[New-Poetry] Music While Writing?

[Bob Marcacci]

Interesting question, Jeff...

For many years, I had two televisions in my bedroom (don't ask...) and would
routinely have them turned on to different programs... a sporting event on
one, perhaps, and a series or a movie on the other... at the same time i
would listen to the radio, the sounds of all three simultaneously bombarding
me... made for a nice mix of noise which tended to create an easel for
composition wherein many different words/sounds were colliding... sometimes,
it was just too much incomprehesible sound and simply became background
noise allowing me to focus on whatever i was doing...

I didn't want to fall into what i thought a trap of listening to the same
thing all the time, although every method has its own sameness after a turn,
i suppose... really, listening to music is just like reading, which tends to
rear itself in the work at any given time...

I've done the complete opposite, as well, listening to nothing at all...
and, of course, the raw sounds of the world are plentiful enough in their
mumurous suggestions...

When you drift away from the writing and into the musical composition,
wondering at the scale and chord progression or whatever, how does that
manifest in your work? Does it?

-- 
Bob Marcacci

You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never
know how soon it will be too late.
 - Ralph Waldo Emerson



> From: Jeff Newberry <jeff.newberry at gmail.com>
> Reply-To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp; Views"
> <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 21:59:31 -0500
> To: NewPoetry <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> Subject: [New-Poetry] Music While Writing?
> 
> Any of you poets out there listen to music while you compose?  I don't
> usually, though I've tried.  I have found that certain music can be rather
> generative if I listen to it *before* I write:  Miles Davis, Bill Evans,
> certain Hendrix songs, certain brands of acoustic blues.
> 
> My problem in listening to music while I write is this:  I'm sitting here,
> typing away, and suddenly I'm wondering, "Is that an Amaj7 or a A13?"  Or
> "What mode is that solo in?  Mixolydian?"  Then, I'm lost in the composition
> of the tune & lose touch with the poem.
> 
> What about you all?  Do you listen to music while you compose?  If so, what?
> 
> Jeff Newberry
> 
> -- 
> "Memory believes before knowing remembers.  Believes longer than recollects,
> longer than knowing even wonders."
> ‹William Faulkner, Light in August
> 
> 
> http://museoffireblog.blogspot.com
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