Cutting Edge Music

As Blythe Gifford posted in September, I also listen to music when I write. I even create a playlist to get me in the mood. So how is this post different than the excellent one she posted last month?

Well, most of what I listen to is popular music. Cutting edge music. But we all tend to think of historical music as "classical." Venerable. Revered. Even stodgy and dull. What we all forget is that the music we now think of as stodgy and dull was the popular, cutting edge music back in its day.

Think of the waltz? Boring dance right? Well, maybe compared with modern gyrations on the dance floor it might be, but when it first appeared it was scandalous. Men and women in each others arms, pelvises together mimicking...sex. It was popular. It was cutting edge. And everybody was doing it - even if they only did it behind closed doors.

Now think of the musicians creating that music. Creating scandal. As today, they were the bad boys that all the women and girls probably watched with baited breath whether they admitted it or not.

What do we think of when we think of Mozart? He's the epitomy of classical music today. But when he was making music, he was a scandal. He was rude, crude and obnoxious (if the play/movie Amadeus can be believed). Yet the women went nuts for him. Well, if he really looked like the portrait to the left, I can guess why. There's a wicked twinkle in his eye that women respond to. He's not bad looking and dang, he created some amazing music. How could he not attract the chicks? He was the Elvis of his day. And I bet the dads hated the guy and kept their little girls far, far away.

I'm sure the antipathy between dads and musicians go back far longer than that. After all, the Middle Ages featured the troubadours. Young men who traveled from place to place with their instruments and made a living off their music. Secular music. Music about love. Courtly love. Forbidden love. Oh my...more sex. How delightfully wicked.

Imagine Nickelback (or fill in your favorite rock band with appropriately hot lead singer) showing up at your front door offering to play their music while you eat dinner. What's not hot about that?

In the image I've added here (painted by Edmund Blair Leighton) I don't know if the dude with the fancy hat is the father or the husband, but either way...he looks worried. And well he should. Musicians are and were the hot bad boys we'd all love to dally with in our deepest fantasies. And back in the day, their music was the scandalous, cutting edge stuff that rock music or hip hop is today. Keep it in mind when you're writing because it can help you create a useful and/or funny scene for a historical romance you write in the future.

What's your favorite historical music? Do you think the composer or performer was stodgy or a bad boy back when he wrote it?

Words & Music

I am passionate about music.
This doesn’t mean I would ever attempt to create music. Or lyrics.
It does mean that I have music playing nearly every hour of the day – from the time I awake until I sleep, especially when I write.
I used to insist on the correct music before I would even read. I remember wearing out the soundtracks for EXODUS and GONE WITH The WIND in the course of reading the books.
Now days, I am more concerned with music when I write than when I read. When I say I am concerned, it is more accurate to use the term “obsessed.” I use music as a crutch, creating a soundtrack for each book. This helps me, like Pavlov’s dog, to respond appropriately to stimuli. When I put on the music, it is time to write. If you do this morning after morning, resistance becomes futile. Cue music; hands on keyboard. (To write, not to play!)
For writers who are tempted to kick and scream before coming to the page, this is very helpful. It also helps when, months after you released the manuscript to the editor, it comes back and you need to revisit the story for certain, uh, enhancements. Put on your “soundtrack,” you are back in the story.
I try to be faithful to the time period and choose music that my characters might have actually heard, but since I write in the fourteenth century, this creates certain challenges. The truth is, our approximation of what people in that era heard is only that: an approximation. Sometimes, I settle for music with the “feel” of the story or the period I’m writing.
But for my current release, IN The MASTER’S BED, music was of particular importance. The book is the story of a heroine who runs away from home, disguised as a man, to study at the university, where women are forbidden. She meets the hero, who, thinking she is a he, takes the “lad” under his wing. The hero plays a “gittern,” a sort of medieval guitar. In the course of the story, his music, from drinking songs for the young scholars to a love song for the heroine, plays an important role. While I knew I couldn’t convey the music to my readers with words, I at least wanted to hear some myself so I would know what it was like.
How could I write what I had never heard?
Luckily, I found the answer, a CD titled “Songs from the Taverne: Ballads and drinking song from the time of Chaucer.” The time period was perfect. My students spent lots of time in taverns. And Chaucer even mentions “gyternes,” so there were several played on the disc.
Was the final result worth the search? Can you hear the music on the page that I wrote? Well, I can only hope that some of it came through. I’ll give a copy of IN The MASTER’S BED to one lucky commenter and you’ll be able to decide for yourself.
What about you? Do you use music, either as a reader or as a writer, to get into the mood? Or do you prefer to read or write in silence?

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