Music revitalizes me. It helps me to clarify thoughts with what I call emotional pulling. Emotional pulling has the ability to move a person from one place of being to another, via the senses. In this case, the sense is aural. This allows the emotional root to take form. It is through this weeding out of “junk” that allows clarity. Music provides the medium to gain a story’s height, by moving above the clutter, the fog and getting the peace of mind that assists me to nail a story.
The character’s traits develop from that aural stimulus, causing an emotional awareness. It’s the power of emotion, the ability to move, that serves me as a writer. It takes me out of my realm, into another, so I can piece together how the character is feeling. The character’s being comes alive as I move with music; this isn’t to say the character’s thoughts are necessarily represented by a song, but it helps to create the menagerie of qualities that make up the character.
In many ways I’m the photographer: taking the snapshot—albeit a written one—of the image. Creating depth and texture depending on the lens I use, I transform a one dimensional character into a multi-faceted one. I constantly weave, overlay and manipulate the image, creating something very human that’s tangible and yet vastly complex. Even if we, as humans, appear to be simple, we never are. This is why I strive to have real characters in my stories that are very believable and human; I want my stories to mimic life. Not all things are explicit, just like so many of life’s unexplained events; no words are the same, even if they appear the same in the text (consider how diversely some of the same lines are read during different performances). For example: take the term: “Yo Baby.” There a so many ways you can say this, so even though it may appear the same in writing, it depends which character speaks these words as to what meaning it truly takes.
One of my current characters took me to Alicia Keys’ “Empire State of Mind.” This song reflected the setting of the story; however, that is unusual. I don’t need a song that matches the region or character I’m trying to capture; I just need the emotions to get there.
Here are some artists for emotional pulling (depending on mood and character):
- Madonna (This video shows Madonna’s raw emotions while singing this particular song. For me, it adds to her appeal. She isn’t doing the theatrics; she’s being human like the rest of us. When she first hit the scene, I remember critics said she wouldn’t last. She has managed to move with the times in over three decades. She pushes boundaries, limits and sets them.)
- Adele
- Amy Winehouse (I’ve heard numerous versions, but I like this one because the way she sings “trouble” the second time around. She sings it with lingering oomph. Another song and version I particularly enjoy is “My Tears Dry on Their Own,” which goes into “Me and Mr. Jones.” A lesser known one: “Between the Cheats.”)
- Patsy Cline
- Vera Lynn
- Edith Piaf (Something more theatrical sounding: “Bravo Pour Le Clown.” Another favorite: “Padam, Padam.”)
- Nina Simone (I understand she was consumed by songs in her head, which is what Beethoven also described; he could never get the music out of his mind. I’m certain science will be able explain this some day. It’s probably caused by a mutated gene or an error in DNA code. I also like “I ain’t go no…I’ve got Life.”
- Sarah Vaughan
- Carrie Underwood
- Marlene Dietrich (I can no longer find the version where she asks the Israeli audience if it okay if she sings the song in German and they say yes.)
- Moody Blues (Listening to this song creates a high without drugs. If you’d prefer to have the older version of when the guys were young hit this.)
- Glenn Miller Band
- George Harrison
- Susan Boyle (I also suggest you hear Hallelujah.)
- kd lange (Also visit NPR.)
- Dawes
- Rihanna
- Traveling Wilburys
If I want to listen to a specific genre of music (jazz, R&B, rock & roll, pop, classical, etc.) or a specific time, I will choose that time period: 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, etc. This does help to snag a snippet of life gone since so much culture is represented in a song. Also, there are artists where one song has more emotional pulling than the combined songs the artist has produced.
Here is a foreign music site of interest: TV Noir