Words and Music

Music: the most popular facet of the arts, with the possible exception of cinema.  It is also potentially the most commercially viable, the most subjective and at times the most hotly contested.  It is also the most versatile, not only in terms of genre and sub-genre, arrangement, et cetera, but also in terms of context and application, be it as a soundtrack to a movie or television show, advertising jingle (okay, bad example!), or something to listen to during times of labour or recreation, even passion, or indeed while drawing, painting, sculpting or writing.

Naturally, personal tastes vary, ditto the personal significance for each person.  When his schedule allowed, my father liked to sketch, his inspiration fuelled by airs composed by the likes of Tchaikovsky and Vivaldi.  Some writers also swear by classical music, such as Isobelle Carmody and James Ellroy, the latter being a huge fan of Beethoven.  Stephen King, on the other hand, seems to be more eclectic (according to one account I read, he even listened to Eminem!).  Whether it's because classical music tends to be unfettered by words I'm not sure, but if it works, it works.

For me personally, it depends on where I'm at, but it's often as much about getting into the right headspace, the right mindset, feeding the inspiration.  

As much of my fiction has been set in mid-twentieth century America I've sought out music from that era to help immerse myself in that given time.   For example with my first novel Breaking Point I indulged in a fair bit of The Inkspots, Billie Holliday, Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra and whatever else people might have listened to in New York in 1943-44, while with my current project, which is set predominantly in the South in 1929-34 I've been getting right into a rich and broad pallet of pop, jazz and folk music (including blues and country) from the 1920s and early '30s including artists as diverse as Duke Ellington, Rudy Vallee, Josephine Baker and The Carter Family.  Again, it's part of immersing myself into the era I'm writing about, even picking out a good song to help flesh out and add colour to and even echo the context of a given scene (or even the entire narrative), getting myself into that headspace (though I doubt I'd do it if I didn't enjoy it).

Having said all that, I have written certain stories or even parts while listening to music which may have been totally anachronistic but helped put me in the right headspace.  For example, when writing the crucial murder scene in Breaking Point I was listening to The End by The Doors - a tad anachronistic I know but it fit because let's face it, it's a rather violent song therefore fitting given that I was writing a decidedly violent scene (though I had All Or Nothing At All by Frank Sinatra playing in that particular scene).  I've also gotten a fair bit of mileage out of Johnny Cash's Murder compilation while writing various crime shorts and even longer projects.  Anachronistic or not, if it feels appropriate and helps with the headspace or at least the inspiration it's completely appropriate.

So, to all of you writers and artists out there, what makes up the soundtrack to your creative pursuits?

The Muses

The Muses - who are they? What are they? And how do they relate to me?

The traditional - or at least Classical - understanding is that there are nine Muses who embody the arts and inspire creativity through such diverse forms as music, writing, acting and dance. (However, according to the Roman scholar Varro, there are (or at least were) three muses: Melete or Practice, born from the movement of water; Mneme or Memory, who makes a sound when striking the air; and Aoide or Song, who is embodied only in the human voice). They are sometimes referred to as water nymphs,

"associated with the springs of Helicon and with Pieris. It was said that the winged horse Pegasus touched his hooves to the ground on Helicon, causing four sacred springs to burst forth, from which the muses were born. Athena later tamed the horse and presented him to the muses." (Source: Wikipedia)

However, other stories conflict with this one vis-a-vis their genesis and parentage, including Zeus and Mnemosyne (goddess of memory) and Uranus (god of the Sky) and Gaia (goddess of the Earth), Zeus' grandparents.

The nine Muses are:

- Calliope, muse of epic poetry, whose emblem is the writing tablet;

- Clio, muse of history, whose emblem is scrolls;

- Erato, muse of love poetry, whose emblem is a lyre-like instrument called a cithara;

- Euterpe, muse of song and elegiac poetry, whose emblem is a flute-like instrument called an aulos;

- Melpomene, the muse of tragedy, whose emblem is the tragic mask;

- Polyhymnia, the muse of hymns, whose emblem is the veil;

- Terpsichore, the muse of dance, whose emblem is the lyre;

- Thalia, the muse of comedy, whose emblem is the comic mask;

- Urania, the muse of astronomy, whose emblem is the globe and compass.

The muses more or less covered all facets of the Arts, and were also associated with all forms of learning.

