Music and writing: an exercise

[Quint]

Since writing exercises seem to be what all the cool kids are doing nowadays, I shall offer my personal favorite and see what happens. I'm counting on at least two hijacks and a spontaneous combustion--don't let me down!

Freewrite to one or more of the musical selections given below, available in your preferred person-to-person sharing network if you don't have them in more permanent forms. Obviously, the length will vary depending upon the length of the piece. Doesn't have to be erotica. Don't fix what you've written before submitting it. Just let it flow out. See what happens. Add your own evocative music if you'd like.

1.) Samuel Barber: "Adagio for Strings."
2.) Rob D: "Clubbed to Death" (from the Matrix soundtrack)
3.) Biebl: "Ave Maria," sung by the Chanticleer Men's Choir
4.) Radiohead: "Everything In Its Right Place"
5.) Eric Satie: "Gymnopedie No. 1, 2, and 3"

 

[raphy]

Wow. Now that's an interesting exercise..

Rob D. for me, of course..

 

[Quint]

Wow. Now that's an interesting exercise..

Rob D. for me, of course..

We did this in my Spanish Comp class last semester to the Adagio. I don't know Spanish as well as I ought, but I was pretty damn eloquent on that assignment.

My boyfriend does something similar, except that instead of writing, he dictates off the top of his head what he's visualizing to the song. He used "Clubbed to Death" for this purpose to me once, and it was exquisitely violent. Zat something like what you're imagining, Raphy? (I'd dearly love to read what you have to offer here.)

 

[raphy]

*grins* ... Imagining? I'm really not imagining anything specific at all. Not right now, anyway. It's definitely an interesting exercise, although whether I'll actually have time to sit down and do it, is another matter. I think, before I do something like that, I'd have to actually be in the mood to write.

Of course, it may end up being a futile exercise, since my love of music runs so deep that I tend to not be able to do anything whilst any music's playing. I just sort of sit there, cross-eyed and drooling and let the notes wash over me.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Ave Maria, from fantasia

One of the most haunting pieces I have ever heard.

-Colly

 

[Icingsugar]

Write? To music? Oh, come on, you can't be serious. It would be like writing when getting head. Way too much of a distraction. I couldn't, in a million years, be able to concentrare enough to even find the right keys on the keyboard with some good music playing. Eventhe faint sound of the neighbour's radio can sometimes break my bubble.

 

[Lovepotion69]

Don't have any of those on CD. But I write to music all the time anyway. The stereo's always on, may it be the radio or a CD. Anything from Eminem to Alicia Keys, musicals or classical music.

 

[Svenskaflicka]

WARNING!!!

Writing to music can lead to more work than you originally planned!

Go to Restricted Section, look for Polly Juice, and read "The Squibs" - that's what happends when you let music inspire you! It started out as just ONE SCENE, and now I'm half way through the third part of the trilogy... *exhausted*

 

[Guest]

Write? To music? Oh, come on, you can't be serious. It would be like writing when getting head.

I was trying to think of how to put it then Sugar comes up with this. What music does to my mind and emotions is nearly inexplicable; what I might produce in attempting an expresstionistic explanation, per the exercise above, would be at best academic, or perhaps mere gibberish. I 'give' myself over to music, there is nothing of me then to produce thought.

Perdita

 

[Guest]

Music is too distracting . . .

I always visualize when listening to music. I can't be passive - music will always be an interactive experience for me.

For example, Barber's Adagio for Strings was used in the soundtrack for Platoon. I can't hear it now without envisioning those scenes of great sadness. (You want a good cry, listen to Barber's Adagio)

I don't need absolute silence to write; in fact the happy noises my young kids make romping around our house relaxes me.

But if the music playing is something that I love (or have studied - I am a trained musician) - forget it - I can't write a thing!

 

[Seattle Zack]

Write? To music? Oh, come on, you can't be serious. It would be like writing when getting head. Way too much of a distraction. I couldn't, in a million years, be able to concentrare enough to even find the right keys on the keyboard with some good music playing. Eventhe faint sound of the neighbour's radio can sometimes break my bubble.

I'm with the Cake Guy on this one. I have to isolate myself, no music, no one else even in the apartment. One of the reasons I live by myself. I've tried to write with roommates, and even the slightest noises in the kitchen take me out of it. Hell even my cats making noise get me out of the writing zone sometimes -- occasionally, I have to defenestrate one or both of them.

 

[Guest]

Hell even my cats making noise get me out of the writing zone sometimes -- occasionally, I have to defenestrate one or both of them.

Oh, poor kitties! (good thing they'll land on their feet!)

I find that a nice warm kitty purring in my lap is very relaxing -

Kind of like a furry vibrator!

 

[Seattle Zack]

Oh, poor kitties! (good thing they'll land on their feet!)

Yeah, especially because I live in a high-rise ....

 

[Angeline]

Yeah, especially because I live in a high-rise ....

lol.


I write poems to music all the time, but I absolutely cannot write prose to it. Maybe, at least for me, the processes are different. I adore music--especially jazz--and listen, well, lots.

I find the act of writing free verse to have an improvisational flow similar to jazz (can't do this with forms that require a specific meter though--that would make me crazy). Very often I'll listen to the same piece over and over as I write to produce something that puts in words what I hear in the music. It's great fun for me to do that.

 

[SlaveMasterUK]

I love listening to music more than anything else, but I can't justify sitting still for an hour to do so, so writing is what I do while I'm listening. It can really effect my writing, almost always in a positive way, as it keeps me focused and prevents me from leaving the screen in boredom. Like an obsessive compulsive, I can't turn off a CD until the album is finished.

When I wrote my first Lit story I was listening mostly to Fear Factory's Obsolete album, which tells an aggresive and tragic story about mankind being a slave to the system it created. It can be read literally (as in its own Terminator-style future) or as an analog to modern-day life. And it really did help me structure my story the way I wanted it (after all, it is a story of enforced slavery).

I started my second Lit piece listening to other aggressive music and created an aggressive storyline, then edited to tragic music (recently Pink Floyd's Division Bell album) to shape in a good deal of sadness necessary to the storyline. I can't work any other way.

Quint, I might have a try at this later, if I have the time...

Personal suggestions for writing to are:
Fear Factory - Freedom or Fire
Fear Factory - Timelessness
Pink Floyd - A Good Day For Freedom

ax

 

[Icingsugar]

I'm with the Cake Guy on this one. I have to isolate myself, no music, no one else even in the apartment. One of the reasons I live by myself. I've tried to write with roommates, and even the slightest noises in the kitchen take me out of it. Hell even my cats making noise get me out of the writing zone sometimes -- occasionally, I have to defenestrate one or both of them.

Cats purring, climbing all over me and using my leg to file their claws I can take. People babbling or kids doing kid things (yelling, tormenting the cat, throwing Lego) I can filter out. But give me even the slightest hint of a rythm and my fingers will start to strum along, and pretty soon my legs will start dancing without me even kotocong. It is hard to hit the right keys when your hands are busy with adding syncopes to a two by four...

 

[Icingsugar]

dancing without me even kotocong.

Ok, that was a weird-ass typo. I do think that what I was trying to say was 'noticing'.

/Ice - kotocong stuff a little too late

 

[Guest]

Ok, that was a weird-ass typo. I do think that what I was trying to say was 'noticing'.

Man, Sugar, am I relieved!

Perdita