Shhhh!
Is there any music that greases my writing wheels, making them slide more easily over the rocky terrain of plot, character development, the precise turn of phrase?
As is for most people, my musical tastes are eclectic – I listen to blue grass (my all-time favorites – the Stanley Brothers), to live Met opera broadcasts, to Beethoven and Bach to show tunes to the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, the Kinks and The Clash. I’ll crank up The Who’s ‘Quadrophenia,’ as well as Les Paul and Mary Ford’s Greatest Hits. I love loading up the CD player with favorites – Mary Gauthier, Brian Eno, Nico -- as well as the random surprise of the radio.
But lately the soundtrack to my writing is silence. In this hurly-burly/cell-phone chattering/TV-in-airport-terminals/Muzak in elevators world we live in, quiet is the new gold, precious but hard to find. I’ve even unplugged on my dog walks down at the river; where I once liked to listen to books on tape as Julio chased squirrels, I now prefer listening to nattering woodpeckers and nagging crows, to woofs and yaps and the shrill pierce of a dog owner’s whistle. I like listening to my own thoughts. Sometimes they’re mundane inventories of errands to be run (‘stop at post-office, return library books, pick up quart of milk, head of lettuce, kilo of chocolate’); other times they’re ruminations on the state of the world at large as well as my own little one. Sometimes I’ll get an insight into a character I’m writing about. Often I sing. Today it was the song ‘Surry with the Fringe on Top’ which I sang loudly, until I saw someone come onto the path. Respecting his right to silence, I shut my mouth.
My fellow traveler felt no such urge.
“And then,” he squawked into his cell phone, not even looking at me as we passed, “and then they say it’s gall stones!”
As is for most people, my musical tastes are eclectic – I listen to blue grass (my all-time favorites – the Stanley Brothers), to live Met opera broadcasts, to Beethoven and Bach to show tunes to the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, the Kinks and The Clash. I’ll crank up The Who’s ‘Quadrophenia,’ as well as Les Paul and Mary Ford’s Greatest Hits. I love loading up the CD player with favorites – Mary Gauthier, Brian Eno, Nico -- as well as the random surprise of the radio.
But lately the soundtrack to my writing is silence. In this hurly-burly/cell-phone chattering/TV-in-airport-terminals/Muzak in elevators world we live in, quiet is the new gold, precious but hard to find. I’ve even unplugged on my dog walks down at the river; where I once liked to listen to books on tape as Julio chased squirrels, I now prefer listening to nattering woodpeckers and nagging crows, to woofs and yaps and the shrill pierce of a dog owner’s whistle. I like listening to my own thoughts. Sometimes they’re mundane inventories of errands to be run (‘stop at post-office, return library books, pick up quart of milk, head of lettuce, kilo of chocolate’); other times they’re ruminations on the state of the world at large as well as my own little one. Sometimes I’ll get an insight into a character I’m writing about. Often I sing. Today it was the song ‘Surry with the Fringe on Top’ which I sang loudly, until I saw someone come onto the path. Respecting his right to silence, I shut my mouth.
My fellow traveler felt no such urge.
“And then,” he squawked into his cell phone, not even looking at me as we passed, “and then they say it’s gall stones!”
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I love writing to music. The tempo helps me go! And it drowns out the distractions of other people in my busy home. When I can get there, I also like writing in a study room (quiet) in the library. but i can't get there very often. In the mornings I can hear the birds singing (before my household gets going) even this morning when we had some surprise spring snow.
I write to silence. It makes it easier to hear the voices as characters talk.