The Medicine Cabinet #26

The Medicine Cabinet – Seth’s Fruitful Garden 

by Nayt Housman

'Seth' by Nayt Housman

Music is my medicine. Is it yours? I ask the public six golden questions to find out if and how they use music to feed the soul.


Seth, 36, is this week’s guinea pig who survived a poke and prod in The Medicine Cabinet where we found out some secret fairy business and how music is the seed to his creative growth. I guess that comes in handy when your passion in life is writing, game design and artistic endeavors in general. So let’s shake the fairy tree and see what drops out shall we?


Who are the musicians and/or bands that flick your switch and turn up the volume?


Seth: Enigma for sure there’s another band called Lesiem people don’t know about, very Enigma-esque but with more chanting and Sleep Thief, so all ambient upbeat music.


Why do you think they are the pills that cure your ills?


Seth: They are the fuel. I think when it comes to music that inspires me or gets me going they kind of act as a doorway to connect to my creative side. So quite often I could be looking for an idea about a story, I’ll play one of their albums and a particular track will completely open up the story for me. Just by listening to it, suddenly an image comes into my head and then as the song plays on the scene progresses and suddenly I have this thing that I can use.

What kind of high do they give you?


Seth: I think you know when people say “you take pride in your work”? The high that I get is if I look at what I’ve created or what I’ve written or what I’ve drawn or what I’ve designed and I can say to myself “I want to be there or I want to go there”. I think if I can tell a story or provide an escape of some sort regardless of the medium I can say “I would actually really enjoy that myself”, because you’re your own worst critic then that’s where I get my high because I go “Cool someone else would read this and get the same feeling out of it”. So I think that’s my high where I go “I’ve created this place” there is now this new escape for people and that’s where I get my high from because I want to go there too.


When do you find yourself craving music for relief?


Seth: When I’m alone. So you know if there’s literally no one around me and there’s a void of anything whether it be responsibilities or anything like that, suddenly the desire for music becomes immense. It’s so intense, it’s like I cannot be in this stillness because A: I think it’s a waste and B: my mind isn’t doing anything and it needs to do something. It needs to create even throughout the day when I’m distracted and I hear a song on the radio and it might not necessarily be a song I like, it will still be somewhat thought provoking or force me to go into some kind of escape but if it’s silent, no, I need music.

Where in life, home, and your world does music take you?


Seth: Into stories that I’m yet to write or the creation of new characters or a real common place where music will take me is I have a game that I’m designing and in the game there’s a tree and I always come back to this tree and it’s like, for lack of a better term, the sacred tree of the fairies and the reason why it is so sacred is that this tree responds to music. So whenever I hear a song or listen to music and everything, I imagine this tree and how it would react to hearing music so the tree would light up and the leaves would change colour and light would come out of it and magic spores would fly and maybe vines of different colours would appear out of the ground and it reacts differently to each song. So that’s where it takes me so I’d think about this tree and how it would react to the song I’m listening to.

 
How do you share your music love?


Seth: I have had trouble with that because not everyone shares the love of the music that I have. My music is very ambient and I find that there is very heavy musical lessons or overtones or morals or messages, that’s probably a better way to put it in the music I listen to and that can, as well as being an unusual format and unusual style of music it can seem a little bit heavy for people to listen to so I don’t often share my music. If I’ll play a song for someone and they go “oh yeah” and then sort of after thirty seconds they’re over it, they either don’t get it or it’s too much for them and it can be a little bit too intense, whereas I love that level of intensity. I think my music that I try to listen to is a very personal expression of me connecting to myself on a deeper level and I can’t really share that with anyone with my music. They might have their own that does that.

Do you have a main motto or mantra in life?


Seth: Even if everything was to go to shit it could get better. I don’t think you couldn’t overcome anything.


Music is a catalyst for growth and change and can stimulate us almost on a cellular level. It is the nutrients and our minds the garden where ideas can grow into anything, even the Sacred Tree Of The Fairies. It has the effect of reinvigorating us when we are lack luster and allows us to dig deep into the soil of our psyche to allow new ideas to sprout, grow and prosper.


I shall dub this ‘The Fertiliser Effect’. It provides the basic ingredients that feed our personalities and allow us to become anyone we want to be. Even as infants we’re affected by the sounds of music, which keep our minds and bodies active and flourishing well into adult life.


Doctor Nayt’s prescription this week is if your internal garden is a little dry, your plants going to bud but failing to flower, if your fruit aren’t as big and juicy as they could be then you MUST feed and water them! Go to your cd rack, your record cupboard and the music file on your computer and find the music that speaks right to your gut. Put it on, lye down and let it flood your garden. Let it soak deep into your soil until the roots of all your ideas are extra moist. You will automatically feel more fruitful and you will glow like a flowering sacred tree of the fairies.