Last night we went to the cinema to watch The Sheep Detectives . It was a great, fun film packed with all the rollercoaster emotions you want from any movie. Interestingly, despite the fact the film was perhaps aged at a younger audience, everyone at the screening was quite a bit older. We made a comment later that, despite the fact the film is a PG rating, there was no way any of my nieces would be able to handle it. But the most appealing thing about the film was just how appealing it was! It was a murder mystery, of course, but it also bordered on drama, comedy, and romance. It certainly catered for all ages, with some of the references and topics which would be completely lost on young children. And it was not afraid to deal with some pretty brutal topics. In many respects, we expect these genre-collisions in films - we applaud them and celebrate them as crafty and creative. It's a shame, I think, that many books which portray a similar mixed approach at often overlooked as di...
Wednesday 20th November - Am I on the Wrong Track?
My Twitter bio tells all interested parties that I'm a lover of opera. I am. But I can't listen to it when I'm writing. I also enjoy folk music. But I can't listen to that either. In fact, I can't listen to anything with words. The words distract me. Even words delivered in a language I don't understand, distract me. There is someone's story there and it isn't my story so, while I'm writing my story, I focus on that alone. What DO I listen to when I'm writing? I listen to my favourite classical pieces - no words - the ones I have always loved. Chopin's piano sonata no.2 in B flat minor is a treasure and is always able to inspire me. It's known as the funeral march but the part everyone recognises as such is empty on its own. When you take it as part of the whole it is priceless. His nocturnes are capable of great things for me too. Music which trips along the sinews and twists and turns within you triggers big thoughts and bright ideas. It's the same with The Swan from Carnival of the Animals by Saint-Saens - when I listen to it in solitude I have sometimes found myself dipping my head and having the sense of gliding along a clean, calm river. The power of the composer. The cello can speak without words.
Apart from voice - which is a no-go for me when writing - the piano and the cello, I am fond of the violin. One of the pieces I enjoy the most is Bruch's violin concerto no. 1 in G minor. It is another very popular piece but that doesn't take anything away from it in terms of the power to inspire. Brahms' Hungarian violin pieces take risks and thereby bring to my paper an element of chance. Who knows where they can take me? I don't. They are dancing about in my head as I write this and I'm not sure where it will end. Well of course it must end where it began for me. Another popular piece. When I was a little girl and my parents had just bought a splendid radiogram, one of the first long playing records we obtained was of Schubert's Trout Quintet. I loved it then and I love it still. I also loved it when I played it to inspire primary school children on my first teaching practice in Guisborough. When my lecturer came in to look at my lesson plans, he saw the Schubert there and said that it always made him think of old ladies in tea shops. It makes me think of tagging along with my brother and his friends when they went fishing in the River Torne. They rarely caught anything but weeds. Now I catch the memories. This old lady would gladly listen to The Trout in a tea shop. Now there's an idea. I'm just going to pop the kettle on.
This is a lovely post, and beautifully explained too! I too cannot listen to any vocal music whilst writing, as it's just too distracting. I quite like listening to 'alpha waves' calming music - the idea of the waves calming my brain is very appealing 😊
ReplyDeleteThank you Nicola. The idea of calming waves ahead of writing is good. I can imagine the tension lifting from the shoulders. Great to hear from you.
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