Have you ever turned the volume up on a song and sang along at the top of your lungs? Come on, you know you have. And how did it make you feel?
Okay, and have you ever created a playlist for a certain work in progress and set it on repeat?
My muse is stimulated by music. It makes her happy and a happy muse makes for a happy me.
Is it the lyrics or the melody? What is it about music that makes the muse happy? For example while writing part of my single title I had the following songs on repeat.
Wait and Bleed by Slipknot
Du Hast by Rammstein
The Hand That Feeds by Nine Inch Nails
The Beautiful People by Marilyn Manson
Sugar by System of a Down
Last Resort by Papa Roach
Seven Words by The Deftones
The scene I was writing was dark and you really can’t get any darker than some of the songs on my playlist. It’s true I listen to the same songs outside of writing but it made me think what about them provoked and stimulated my muse. And then I started to think about how the two almost went hand and hand. Like when I go to the coffee shop to write. I plug in my headphones and tune out. I’m not really paying attention to the lyrics, I’m already caught up in a world of my own making, fighting evil or falling in love with the hero. But the entire the beat or lyrics pulse through me, prodding me on and tagging along for the ride.
I know for me personally music helps me experience emotions I’ve never personally experienced before. I can listen to a song and feel the emotion the artist was trying to convey with words.
How about you? How does music affect you muse?
December 10th, 2006 at 10:42 pm
Oh yes music totally stimulates the muse. In fact, some songs I have on my iPod are so ingrained in my head for a certain story that one night I’m writing and a song came on…I had to change it cos I was like, “That’s so and so’s song.” Weird.
December 11th, 2006 at 3:47 am
Dang you have a dark list. Tee hee. I love all music. Sometimes I do darker stuff if I’m writing darker. But in one book my hero was a cowboy (so to speak) and I only listened to country, and that’s how I grew to like it. Before I was anti-country.