I'm sorry! But the only way I can think to start this post is school.
Oh, school. School, school, school. Despite how much we may hate it, the public schooling
system really is a blessing. We are being handed the education that millions of
people would have and did die for in the past on a silver platter. Unless you
go to school in a rather poor area/district, then some other sort of platter, I
would imagine.
My dad told us that when we were talking around the table
about getting handed stuff on silver platters. He told us that if he ever had a
silver platter to hand stuff to us on, he would have sold it a long time ago.
Oh Father of mine. Pay attention to the types of things people say. You can bet
your bottom dollar that I’m sticking that in a book somewhere sometime.
I’m not going to go into my classes or anything because I
honestly doubt that any of you care that much, but I can say I honestly think
that this year’s going to be good for me, albeit long. Very long. But I think my
AP English class in particular is actually going to be really good for me. I’m
going to say right now, you’re probably going to get a lot of recycled ideas
from my teacher, because he’s already pulled out quite a few I make mental
notes to tell all of you about.
To celebrate surviving the first three weeks, I’m making a
post I’ve been wanting to make for a while about music.
As I write this post I am listening to the song Anna Rose by
Vienna Teng on repay on Youtube. At the very end of this post, I’ll tell you
ever single song I listened to while writing it. Just so you can get a feel for
the type of stuff that I write to.
One of the biggest, in my opinion, disadvantages that we
writers have to admit to movies and television is our inability to add music to
our writing. Maybe that’ll be the next big thing, adding music to ebooks or
something, but for right now with regular ink on paper, we can’t put music to
our writing like a director can to his movie. Sometimes this can be a major
disadvantage. There are a ton of epic moments in movies, and from these epic
moments are usually spawned the best epic music.
The scene from Disney’s Mulan when she makes the decision to
cut her hair and join the army for her father? You can feel the epicness in the
room. When Hiccup is stuck in the lake area with Toothless the dragon and
Tootheless trusts him for the first time? You can feel the tension and the
wonder not just because of the brilliant animation (How To Train You Dragon is
one of my all time favorite movies). No one can ever forget the Imperial March
from Star Wars. Anything by Hans Zimmer
is automatically the best thing performed in the past twenty years.
The point is that music is very influencing. It gets to our
brains in a different way than most anything else. Music can draw emotion out
of us quicker than almost any literary piece. A 3 minute song can say more than
a 500 page novel (*coughTwilightcought*).
This a comment I directly received. I will admit to it to
all of you now. I do write fan fiction. Despite the many bad things that are
said about it (I will also freely admit that much of the bad rep is very well
deserved), it really is a great opportunity to get experience writing and
getting feedback. Like training wheels or an aspiring musician covering a song. (There will be a post on this. Perhaps several.) But, not too long ago, I wrote a chapter and suggested my readers listen to a
specific song while they read the chapter. This was part of one response I
received:
The scene was supposed to be a very emotionally packed one,
involving a woman getting over the loss of a miscarriage. Obviously, advising
my readers to listen to a song (Consonance- Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood
OST) added another layer of emotion depth I doubt I would have been able to
breach on my own- especially not considering I only had a handful of hours to
write it.
The point that I’m trying to get to is not that we need to
give up hope on ever being able to convey emotion as well as a collection of notes,
but rather that we use said collection of notes to help us convey emotion.
There have been thousands of experiments done on the effects
of music over the course of history. Humans naturally like music. It’s just a
fact of life. We might not all be drawn to the same types of music, but almost
all of us like some sort of music or another. And the type of music affects us.
While usually people talk about this in reference to you can
seriously damage your brain or you sprit by listening to the wrong types of
music, I am more pointing out the fact that the type of music you listen to
really can change the way you write.
If you listen to the right type of music, your ability to
write certain scenes can improve. Epic music helps you write epic scenes (and I
need all the help I can get in that area). Sad music helps you write sad
scenes. It gets you in the mood; helps evoke the emotions you’re trying to
express on the page yourself.
The opposite holds true too. There are very few things
harder than writing what’s supposed to be a touching love confession while
listening to Three Day’s Grace “Time of Dying”. Even if you don’t know the
song, the title of the song should be a tip off to the type of song it is and
it’s non-conduciveness to happy fluffy feels.
And I’m not saying you have to listen to music. Rick Riorden
says that he doesn’t listen to music at all when he’s writing. He says it makes
it harder for him to focus and sometimes I agree with him. Sometimes you just
need absolute silence to write the scene the right way.
