There has always been music in my life. My father played the cello. He therefore insisted that, at a very young age, I start taking lessons. I played the piano for a while. I started Suzuki method lessons on the viola when I was five.

Yes, the viola. Dad didn’t want me to play the cello and everybody else played the violin, so, viola. Hey, I can read the alto clef, which most people can’t. Anyway, I digress.

I sang in choir. I did musical theatre. Both of these things baffle my mother as she is pretty much tone deaf, and yet I learned folk songs from her and reproduced them correctly.

I like music of all kinds, save rap and hardcore metal.

So why, then, can I not write with music on? I can be, and have been inspired by music. Now and then I listen to a song and thing, “oh man, that’s a story that I want to write”. I have books that are based *around* a particular instrumental album. And yet, when it comes to the business of writing things down, I can’t have music on. I hum along. I make up words. I distract myself completely.

I know a lot of people have playlists and write with music in the background. But is there anyone else out there like me? Maybe I just get *too* into the music to have enough room left in my brain for writing.

3 Responses to “The music in my life.”

1. Shelli Stevens Says:
   November 15th, 2006 at 10:00 pm

   Sara, this we have in common. Somewhat. I’m a huge music person. Classically and jazz trained vocalist and piano lessons.

   I have to be careful what music I listen to when I write, because I tend to listen to it too much. And analyze it. LOL. Goes back to music theory. Music is my other passion. Especially a choral mass from way back when.

2. Lyric Says:
   November 16th, 2006 at 4:50 am

   Let’s see I took piano for a long time as a child, played the alto saxophone in junior high school. I love music too and yes, it is definitely a distraction when I have it on. I end up singing and not writing. But, I can however, have the TV on and not pay attention to it whatsoever. Go figure.

3. CE Murphy Says:
   November 16th, 2006 at 6:51 pm

   I don’t write with music on, either. It’s distracting as hell. I feel your pain. -snugs-