Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Writing to the Cadence

One interesting thing I learned during my one and only pregnancy was that children in utero can be stimulated intellectually by music -- specifically Mozart. I used to spend a minimum of an hour a day with headphones plastered on my abdomen while my little boy kicked and moved to the cadence of Mozart's compositions. The theory was that IQ would be raised if a child listened to Mozart before he or she took a breath of oxygen. Even to this day, my child sits up and listens if I pipe Mozart through the car or the home.

The same can be said for your writing. A lot of people say to me, "How can you possibly write to music?" Frankly, I can't imagine writing without it. It's more than creating a mood for my muse -- it's a matter of connecting soul to heart to mind and channeling the energy from flowing scores into the keyboard of my laptop.

If you get stuck writing, at a minimum call up some classical music on Youtube and just soak it in with earbuds. I don't always stay with classical .... sometimes I stray to my favorite jazz artist, the sultry and soulful Diana Krall .... or I allow myself the guilty pleasure of my adolescent fascination with Michael Jackson or Prince. At other times, I need the fueling of a soundtrack from a film like "Prince of Persia," "Gladiator," or "Chronicles of Narnia."

So experiment with it. Try a variety of music via Youtube and see what inspires you to write. My guess is that we retain that innate connection with music that can be traced before birth, and as a result, we can channel it into composing our own lyrical prose.

Below are some of my favorite go-to selections to give you a few ideas:


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