Music or Silence?

Music…

            It’s such a large part of our lives.  We are so constantly surrounded by music that silence often makes us uncomfortable.  It seems that many people play music, not to listen to, but just to hear.  Because music, sound, noise, voices…they make us comfortable.  It’s in movies and TV shows, blaring out car windows (I’ve made a game of singing to other people’s music while on the road), it plays in stores and even when you’re out, just walking down the sidewalk, you will hear music. 

            Music is a wonderful muse for a writer, but so is silence.  Writers have to put themselves in uncomfortable situations if for no other reason than to feel uncomfortable.  To experience it.  You cannot write that a character simply walks into a room and hears music (unless the music is the whole point of walking into the room).  Rooms have noise.  Life has noise and if you’re always drowning it out with music, you won’t hear it and therefore cannot describe it.

            Sometimes it’s those little noises in the distance that we don’t really pay attention to that make a scene feel real.  Like now, sitting in my apartment, I can hear the freeway outside my window and from this distance it sounds like a long, heavy sigh.  I can hear the wind as it whispers past my window, the jingle of my cats collars as they play in the living room and the constant, loud purr of my fridge (the fan has a problem but I’m used to it and it doesn’t bother me.  I think it adds character to my place…).  I can hear kids playing in the snow outside and even the soft tick, tick, tick of the clock in my bathroom.

            All these sounds are what make my place feel like my place.  These sounds are a part of home.  Without them, I would have that feeling of wrongness.  Like something is out of place but I can’t tell what.  Like the fridge, I usually don’t even notice that it’s purring until the fan stops and it’s suddenly quiet and I’m left in the silence of it’s wake (It’s loud enough to have a wake, believe me). 

            Since the speakers in my car shorted out a few years ago, I’ve been face with silence while driving and it’s made me appreciate the noise of the world around me that much more.  I sit in silence and contemplate.  Come up with “room tone” for whatever scene I’m going to write.  It’s the same with film.  Sure, they’re going to use music, but they will always get about 30 seconds to a minute of room tone too, just for sound.  Without it, the show or movie would seem…well, weird. 

            I’m not saying to not listen to music.  By all means, listen away.  I have very specific soundtracks set aside that I listen to for certain situations within my stories and I’ve found the instrumental music works the best.  Songs with words are about something already.  But instrumental pieces can be about whatever you want to be about. 

            For instance, the soundtrack for ‘The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford’ by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis.  If I were to describe that soundtrack, I would say it sounds like heartbreak and the strings and piano move you through every level of sorrow from denial to acceptance.  I’ve listened to this for scenes where characters die and for regular heart smashing alike.

 

            How to Train Your Dragon by John Powell is all joy and adventure.  Listening to this soundtrack makes you feel like you’re flying. 

            Gladiator by Hans Zimmer and Transformers part 1 are great battle soundtracks.

            And of course anything by Nobuo Uematsu, the genius behind all of the Final Fantasy soundtracks.  They are all of the above and his Piano Collections have pulled me through many a rough spot both personally and literary.

            There is a big difference between listening and hearing.  I tell this to my students at work all the time.  In order to truly understand something, you need to listen, with full attention.  You’ll notice little things about people that you didn’t not previously realize, you’ll hear sounds that you never before perceived.

            You’ll see that even when the music if off, the world around you still makes it.