It’s time for Morgan’s monthly goodie for all of us. I always look forward to reading whatever Morgan decides to write on, and I start counting down the days when it starts getting close to the end of the month. When I finally see an email from him announcing the arrival of his post to me I dive right in. You too huh?!?
Let’s go check it out…
Listen to your books.
This statement could be taken figuratively or literally, and I intend for you to consider both. Actually there is a third, abstract interpretation I also wish to encourage but we’ll get to that last.
Reading is an exercise of the mind first and the eyes second. This is great for a guy like me who can’t see how many pins he knocks down when he bowls. However, since my poor eyesight gave me access to the my state’s Library for the Blind, I took advantage of it and listened to hundreds of books throughout middle school and high school. I read all the classics, (at high-speed to condense the process) and got a fair education in Dean Koontz, Robert McCammon, and Stephen King.
Listening to books is quite popular amongst those who spend a lot of time driving and, of course, I couldn’t do that so I did whatever homework I could and cleaned my room. But I always applauded those who chose to listen to books while they drove. It seems like a great way to spend time in transportation.
If you have never listened to a story in your life, I recommend it as a relaxing technique at very least, and a breakthrough in letting your eyes close and your brain paint the picture for you. Movies, TV, they all interpret the visual for us, but books let us do the work, that is, if we weren’t busy reading them. Listen to them and dream your fiction like the truck drivers and the blind dudes do. Reading is an exercise of the mind first and the eyes second.
That was, of course, the literal interpretation of listening to your books. But what about stories that mention music? Or outright quote songs? Or have their own original soundtracks for that matter? Did you know that many commercial books on tape have music beds and even sound effects? It’s very cool when done well.
Just as music enhances movies, I think that stories that have their own gift for the ears make good use of a sense that is most used in life but least used in fiction. (Forgive me if I’ve made that particular point before but it bears repeating).
For those that would argue that only a blind guy would say that we use our ears most, may I submit the emergency broadcast system: What do they get our attention with? A pretty red balloon? The smell of fresh-baked cinnamon buns? Nope, they use a long, loud tone.
Our ears never turn off, not even when we sleep. They, not the eyes, are what the brain believes first and reacts to the strongest. Just imagine hearing one of your favorite books and knowing that you are giving your brain a new perspective on the story.
It’s something akin to listening to Shakespeare in its original Klingon.
Okay, I know we’ve moved on to the figurative portion of the essay but its easy for me to mesh the two together. I know that for me, music inside a story is like the chain that pulls the roller-coaster up the first hill; it helps build tension like crazy and it sets a pace for the whole story to unfold.
I have also found that music makes a connection between fictional characters and readers that can make them feel like they could be friends in real life. As a writer, it’s satisfying to write a character that people care about and fret about and scold me for. Music is one of the quickest ways to relate and I still believe that it is underused.
As to listening to your books in a third, more abstract sense, I speak now to any writers out there. I swear to you that I NEVER thought that I could write to music until I tried it. It not only seemed to relax me, but it helped me see just how much I had gotten done in a specific amount of time.
It was cool to get to the end of a Yes album and realize that I had been writing for 45 minutes straight. I enjoy progressive rock a lot when I write, Pink Floyd, later Beatles, Yes and the like but I’ve had wild success with punk bands like Subhumans and Misfits. Lately, I am mystified with the new Smashing Pumpkins album, “Oceania.” It’s already an important contribution to music as we know it and the first instant classic I have heard in the year 2012.
I’m not even really a Smashing Pumpkins fan, in fact, this is the first record of theirs I’d purchased since 1995′s Mellon Collie and the Infinite Saddens. I wonder if backtracking their discography would supply me with six more sublime recordings.
Back to the idea of listening to music while you write. I would like to hear about any of your experiments with it and I completely realize that for some people, it is impossible to even consider anything short of sensory deprivation.
If you do listen to music, what to you listen to? Do you use headphones, or use the speakers in your iPad? Do you listen to the TV in the other room or do you plop on some classic 80′s vinyl? (My new obsession).
Let me know and I will gladly continue the conversation today.
To end, I’d like to list, (and thank) all the bands that inspired me to write well over 500,000 words of fiction in the last year or so:
(I will omit bands I have mentioned previously).
R.E.M.(Life’s Rich Pageant) , Nine Inch Nails, Information Society, A-ha, Guns-n-Roses, Owl City, Bad Religion, INXS (Kick), Steve Miller Band, Mae (The Everglow), Ben Vaughn (65 Rambler), Iron & Wine (Kiss Each Other Clean), The September When, They Might Be Giants, George Michael (Listen Without Prejudice), Tool, My Chemical Romance, The Dead Milkmen, Silverchair (Frogstomp), Temple of the Dog, Underworld, Pearl Jam (vs.), Dream Theatre, Green Day, Harry Mancini, Violent Femmes, Linkin Park (A Thousand Suns), and, of course, The Muppet Movie Soundtrack.
