Music: the Food of Love?
If music be the food of love, play on,
Give me excess of it; that surfeiting,
the appetite may sicken, and so die.
~ Duke Orsino, Twelfth Night, I, i. 1-2
Hint: in the Elizabethan era, "die" was also a euphemistic synonynm for orgasm. But sometimes a banana was just a banana. And die just meant die.
When it comes to a little background music, do you adore it to the point of ecstasy -- or is all that cacophony killing you? Inspiration? Or distraction?
Much of the writing we hoydens do, and read, is the food of love, whether fiction or nonfiction as it relates to the lives of our characters. And each of us has our process as we work, or chill and enjoy a pleasure read.
Is music part of yours, and how does it feed your creative appetite? Do you listen to music as you work? Does it have to be from the era in which your story is set in order for you to feel immersed in your narrative as you craft it, or do you have favorite symphonies, tracks, or Broadway and film scores that get your juices going, even if they're from a different time period? At one point, while I was simultaneously slogging away at three survival jobs while I was writing my first five novels (and this was in the pre iPod days), I had the cassette of the soundtrack of The Last of the Mohicans blasting in my ear during my walk to the subway every day, and I wasn't even in front of the computer at the time. But it served as my daily dose of artistic inspiration and sufficed until I was able to get back to work on my writing career.
Are you a Rodgers & Hammerstein type, and your hills are alive with the sound of music? Or, like Simon & Garfunkel, do you prefer the sound of silence while you work?
Give me excess of it; that surfeiting,
the appetite may sicken, and so die.
~ Duke Orsino, Twelfth Night, I, i. 1-2
Hint: in the Elizabethan era, "die" was also a euphemistic synonynm for orgasm. But sometimes a banana was just a banana. And die just meant die.
When it comes to a little background music, do you adore it to the point of ecstasy -- or is all that cacophony killing you? Inspiration? Or distraction?
Much of the writing we hoydens do, and read, is the food of love, whether fiction or nonfiction as it relates to the lives of our characters. And each of us has our process as we work, or chill and enjoy a pleasure read.
Is music part of yours, and how does it feed your creative appetite? Do you listen to music as you work? Does it have to be from the era in which your story is set in order for you to feel immersed in your narrative as you craft it, or do you have favorite symphonies, tracks, or Broadway and film scores that get your juices going, even if they're from a different time period? At one point, while I was simultaneously slogging away at three survival jobs while I was writing my first five novels (and this was in the pre iPod days), I had the cassette of the soundtrack of The Last of the Mohicans blasting in my ear during my walk to the subway every day, and I wasn't even in front of the computer at the time. But it served as my daily dose of artistic inspiration and sufficed until I was able to get back to work on my writing career.
Are you a Rodgers & Hammerstein type, and your hills are alive with the sound of music? Or, like Simon & Garfunkel, do you prefer the sound of silence while you work?
.jpg)
Comments
Post a Comment