#Music, My Muse: part 2 by Toi Thomas #OurAuthorGang

From Pinterest via PicMonekey

Today, in part 2 of the Music My Muse series, I’ll be sharing some thoughts on mood music (see part 1 here).

I feel like most people have the same general idea of what mood music is. It’s all about setting the tone or atmosphere for something specific, usually romance, but not always.

In terms of romance, people often imagine a fancy restaurant with lit candles and a suited man playing a violin. However, some people will imagine star-lit mountains in the background of a small campfire with someone playing an acoustic guitar. What’s more, some people might actually imagine pink silk sheets, a bottle of champagne, and either a sensual rock ballad or a smooth R&B groove. Not one of these is better than the other, yet they are all setting the same tone of romance, in very different ways.

That’s what I love about music. Music is diverse and various. Its capacity to evoke tone, mood, and emotion is so limitless. Music is practical magic to me. It is my muse.

Wikipedia

But there’s more to mood music than romance. I for one believe there is a song and or type of music for every mood if you look for it- if you are open to it. I believe the first time I realized that music was a flexible entity that could and should be interpreted in as many ways as necessary to connect to the listener, was when I was just a kid. It all started with Fantasia (1940).

Being the odd child that I was, I was familiar with many classical compositions. After hearing this music on AM radio, I asked my parents to buy them for me. Not knowing what I was asking for, my parents went out and bought cheap cassette tape compilations of various composers. Sure enough, some of the songs I wanted were on them. Then, at the age of 10, Disney released Fantasia on video for the first time and I got to watch fish and mushrooms dance around in place of ballerinas (Nutcracker Suite by Tchaikovsky) and saw the earth evolve to music I’d always thought of as ‘the coming of spring’ song (Rite of Spring by Igor Stravinsky). It blew my mind.

Amazon.com

That’s when I begin to realize that music could not only represent specific ideas and themes, it could also be interpretive and evoke emotion. When I began to write my first book, I often turned to my substantial and varied music collection to help me visualize different themes and emotions I wanted to capture, but of course, I had no idea that’s what I was doing at the time.

It wasn’t until later when I struggled to write my first romantic comedy, It’s Like the Full Moon (Sayings One) that I consciously set out to use music to define the tone of my chapters. Be sure to stick around for part three so you see just how music helped me develop It’s Like the Full Moon.

Now for something a little different. In this section, I’ll be sharing quotes from other authors and bloggers, I’ve collected in over 200 interviews, when asked, ‘When the soundtrack of your life is playing in your head, what songs express your glee and what songs bring out your rage?’

“There are lots of songs that I hear and think, oh that fits what I am writing about or going through. The most current one would be Clarity by Zedd; another is Celine Dion. I almost always find that one or more of her songs make me think of stories I am writing.” ~ McCollonough Ceili

“I love Mandisa’s music. That would be the background to much of my life. Pink has some original songs that would fit at times (if you bleep the naughty words for me). “So What” tickles my funnybone! For rage, just look to screamo music. I hate it! My son plays it sometimes when he visits; I think it’s made to feed rage, and that’s not a good thing. I’d rather be happy, so no screamo for me.” ~ Brenda Covert

“I don’t listen to music – I have no ear for it.” ~ Darlene Jones
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Find out more about me, my work, and my inspiration at the following links:

Amazon | Goodreads | The ToiBox of Words | YouTube | See a list of my other posts here.

#moodmusic, #music, #romance, #Fantasia, #Pinterest

COMMENTS

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Joe Bonadonna

1 year ago  -  Shared publicly

 

I have no idea how I missed this one, Toi. Always enjoy your insight to music. On rare occasions I will listen to music when I write, but it has to be classical: always seems to work for me. If there is shredding guitar and sweet vocals, I find myself tuning in to those, instead of concentrating on my story.

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Joe Bonadonna via Google+

1 year ago  -  Shared publicly

 

In case you missed it, as I did . . . on A Small Gang of Authors for Wednesday, January 10, Toinette Thomas​ posted part 2 of her about "her music, her muse," and talked about "mood music," in particular.

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Chrys Fey

1 year ago  -  Shared publicly

 

I love to listen to rock or music with fast tempos for when I write action scenes. It helps me every time. And there's been many songs that inspired a scene or a story. Music is definitely my muse. :)

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Sherry Ellis

1 year ago  -  Shared publicly

 

I'm a professional musician, so I know all about how music makes you feel. It's amazing how an interpretation of tiny little notes on a page can affect your feelings and mood.

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Erika M Szabo

1 year ago  -  Shared publicly

 

Great post! Music is a language that everyone feels and understands

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Ruth de Jauregui via Google+

1 year ago  -  Shared publicly

 

Toi Thomas shares the second in her series on music and writing. Great stuff!!

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Ruth de Jauregui

1 year ago  -  Shared publicly

 

I love music. Especially R&B, jazz and hip hop. With a smattering of classical just to mix it up. When I'm working on articles (nonfiction), music helps me stay focused and on track.

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Rick Haynes

1 year ago  -  Shared publicly

 

Everyone to their own, and we all have our favourites. Some evoke wonderful memories whilst others extreme sadness, yet as Shakespeare wrote - If music be the food of love, play on.

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Grace Au

1 year ago  -  Shared publicly

 

Music is universal...it touches each of us in different ways. I'm a girl of the 70's and love big band, Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett type music to write by.

