Saturday, July 28, 2012

Music and writing.







For me music is as important in my life as reading or writing. I was lucky enough that my mother raised me around all types of music so my taste has always been quite eclectic. In fact as I write this blog my head phones are sending out "Slow Ride" by Foghat and just a few seconds earlier my foot was taping to "Some Nights" by Fun. I am just as happy playing one of Adele's heart-tugging ballads as I am Korn's rhythmic rock. Music is another escape, it allows us to tap into our emotions and vividly explore our own mind with an awesome sound track.

As far as my writing goes music actually plays a big part. The first and biggest area I use music is brain storming. If I'm not pacing around doing my best impression of a hamster wheel powered idea machine, I have some kind of music playing, generating images for me to pluck stories from. Maybe it's "O Fortuna", helping my mind paint a battlefield of armor clad combatants as they look across an overcast stretch of earth preparing to give their lives in service of their kingdom. Or it could be Katy Perry's "Wide Awake", allowing me find a character pulling herself up from a failed relationship to find her strength and move forward. It could be the rhythm of a good beat, the flow of violins, the whine of an electric guitar or vivid lyrics, all of these help the churning chaos that is my mind focus and find things. 

As far as actually writing to music things are slightly different. I have seen interviews where author's have said they can't have any sound at all, others have said no music is allowed while they write, and some enjoy music only if it has no lyrics. I myself love to have music playing while I write, with some exceptions. If the song's front focus is lyrics, like many rap and hip hop songs are, I tend to focus too heavily on what they are saying and it pulls me from what I'm trying to say. Most of the time I find a playlist of stuff I put together before hand and play it at low volume letting it fade to the back of my mind. This is something that works for me, it helps me focus and when my mind starts to wander, the music can help me stay in a creative mood. Anyway I hope some of you aspiring writers give it a shot, it isn't for everyone, but for those of us that it works it is a great writing tool.

8 comments:

  1. I love the idea of music for brain storming. I'm one of the authors that writes better without music.

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    1. yeah I can see that side as sometimes music can be distracting. Thanks for the comment.

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  2. Though I don't often listen to music while writing, I love polyphony (particularly Thomas Tallis) for drafting. I know, it's crazy. But that kind of music really primes my creativity.

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    1. Nah it isn't crazy that music is calming and can help for focus. I think for me it just depends on my mood. I don't always listen to music when I write sometimes I just like silence.

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  3. I tend not to listen to music while writing, although I often incorporate music and lyrics into my writing. I write memoir and personal essay and music is one of the quickest ways for me to bring up a memory as I associate certain songs with different times in my life.

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    1. yeah that is a good point there are certain songs that can just take you straight back to a time in your life.

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  4. Awesome post. My taste in music is really eclectic as well and music is huge part of my writing. And a lot of songs and music videos will inspire scenes I never could have foreseen. But I don't listen to music while I'm writing, usually I do it beforehand.

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    1. I think this is more common, music can really pull you in and that would be bad for writing, I guess I just tine it out.

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