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Monday, February 6, 2012

An Outburst of the Soul

Let's talk music!

When I wake up in the mornings, I usually have some song stuck in my head, and it's rarely anything awesome. In fact, it tends to be something awful like The Wonder Pets Theme or The Neverending Song.

For the record, I don't know how you parents watch kid's shows all day long. After about two hours of having the songs repeat in my head, I'm plotting the painful demise of anything remotely associated. There are usually explosions and ninja outfits involved. 

Despite hating hearing a song loop endlessly in my head though, when I create a playlist, I put a few songs on it, and then listen to it repeatedly. Take my current playlist for example. I've got 14 songs on it, and I've listened to nothing else in two weeks.

I call it musical cravings. When I want to hear something, I only want to hear that until the craving passes. When said craving passes, it does so abruptly.

When I first started out on Twitter, I would "Blip" music to my timeline. I was forever getting comments on my musical ADD as they called it. I'd go from something sad and mellow like Tears of an Angel by RyanDan to something loud and upbeat like Groupie by Tech N9ne in 2.5 seconds flat. 

It's all very normal to me, but not so much to a lot of my friends and The Husbinator. They think I'm insane. I think they're just musically narrow minded. They like specific genres, and nothing else. My tastes are all over the place. Today it's Eric Clapton, Anouk and Sarah Mclachlan. Tomorrow it may be Bach, Mozart and Chopin. The day after that, it could be TQ, Eminem and Three Six Mafia.

Personally, I prefer it that way. I've got a never-ending supply of options. When it comes to writing, that means I usually know exactly what song works. I love introducing people to new artists or songs. And if I don't have one, I'm all for spending hours searching one out.

So, for me, writing and music are very much intertwined. I always have a song in mind for this story or that, or for this snippet or that. I love sharing those, and I love when others share theirs. I get giddy when an author posts about what they're listening to.

Maybe that does make me weird, but as an author, it's incredibly helpful, too. Nothing helps you set the right mood like a piece of music. Whether you're inserting it into the story or simply writing the story to it...nothing works quite as well as music for helping you find those nuances that you can't really find elsewhere.

If listening to Secret by Maroon 5 on repeat helps me find exactly the right tone or mood for a chapter, I'm all for it!

Like Delius said, music is an outburst of the soul. I'm okay with that.

What about you? Do you have musical moods or cravings? What are you listening to right now?

Still dancing, 
A.K.M.

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