow. So this year will have a pronounced focus on creating music for its own sake, because that’s where I’m at home. Even when I’m suffering through a bout of writer’s block or struggling with a bleeding-edge technical issue, I’m seldom happier than when I’m in the studio. Spending the last week of 2009 away from it has proven that to me all over again. So I will be producing a great deal more music this year, whether or not those works are attached to film, television or new media projects is of marginal consequence from the perspective of my raison d’etre. And of course I have some specific ideas on how that will take shape in the coming year, but I’ll save the formal announcement for when the time is right.
Likewise, my 2010 will focus on finding and cultivating relationships with like-minded creatives, and as a consequence other points of contact will lie fallow for a while. This seems obvious as I type it – and maybe I’m a slow learner in certain areas – but it came to me as a somewhat profound realization that I’ve spent too much time around those that didn’t share enough of my goals and perspective. It’s like trying to shove a Venn diagram together in a way that doesn’t fit. A slim overlap is what it is – and you can’t force the set to converge more than is possible on its own accord. So I will be working on my own music projects while pursuing truly rewarding collaborations and reaching out to the larger composer community to find like-minded souls. That’s why I recently set up Surround Underground, a site that is for and about music production for multi-channel formats. It’s something that’s been an interest of mine since my college days, and with surround formats becoming de rigeur in film and video games and standardization of delivery formats like Blu Ray disc, DTS-HD, Dolby TruHD and FLAC I think it’s an idea whose time is re-emerging (you quad hi-fi fanatics of yesteryear can rejoice now that the world of digital music has finally caught up to you). I don’t have particularly grand ideas for the site, but I plan to take it as far as it will go within the time I can devote to it – to see if a critical mass develops and it gains its own momentum.
That’s a recurring theme as I start the new year. It’s not about abandoning the past and starting a new future – it’s about taking the hard-won lessons and putting them together with the ideas that I’ve always held true, and applying them to new and meaningful context. That’s when I had my aha moment – when I found that the events of the recent past and the prospects of 2010 attained a kind of personal equilibrium. So in a way I’m really grateful for 2009, because without it the coming year wouldn’t have the same potential and purpose. And I suppose that’s what everyone does this time of year – but again – in certain areas I’m a slow learner, and this feels new and refreshing to me.
I’m not about making wild declarations, proclamations or resolutions. But I’ll say now with some confidence that – for my part – there are going to be many new, different and exciting things about 2010. Stay tuned…
