Music May Enhance Your Writing

My friend, Susan Taylor Brown, told me of the free music site on Facebook.

http://www.pandora.com/#/

You can request the kind of music you like and they’ll select that type of music for you as your own personal radio station.  

Soon piano music filled my room.  I had forgotten how much music takes me to places far beyond the stretches of my ordinary world. 

I used to listen to classical music as I worked.  Amy Tan listens to the same piece of classical music over and over, so her mind is trained.  As soon as she hears it, she’ll become immersed into her creative world immediately.

Years ago when I had insomnia, I listened to a tape of ocean waves so I’d fall asleep.  One day we took our son to the beach in Monterey.  You can probably guess what happened.  As he played in the sand, I sat on a rock and could hardly keep my eyes open. 

But the most amazing thing that has ever happened to me with regard to music was one day when I played a difficult piece on the piano.  I hadn’t played it since I was a teen, and in fact, as an adult, could barely read the notes any more.  But my fingers seemed to know instinctively what to do.  They raced up and down the keyboard as though they were not a part of the rest of me. 

And my mind?  I was miles off in the middle of the life of a main character I had been writing that day. 

Let music inspire your art. 

Creative prompts:

1.  As your choice of music plays, write or create art and see how the music affects you.  Does it help your creativity?  You may need to get used to it if silence is a regular part of your life. 

2.  Do you have a clarinet stashed away in a closet somewhere?   Play it a little every day.  You never know how another form of art may help your writing.   If you don’t have an instrument, consider taking lessons or singing in the shower.

3.  Speaking of Susan Taylor Brown, as a writer, she began taking art classes and now has some amazing collages that are informing her poetry.  Try a form of art you normally might not attempt and see where it takes you!  Go out of your box and it will lead you on a journey of creative discovery that will give your writing a new depth.