While I enjoy music, it's not something that I aspire to. Musicians are tremendous creative artists, akin to painters or poets who can create something that didn't exist before. My approach to sound recording and production is inherently tied to my experience as a photographer.
A photographer will typically develop a skill in seeing things that others miss. Whether it's an object or a fleeting moment, the essence of a person or the tones of a shadow on the ground, a photographer finds things that that they can hold up and show to others in a different way. The creation of a photograph is an event that gives the subject, whether banal or beautiful, a certain gravitas. "This thing has been recorded and its presentation shaped in a way to bring out what I saw, so please look as well, and appreciate the possibilities of its meaning."
A painter will create art on a blank surface.
A photographer will find art within the incidental splatter on the drop cloth.
Recording sound, and even shaping it into something different, is also the act of observing and presenting something that others might miss or dismiss. It's embracing the incidental and unintentional around us, even if it means the rhythm and richness of a rattling fan. It's about finding these things and holding them up so that others might appreciate them as well. Sound is everywhere – there's a lot to be heard by listening.
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