I wanted to give over a little space here to talk about the music I listen to while writing. It may seem trivial, but I don't see it that way. The music you listen to affects how you do a thing; even what you are doing in the first place. Everything has certain music that seems to go with it, probably fed by our consumption of movies and TV. You're more likely to exercise while listening to Crystal Method than John Cage; you're more likely to feel good about your daily commute while listening to John Williams, or Dr. Steel. (Or perhaps this is just me). So, the music you listen to affects what you write. You probably don't choose music you don't like, to be sure; so you affect your music, which in turn affects your writing, which you affect as well and which affects you back in ways you had not thought possible and HAVE I BLOWN YOUR MIND YET??? My go-to writing music is the soundtrack to the Robert Downey, Jr. version of Sherlock Holmes, and its sequel A Game of Shadows. I usually listen to both consecutively, which easily covers nearly two hours of writing. The first track, entitled Discombobulate, is for me the perfect beginning, heralding the start of something, jumping in headlong to the thrill of the chase; in this case, chasing down a story. When this track plays, my neurons start firing along the various necessary pathways, and I plunge into the depths of my own mind.
You know, like you do. From that point on, I don't necessarily hear very much. And this is a good thing. It's meant to be background. Even so, the music matters; if it was the wrong kind of music, it would be distracting and I wouldn't get very much done. This is the background to the scene playing in your mind. In a TV show or movie, you don't always hear the music over everything else going on, even though it's usually there. But if you remove the music, the scene just doesn't feel right. The strange thing about this soundtrack (these, really, since there are two, but they are similar enough to be counted here as one) is that it works no matter what I am writing, or at least it has up until this point. I started with it when writing my epic steampunk tale The Threads of Time (see sidebar) as it seemed to fit. When I picked up other, non-steampunk stories, I kept with it, and it hasn't failed yet. This is where my preferences are coming in to play. Those cellos! Those violins! Those other instruments I cannot decipher in my ignorance! I love this kind of music. It has to strike something in me (a chord, perhaps?), something deep. Something that makes my brain wake up and go THIS IS AWESOME!! My brain does that a lot anyway. It's a bit enthusiastic. I really can't think of anything else to say about it (both an odd and a familiar situation for a writer). Music is a feeling, not a description. All I can really say is that this music works for me, and for what I write. And I find myself curious; to anyone out there reading (anyone??), what do you listen to when writing? Or, if you are not a writer, when you paint or code or weld or dream or clip coupons, however it is that YOU create? And, if you are in fact a musician, who do you listen to for inspiration?
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Rebecca FrohlingWriter, dancer, actress, mother, me. Archives
February 2019
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