Creativity As Assembly

A few weeks ago I was noodling around on a guitar and a Japanese-sounding idea emerged, using the Phrygian mode--Greek but sounds Japanese) and I have been developing it in dribs and drabs. "Ukiyo-e" was on my title list and I used it as a working title.

Recently, I watched the film Minamata. Very often I'll play guitar while watching films (especially if I think they can be watched peripherally) and sometimes what I'm watching will inform the music in interesting ways. Would I have still developed the song in a similar way watching another kind of movie? Perhaps. But if you're a "combinatorial" artist, where things get "assembled" over time, a synchronicity occurs and it develops a new life and takes off in new directions.  

Not that Ukiyo-e has anything to do with Minamata. I could change the title to something with more pathos, but I never go as far as changing the music to be topical--in this case ecological disasters.

Instrumental music has a hard time being about anything specific, unless it is scored specifically for certain events and subject matter. Assembly can go too far if you keep stacking and joining things without some overall aesthetic. It would be kitsch essentially.