Writing Soundtracks

Clock tower dings. Street musicians. Elevator hums. These are all a part of Writer Abroad’s typical writing soundtrack. She usually prefers to write in this so-called silence because she likes to hear the rhythm of the words she is writing. Often, she is guilty of writing a sentence or two and then immediately rereading it in order to hear how the sentences sound together. Sometimes, though, she does use background music to set the mood for a particular project. Depending on the piece, this could potentially lead to a pretty strange iTunes collection. In these cases, Writer Abroad would like to say, God Bless YouTube, since it allows her to listen to entire songs without having to buy them.

Here are some of Writer Abroad’s recent writing soundtracks and its coordinating project:

Song: MacGyver Theme

Perfect for: Writing a One Big Yodel blog post about how to create a fondue dinner using cemetery candles, duck tape, and a pot.

Song: Abide with me

Perfect for: Writing a funeral scene in a novel.

Song: Far Away

Artist: Nickelback

Perfect for: Writing a television commercial for an airline on the theme of connecting people.

Song: China

Artist: Tori Amos

Perfect for: Writing a personal essay about distance and family.

Song: Alone in Kyoto

Artist: Air

Perfect for: General use. Writer Abroad often puts this song on a loop so she can concentrate in noisy environments like an ad agency or a train.

Does anyone else have a strange writing soundtrack?

Practice writing: Sing an art song

In a recent piece by Verlyn Klinkenborg in The New York Times called, Where Do Sentences Come From?, the author suggests that to find to origin of the sentence (in other words, to learn to write) one should memorize poetry or prose. "A rhythmic kind of writing works best, something that sounds almost spoken," says Klinkenborg (a name which also has a nice ring and rhythm).

Wait a minute. What about something sung? Writer Abroad spent her childhood at choir rehearsals and voice lessons. She sang hundreds of art songs (literature set to music). Then she majored in vocal performance in college, sang in a few operas, and became…a writer?

Maybe it wasn’t such a jump after all. Maybe all the choir rehearsals, all the voice lessons, the art songs, the operas, maybe they didn’t go to waste. Maybe instead of going to writing conferences and grammar courses, writers should be learning to sing. Maybe all of this also explains Writer Abroad’s strange writing habits: sometimes in the middle of a writing session, she’ll sing a song or two before going back to the page. Or maybe she's just insane.

But words that are sung are powerful. The poetry set to music that Writer Abroad learned (even the poetry in French, German, and Italian), is always there in the back of her mind. And even though Writer Abroad can forget a sentence the minute after she reads it, she never forgets the thousands of sentences she has sung.

Interested in a little non-conventional writing practice of your own? Sing! This art song book was Writer Abroad’s first. It’s filled with hundreds of sentences set to music and even comes with a CD to accompany your sentence singing. She highly recommends it. In fact, she’s going to get out her dog-eared version and sing her very first solo: Long, Long Ago.