Thank you for reading, and should you be interested in hearing my own musical contributions, I encourage you to merely search my name in iTunes or your favorite digital music outlet and preview a whole mess of songs that went live just this month. Tailorbird, was written as a gift to help promote Gabriel’s Rapture, and the music video can be found right here on this wonderful website, or by searching for it on YouTube. (You will see Julianne looking at a certain well-known painting).
The Bella Parole album is the soundtrack to my pair of French/American stories with Italian titles.
To everyone around the world, I offer you my sincere wish for a profound, if not productive, if not pampered summer. Myself, I’m shooting for all three.
Your pal,
Morgan
An excellent topic MOG!
As many of my friends know, I am a reading junkie, but more importantly, I am an Audible.com junkie. Take a look at my Goodreads list of books I have read. The only way I am able to read as much as I do is courtesy of Audio books. As Morgan outlined, listening to a book can bring much to the experience that is different from strictly reading it. There are some absolutely outstanding voice artists that bring so much to a book; it can bring the book to life in your mind. In my opinion, some of the best are Jim Dale (Harry Potter books), James Marsters (Harry Dresden series), Jennifer Ikeda (A Discovery of Witches and soon to be Shadow of Night), Scott Brick (Steve Berry’s novels), Tavia Gilbert (Night Huntress series), Marguerite Gavin (The Hollows series) and one of my very favorites – Neil Gaiman reading Neverwhere. These voice actors bring more than just a voice to the words, they give the books and the characters within them life. They allow you to get lost in the spectacle of the story. It is marvelous.
On the contrary, a lousy voice author can totally screw up a book. There have been more than a handful of books that I think I lost interest in and just stopped reading completely because the voice actor was horrible. Just someone reading with no emotion, no seeming thought behind it. (In one case, one of these people was a well-known actress herself. I was sorely disappointed.)
If you think about it – prior to so many people having the ability to write, the means to tell stories was the troubadour and the storytellers. Aural histories and learnings.
On the note of Morgan mentioning that your ears are active even in sleep – here is an entertaining anecdote. I am someone who absolutely cannot sleep in complete silence. I must have a television on, music, a book, etc. – there have been many a time that whatever was the subject of what was happening aurally, would work its way into my dreams. I have (and usually do) have had some doozy dreams that have pre=written audio!
In addition, on the last note Morgan mentioned regarding writing to music. I do this frequently. Again – it goes to that, I cannot have silence when I’m working on something or I absolutely cannot concentrate. Let me use my fic, The Singer and The Sorrow, as an example. That story was highly influenced by the feelings evoked when I listened to Sing The Sorrow by AFI. I am someone who feels a deep-rooted connection with music. It has been in my life as long as I can remember. I nearly always have some kind of song flowing in my thoughts. Therefore, when I hear a particular song, a particular lyric, sometimes something as small as a particular guitar chord, it resonates deeply within me. In my fic, each chapter’s title comes from a song that in some way played a key piece in the writing process. Likewise, the lyrics at the beginning of each chapter are woven into the chapter. Both songs drew an emotion, a feeling or words that sprung from my brain and demanded to be written. It is not always like that with me. The companion piece, Sanctuary Song, or my other fic, An Accidental Text have no specific musical ties to them. But I can recall some writing I did a few years back that was very strongly rooted in music from Sting’s album, Brand New Day.
Therefore, I wholeheartedly agree with Morgan, and added my buck and a quarter to it.
Hello Morgan , interesting post. Well, I’ve never listened a book . Recently a friend advised me to use audio books to improve my (poorly) knowledge of English.
I was a little reluctant, but now, having read your words, I decided to try.
it’s also the better way for listening music without other sensorial distractions .
So I’ll follow your advice, I’ll close my eyes and listen (also BelleParole soundtrack with Italian titles)
Thank you Morgan for an interesting look at how other writers use music to relax them and to increase their output, however I’m the writing in a vacumn type and really can’t stand to have distractions when putting fingers to keyboard. The use of music during the reading of a story can enhance and increase emotional response to that story as long as the music doesn’t over power the readers voice which I have occasionally come across, as it is also sometimes the case in film and television, large parts of dialogue can be missed by the overpowering music being played unless as you suggested they have been done well.
Since 2008, my mother has been slowly going blind and was an eclectic reader much of the pleasure in books had been taken away from her, until a CD radio was bought and she was introduced to talking books . She initially hated to listen to the books as this emphasised, to her mind, her blindness, but gradually with encouragement and clever story choice she came to terms with her blindness and now listens to story CD’s.
Difficult as it might be to imagine, she really doesn’t like to listen to music, whether it on the radio or television and seems to “turn off” or discusses “the noise” when it is being played, but as a background to talking books no comment is ever made. It has been noted that when there has been a music component to the books her enjoyment of them increases. Music seems to unlock the consciousness of many listeners and whether you listen to it or not, while working or just enjoying yourself to me it is a necessary part of modern life as it has been for previous generations and for those yet to come.