Does Music influence your writing? Options

[Cleo_Serapis]

A GREAT topic for discussion!

From Merlin:

Studies done on the subject show that certain music puts the mind at ease, and aids in a person's ability to study, or relax... different things.  Baroque music is said to be best.  It has also been established that teenagers can do very well studying while listening to rock.  Others may do the same with their own preference.

Music affects the brain in particular ways - even peculiar ways.

Does this relate to poetic styles?  Do some age groups prefer one over the other?  

Merlin

Good topic Merlin!

[Guest_Artemis_*]

One of the multude of things I have learned about the so-called disability ADHD is that not only do people that share this group of qualities have trouble focusing on linear tasks, they conversely have the ability to 'hyperfocus' on things that they become very interested in.

Many artists and writers (and other assorted creative people) 'Have" ADHD...   because the traits that form this 'disability' include a keen abitlity to see globally.. to think intuitively (for what is 'intuition' but the ability to take observations that may seem to be unrelated, and put them together into meaningfulness) Unfortunately, because our schools were set up initially to produce good factory workers, good accountants, etc etc etc, many of the same processes are used to 'help' kids learn. ADHD people don't generally learn best this way.

Playing music often helps people like this to focus.  Since I am one of those people. I use music when I am working on a task or lists of tasks I must complete. The music seems to occupy the parts of my mind that would otherwise be daydreaming, or thinking of things which would distract me.  

Yes, the music I choose does influence my thoughts and processes...  what works for one task may not work for another task. What works for one 'mood' of poem or bit of prose.. or letter.. or lesson plan.. would totally derail another kind of task.  

When I was in school, I used to doodle and draw while the teachers lectured.  When I was 22, I married a gentleman who had gone to the same school I did.. but was a senior when I was in 9th grade.  I met him later, in my summer job, and dated this and that one of his friends..  I like the whole lot of 'em (ok. I LIKED THEM AS FRIENDS.. I was not a groupie for the Boisterous Milkweeds) Anyway, Harv had gotten a job at 'our' old high school, teaching Physics, and when we would attend functions we'd see my old teachers (now his colleagues)  Mrs. Edelan, the history teacher, who was a big brassy battleaxe of a woman kind of like Maude from TV, and I loved her to pieces.. anyway, Mrs. Edelan told me it drove her NUTS that I'd sit there and draw while she imparted things essential to becoming a civilized human being...  but that she didn't bother me because I must have heard every word she said, considering the lowest grade I'd ever made in her class was something like a 96.  

For me, I could draw and listen intently.. but if I was not allowed to draw, I daydreamed.  If I was daydreaming, I did not hear a word that was said.

So now music soothes me, and keeps me on track.. or lifts me up.  I play it in my classroom when the kids are working independently.. they get to know some of the peices, and make requests.  They love Enigma, and a CD called "REturn of the Guardians".. and of course they all seem to like "Taco Bell Canyon"... (I have two different CDs of various versions of Pachelbel's Greatest Hit!)

Music.. if not for music, I could not fall asleep. The music, chosen especially for sleep, takes me gently into dreams.  Yes, the dreams do 'go' with the music at first...  

I had no music for the first two nights of 'no power' and I did not sleep at all.  Fortunately, I managed to find a portable CD player (which I'd bought so that I could sleep on a trip to Washington DC, with students) and the music did the trick.  Now Playing:  Hildegard Whatsername's music.. the nun who wrote all the beautiful canons.  I've got a CD with many voices in harmony, singing her 'stuff' in the voices of angels.. the some instruments in the background (not written that way.. and the purists HATE that particular CD)

So yes.. music does influence me in many, many ways...
I'm going to stop now..  are y'all wondering 'Why doesn't this woman just buy a journal!?)

gena
artemis