Writing Music
Do you listen to music while you write? Or as a prelude?
I saw this post on Instagram and I loved how a lot of the music mentioned was also music I listen to as a prelude to writing and sometimes during. Someone in the comments kindly listed the music mentioned:
1. Handel – Water Music
2. Bach – Brandenburg Concertos
3. Vaughan Williams – The Lark Ascending
4. Vaughan Williams – Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis
5. John Barry – Out of Africa (soundtrack)
6. Arvo Pärt – Spiegel im Spiegel
7. Debussy – Danse Profane
8. Bach – Cello Suites (especially the first one)
9. Bach – Goldberg Variations (performed by Víkingur Ólafsson)
10. Liszt – Liebesträume Nos. 1–3 (Dreams of Love)
I have listened to all but the Out of Africa soundtrack and Liszt while writing. Must try!
Regular readers will know of my recent obsession with The Lark Ascending. When I wrote Everything Affects Everyone I listened to Max Richter’s Blue Notebooks on repeat. Another favourite is his album Sleep, and then there is always his Three Worlds: Woolf Works. (I also love Recomposed, but that one is too exciting for writing).
I have also written a ton to Dario Marianelli’s Jane Eyre soundtrack.
Probably my most listened to writing music in the past is the Anonymous 4 — 11, 0000 Virgins Chants. A bit cliche maybe to listen to chants but this album is embedded in my first few books for sure.
Originally I was going to deep dive into Spiegel im Spiegel by Arvo Pärt for this post but that’s for another time perhaps. I think a lot of people listen to Erik Satie as well. I often have Stephen Drury’s version of In a Landscape by John Cage in my rotation.
I know as soon as I publish this post I’ll think of 12 other pieces of music I’ve written to / with. But what I know is that if you use the same music for a piece of writing it does something to your brain — fast tracking you to the space of your work. It can help, anyway, for me. I’d love to hear what your writing music jam is if you are so inclined to leave a comment.
I want to end this post with an amazing poem by one of my favourite poets, Adam Zagajewski which can be found on Poetry International. (Translator, Clare Cavanagh).
Improvisation
by Adam Zagajewski
You must take up the world’s whole weight
and make it easier to bear.
Toss it like a knapsack
on your shoulders and set out.
The best time is evening, in spring, when
trees breathe calmly and the night promises
to be fine, elm twigs crackle in the garden.
The whole weight? Blood and ugliness? Can’t be done.
A trace of bitterness will linger on your lips,
and the contagious despair of the old woman
you spotted in the tram.
Why lie? After all rapture
exists only in imagination and leaves quickly.
Improvisation – always just improvisation,
great or small, that’s all we know,
in music, as a jazz trumpet weeps happily
or when you stare at the blank page
or try to outwit
sorrow by opening a favorite book of poems;
just then the phone usually rings,
someone asking, would you like to try
the latest model? No thank you.
I prefer the proven brands.
Grayness and monotony remain; grief
the finest elegy can’t heal.
But perhaps there are things hidden from us,
in which sorrow and enthusiasm mix
non-stop, on a daily basis, like the dawn’s birth
above the seashore, no, wait,
like the laughter of those little altar boys
in white vestments, on the corner of St. John and Mark,
remember?
I love the line about the mixing of sorrow and enthusiasm. All the registers are in play these days, aren’t they?
And how do we take upon ourselves the weight of the world? Bruce Springsteen giving a lot of us life right now in what he calls dangerous times.
Reminder to self (as all these posts are): improvise, enthusiasm in one hand, sorrow in the other. Trees breathe calmly. The finest elegy can’t heal but doesn’t harm either. Music transcends. Music inspirits, inspires. Breathe. Breathe with music, with trees, with blossoms.
Note on the photos: 3 branches from our backyard.
