Inspiration, Downloaded:

What music gets your neurons firing?  Does Trance get your pen moving, or do you stick with classical? When we’re having a blah day, or facing down a case of writer’s block, music inspires us to create. Co-blogger P. spent a little time looking into music and it’s influence on the creative process.

How do we actually listen to music?  I’ve got ears, but I’m no E.N.T specialist, so I thought I’d ask some medical folks.  A long, rather technical  discussion of the auditory cortex ensued. So, to sum up, I’m including a concise (if slightly cheesy) explanation I found in the Harvard Gazette. I once lived near Harvard, and not all the students were as smart as they thought they were (every Ivy league school has those legacies and legends in their own minds), but some of them really, really knew their facts. So… how do we listen to music?

“Your inner ear contains a spiral sheet that the sounds of music pluck like a guitar string. This plucking triggers the firing of brain cells that make up the hearing parts of your brain. At the highest station, the auditory cortex, just above your ears, these firing cells generate the conscious experience of music. Different patterns of firing excite other ensembles of cells, and these associate the sound of music with feelings, thoughts, and past experiences.”

-By William J. Cromie

All right, so my cells get excited. What will excite them to create?  Unless you live on Pluto, I’m sure you’ve heard the claims that Mozart can decrease your stress, help you think abstractly, and maybe even make your crawling baby, who still sucks a binky, smarter. I’m a big Mozart fan. I also dig Beethoven.  I’ve had experiences where a peaceful melody, maybe a little Vivaldi, calms me on a hectic day. There is some research that classical music may affect brain development and may even open new neural pathways for young children. Some researchers focus on Baroque music in particular, citing it’s possible ability to lower blood pressure and “increase focus. ” This reserach may back up the popular, common sense view that music mellows people out.  (Note-some of the studies that supposedly prove these claims about classical music are one time experiments that, while popularized in the print media or on the Web, have not been completely replicated. So, while I can see how they could be true, I don’t endorse them.)  

Let’s cut to the chase here. It’s Monday night. My novella is going nowhere. My fingers freeze on the keyboard. The cursor taunts me. What can I download to grease the gears? Lately I find myself drawn to the chameleon St. Germain  (Ludovic Navarre, a Frenchmusician). I am a little late in discovering him, but heck, cut me some slack, I was abroad for a few years. Whether you call his music House, jazz, “fusion” (the latest adjective for music, food, and art that resists definition), or “nu jazz,” it gets me going. To me, writing music has to be energetic, driving, but not too intense so as to be distracting. I have always loved Led Zeppelin but I can’t play them and write. A Led Zeppelin song is so innovative and intense that it forces me to stop and listen; it commands my absolute, full attention.

I took an informal poll of some adult friends who create “art,”  asking them what music they play for inspiration. (Note-all were over 30 so there are probably cool, young artists on Youtube that we don’t know about yet. )Some of them write stories, some shoot, write ,or edit films, some cook, some design and build structures, some paint a canvas. Here are their suggestions for artists, albums and songs to inspire:

*Peter Gabriel (so true)-from his pop, to his world, to his film scores

*Jazz- in it’s many incarnations (from Charlie Parker to new artists of jazz fusion)

*Classic “R and B” (Marvin Gaye, etc.)

* Gaelic Music

*The “Blue Man Group” albums (whatever you would call them)

*Dvorak

*Classic Buddy Holly

*Pink

*Tori Amos

*Sonic Youth

*The Doors (I’m not  a fan. But to each his/her own…)

*David Byrne (or Old Talking Heads)

*Jean-Luc Ponty

*Prokofiev “Romeo and Juliet Suite”

*Stravinsky

*Copland

and of course…

*Beethoven and.. 

*Mozart!

These are the artists who get the ideas flowing for creative adults whom I know. I am sure that others have their own favorites. Some web searches yielded some cool artists who are new discoveries for me (see Source of the Day). Music can be a catalyst for creation. To me, the adjective “fusion” is so overused now that it is losing it’s meaning, but the right music can help me fuse together a vague musing about an interesting character and a concrete story plot. That’s key. Stories need plots. So I’m grateful for the music that helps me focus.

Source of the day-

 http://blog.infomuse.net/2008/03/29/music-for-writing

-P.

(P.S.-So, our new readers, what do you think? Who have we left off the list? )