Now which Muses would influence me? Truth be told a lot of my poetic and literary endeavours have been inspired by women, particularly ones I've been in love/infatuated with. I think it's safe to assume that I'm not the only one. It is no accident that the Muses have traditionally been portrayed as beautiful women, and indeed that's how I imagine them, though no doubt for some they would alternatively assume a more masculine manifestation. Being an aspiring novelist, casual poet, history buff and at times having been something of the class clown, I guess the Muses that would impact me or have done so would be Calliope (assuming that "epic poetry" includes novels/novellas, etc), Clio, Erato and even Thalia (though this last one might be the subject of some debate).

May the Muses never turn their faces from me.

Thoughts on Eros and the Arts

About a month ago I attended a Philosophy lecture at the local library which sparked much food for thought and interesting conversation. The topic was on Plato, Women, Sex and Eternity. Apparently Plato had a lot to say about marriage, even advocating it, for a man who himself never married. The subject of love also attracted some debate - do we love the other person in and of themselves? Do we love them for their help in us fulfilling procreation and legacy? Do we marry the person we love or love the person we marry?

"You do not marry the one you love; you love the one you marry."

                                                                            

                                         - Indian Proverb.

In our culture at least marriages tend not to be pre-arranged, they're more or less of the choosing of the bride and groom alone, and I could say that marriages of convenience are a thing of the past, but that assumption may be a little naive. Generally speaking they're based on love - romantic, erotic, I'm almost scared to apply those two labels as the semantics seem to vary from one century to the next or even between different schools of thought.

As for procreation, is that really a prerequisite?  History has proven that the answer is "Not necessarily".  Most royal marriages throughout history were political business transactions and procreation was very necessary for the sake of the kingdom, and if the king and queen fell in love with each other that was a bonus.  No doubt in most cases they grew to love each other, but that was more of a mature love than a romantic love (the marriages between King Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitane and, more recently, Charles and Diana are proof that marriage for purely political and/or dynastic reasons is a bad idea, especially as both unions ended rather acrimoniously and in the former case an entire family was torn apart and at war with each other).  Conversely, there have been couples who no doubt loved each other very much but one partner was barren - does this make their love any less valid?  And then there are all those gay couples throughout history who have all been biologically incapable of procreating together - does that make their love any less valid?

"Eros" as it was in ancient and classical Greek originally referred to an all-consuming love, be it between man and woman, between parent and child, between man and God, whatever, though only in the case of husband and wife or that of paramours hetero or otherwise was there a sexual element to it.  Or indeed it referred to the essential life force in all of us manifested in an all-consuming, all pervasive love.  However, transferring to English the meaning has been down-graded and bastardised somewhat, so that in modern English "erotic" is synonymous with "sexual", pure and simple, and whether love is involved is another story.

One tangent the talk of love/"eros"/call it what you will led us on was onto Dante, author of The Divine Comedy, and his muse Beatrice. He was never with her and never could be with her because he was already married so instead he wrote an epic poem (the aforementioned Divine Comedy) with himself as the hero and her as the heroine/love interest. 

As a writer myself I can totally relate - when a man is in love with a woman he can never have, what better catharsis than to channel those feelings into great writing or art or music? Sappho wrote poetry dealing with unrequited love, and such feelings have been set to music in all its forms and genres - Eric Clapton's feelings for George Harrison's wife Patti were famously articulated in the song Layla, and a lot of John Lennon's contribution to The Beatles' White Album dealt with his feelings for Yoko Ono. Eric did get together with Patti, albeit temporarily, and John did end up with Yoko, but they didn't know that at the time, and that didn't detract from their feelings. Also, there are a plethora of blues songs dealing with unrequited love and also illicit love.   And we have knights and their lady friends to thank for the concept of courtly love - whether it was completely platonic I don't know and couldn't say for sure, but theirs was a love more or less invariably doomed and at least in real life couldn't be seen through to the ideal romantic conclusion because they were married to other people. Mind you, even now in this age of no-fault divorce these situations are never totally painless or without consequence so I guess the great art will continue to be fuelled by such feelings for a long time to come.

Someone once said that love should set you on fire.  Would one want to feel that way about someone else if they either don't feel the same way, or worse that person is someone other than one's spouse or they're someone else's spouse?  It certainly defies logic and rational thought, and a cool, clear head is what each person needs when they decide to make a commitment such as marriage - granted, it should be governed by both the heart and the head.  As for the love that sets you on fire, well, if it ultimately fuels great art, literature or music and gets channelled in that direction because the more desired pathway is closed off then it is not a complete waste of time and energy after all.