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Toi Thomas

1 year ago

 

 

I love big band music. It puts a smile on my face.

Mary Anne Yarde

1 year ago  -  Shared publicly

 

I always write listening to music. Great Post!

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Toi Thomas

1 year ago

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There are times when I need complete silence to work though a scene or description, but mostly, I need music in the background to keep the idea and words flowing.

Rebecca Tran

1 year ago  -  Shared publicly

 

How Does Music Inspire you. Toi Thomas shares her thoughts. For me Descendants Rising: Chronicles of the Coranydas Vol 3 (I am finishing typing and editing now)was written entirely to Evanescence's album Fallen. For some reason it just fit the book.

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Toi Thomas

1 year ago

 

 

That's really cool. I love when a story and a song or album just seem to fit together.

Toi Thomas via Google+

1 year ago  -  Shared publicly

 

Today I share part 2 of my series on music and writing. I'm starting on the topic of mood music and interpretation.

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Rich Feitelberg

1 year ago  -  Shared publicly

 

Fantasia does have some nice scores. Many movies do too. Empire Strikes Back comes to mind.

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Rebecca Tran

1 year ago

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Both iconic and ironic as its playing in the background on my daughter's video game. I think people know the music of Star Wars even if they haven't seen the movie.

Toi Thomas

1 year ago

 

Edit

 

Yes, any score from the Star Wars franchise is not only recognizable but also evocative. Whenever I want to think of something epic with the wonder of science lingering about, I listen to a Star Wars playlist.

Pantser or plotter - there's no wrong way to write your story

By Ruth de Jauregui

I've spent a lot of time thinking and writing about different writing styles -- by the seat of the pants or plotting every inch of the tale.

While I'm forcing myself to write Bitter Nights in a linear fashion, my other project has multiple chapters that will have to be woven into the narrative. That's not always an easy task, and sometimes you have to cut out some of your best writing because it doesn't fit the story any more. (Ummm, cut and paste it into a new doc, maybe you can recycle it into a sequel or entirely new tale!)

I know I'm not the only writer that writes chapters as they appear in my head and then work to tie them all together in a coherent story. As a pantser, it can make it harder to weave a coherent whole. Even a pantser can add a simple timeline to help organize the story and tie new chapters to the ones that need to be later in the narrative. 

It does seem ironic that I'm such a pantser with fiction. I started off my writing career with nonfiction.  I really am accustomed to working with an outline for certain projects. Fiction, not so much. Nonfiction, absolutely. 

My first book

Whether you write your stories in a linear flow, outline them every inch of the way, or write bits and pieces and chapters and then link them together later, there's really no "wrong" way to write a story. As long as the story flows when you're done, you did it right. 

#RuthDJ  #PantserOrPlotter  #Bitter  #ASmallGangOfAuthors

Our Guest Today is author Ellie Mack

Welcome, Ellie, to our blog. So glad you could join us today.

Ellie received her BS in cartography from Southeast Missouri State University. Since leaving the corporate world for the title of MOM, she has pursued her writing dreams. Nowadays, Ellie charts unmapped territory through her fiction and humor writing. Formerly a columnist for a local paper, her weekly column received a lot of attention. She lives near St. Louis, Missouri with her husband of thirty two years and their college-aged daughters. When she's not writing, she can be found bullet journaling, crocheting or cooking. Ellie loves to hear from her readers and may be found at the sites listed below.

https://facebook.com/EllieMackwordsmith

https://twitter.com/Mack_Ellie

https://quotidiandose.wordpress.com

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/746975

http://a.co/3vd8D3K

One phone call can change your life...forever.

I've heard it said many times, and I get it, especially if you are a ballplayer waiting for that call to the majors, or if you are waiting for the call that you got the job you were hoping to land. I always thought, however, that most people were just being overly dramatic and using it as a cliche statement.

What if you didn't get that job, but instead got a call from a different company that ended up being a better job?  What if, as a ballplayer, you never get called to the majors, but stay in the minor leagues and wind up being a top-notch coach? What if that call was the worst thing that could happen?

It's always been my view that there are multiple paths that our lives could take. There are numerous opportunities that are presented to us and that one phone call bit was a bunch of hogwash.

Until today.

Until I received that one phone call that changed my life...forever.

Systems of Magic #ourauthorgang

By Rich Feitelberg

feitelberg.net

Regardless of how you decide to limit magic or the rules of operation you make up for magic, you want some sort of organizational principle for it. I see this all the time. For example, magic spells could be grouped by their effect. So fire related magic go in one bucket and spells related to enchanting items go in another. If you choose this approach, you’ll want to work out all the different types of spells there are so you can account for each grouping.

Another approach is group spells by how powerful they are. So beginning spells are in one category and expert spells go in another. This approach requires knowing all the possible spells so you can put them in a category.

Or perhaps there are no spells at all and all magic is improvised. A variant of this is there are no groups of spells, what matters is how the wizard does his conjuring. For example, perhaps he or she just speaks the words. Or perhaps the words have to rhyme. Or the words also need to be sang — with or without music. Perhaps the mage has to dance first or draw an image. Or some combination of these.

Color is another organizing principle. You hear about white magic and black magic all the time. But magic can be green or red or brown, if you like. Again, you’ll have to work out which spells go with which color.

Above all don’t forget that alchemy requires materials to work, as does rune magic. Be sure to include that your planning.