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Wynelda-Ann Deaver

Music Library

Studies suggest that listening to music can help improve grades. This is wonderful news for those still in school…but can music help the writer? Some writers swear that “white noise” helps them to concentrate, and for them music is a viable option. It is an option for other writers as well.

Music has a unique ability to alter moods. How many times have you bobbed your head or tapped your foot in time to music? Or let the smooth, sexy rhythm of a blues master take you away? A rousing rock anthem can fire up the blood, a minuet calm the savage beast. Choosing the right music can help the writer to set the right mood for their work in progress, thereby making it easier to slip back into the story.

Listening to the right sort of music can also help with setting a rhythm to your writing. As your ear is trained to the beat of the songs that are playing, your writing will surely follow. Imagine writing a piece on a modern day cowboy. What are the rhythms of his life, and how does it reflect in the words you commit to the page? How is it reflected in the music he would listen to? Will listening to that music help you find the rhythm? It does for me.

There are several ways to go about listening to music as you write. You could just turn on the radio, listening to music and commercials both. If you own a computer running Windows with a CD-ROM, as well as Windows Media Player and speakers, you have other options.

One of those options is to pop a compact disc by your favorite artist into the computer and let it play while you're writing. This works especially well for classical music, where the songs are mellow and lead one into another. It also works when you like all the songs on a particular compact disc.

But what if you only like one or two songs? What if you want to compile a soundtrack to your masterpiece, one that includes several different artists? You could either burn a CD on your computer, or make use of the Playlist feature in Windows Media Player.

I personally like the Playlist feature. It’s quick and fairly simple to use. I name my playlists by the same title as my work in progress to make it easy to find the right one. The current one is named Dominion. I can add, delete, rearrange any of the songs that I have chosen to listen to. I have a few songs that pop up three and four times in Dominion because the mood that they invoke is perfect for my novel. Why? Because they invoke the right mood and the rhythms are fluid, something I want to echo in my writing.

There is another, unexpected, aspect to writing to music. As soon as I sit down to the computer and open Dominion, I know that it is time to settle down and get to business. Even better, my muse follows me and dances to the music.