Transferring Discovery

While piecing together this rough cut of a new sound piece, I learned an important lesson: You can't force discovery. While transcribing my interviews last week, I came across two that seemed to mirror each other in a strange way. Both interviewees had squeezed into beds with their siblings in childhood; however one was out of necessity and the other for fun. My natural instinct was to splice them together, to reveal this relationship to the listener (as you'll hear in the rough draft below). What I realized afterwards though was that it loses something when the relationship is spelled out. I've left nothing to the imagination, and no chance for the listener to forge these connections on their own as I did. Discovery is one of my favorite parts of the process, and yet if I can not allow that sensation to my listener, then what have I really accomplished? I have an interesting new task for next week-discovering what makes discovery. I can't wait.