I also think that it helps me personally more than it hurts
though. Whatever your cup of tea happens to be. I have one friend who likes to
listen to songs that tell a story. I personally can’t stand listening to those
types of songs while I’m writing because they’re trying to tell a story while I’m
trying to write one. It just doesn’t work for me. She, however, swears that
they help give her ideas.
Margaret really likes listening to songs that lyrics are
relatable to her characters. She’ll frequently send me some lyrics to a song
she just listened to so that we can marvel over their relevance together. “I
like lyrics a lot. If I can find a song that has lyrics that goes with my
character, I'll usually snap it up. And my writing music isn't necessarily
music that I'd listen to when I'm not in the mood for that sort of writing. (I'd
say when I'm not thinking about my characters, but I'm always thinking about
stories, so I can't really say that.) Just the other day, I picked up a heavy
metal song because A. The lyrics were awesome, and B. the song was really
powerful. I don't usually listen to metal, but when I'm trying to write
something fairly serious, Katy Perry isn't going to cut it.
Instrumental I highly recommend, particularly anything with
blasting trumpets. (Pirates of the Caribbean; Man of Steel, and a few other
movies have some awesome soundtracks that I'd snap right up). It's good for
moving, powerful pieces. Also try for some softer songs, sadder ones, as that
helps with sad, emotional pieces.”
I personally usually go for songs more for the music itself
than the lyrics of a song. I’m a huge fan of writing to movie sound tracks (How
To Train Your Dragon, Fullmetal Alchemist, Inception, Avengers, Pirates of the
Caribbean, Lord of the Rings ect.), Lindsey Stirling/The Piano Guys who are
usually only instrumentals, Explosions in the Sky, and David Lanz has some of the best piano compositions of the past
few decades (Try writing something to Cristofori’s Dream. It’ll be awesome, I guarantee
it).
I also listen to a lot of show tunes. The Wicked sound track
can give me chills on a good day. It’s just amazing. I do listen to a lot of normal
lyric songs too, though. I’m a generally optimistic happy person, but I can
almost guarantee that there will always be a suggestion for a Fray song for me
to listen to on Youtube. Within Temptation has some great writing songs. Then
there are a few other gems I just happen to find in my experience and tuck away
for the right mood.
There are a lot of different ways to find these different types
of song. The easiest way is to get suggestions from other people (I suggest
pretty much every song I’ve mentioned, by the way). It’s slightly riskier to
just click on the suggested videos that Youtube gives you because you can never
quite be sure what you’re going to get, but that’s how I discovered Lindsey
Stirling, my favorite Jason Walker song “Echo”, “Set Fire to the Third Bar” by
Snow Patrol, most of my favorite Owl City songs… Pandora can also suggest some really good
ones. That’s how I found David Lanz.
“What can I say? Art feeds off Art. Good music can help with
good writing. Again, it really depends what you're trying to write. Don't pick
up a song you know would be awesome for writing because it isn't something you
don't usually listen to.” -Margaret Vinshire
While we authors can’t directly use music to influence the
readers (yet- I don’t think music with ebooks is too far out there to be honest),
it can still be a very valuable tool in our repertoire. As my dear sister said,
art feeds off art. Choosing the right music to listen to while you write can
make a difference, so make the right choice. There are a lot of options to
choose from. Choose wisely.
And don’t forget to enjoy.
P.S. I hope the long post makes up for not having posted anything for a few weeks
(Anna Rose- Vienna Teng)
(Haunted- Taylor Swift)
(Short Hair- Mulan)
(We Are One- Lion King 2- Simba’s Pride) As far as the movie
goes, eh, Romeo and Juliet. But the music… oh my goodness honey.
(Down to the Sea- Little Mermaid 2- Return to the Sea) What
can I say? I had it stuck in my head a few days ago.
(Follow Your Heart- Cinderella 2) No comment.
(Antebellum- Vienna Teng)
(Harbor- Vienna Teng)
(Radioactive- Imagine Dragons cover by Lindsey Stirling and
Penatonix) Lindsey Stirling is a just amazing. End of story.
(Traveling by Ambulance- Monarchy) My favorite song for
writing about malaria
(Birth and Death of a New Day- Explosions in the Sky)
(What’s Left of Me- Nick Lachey)
(The Call- Regina Spektor)
(Little Wonders- Rob Thomas)
(Bad Day- Daniel Pewter)
(Set Fire to the Third Bar- Snow Patrol)
Some of these songs I replayed multiple times in a row, some
of them I only listened to once.
