I was a double major in college–Creative Writing and Music. While my parents were not thrilled with my choices, I was, even though it happened by accident.
I wanted to be a singer. It was my goal from an early age. I was that child who would hold her hairbrush and sing for hours, dancing around the basement or my room pretending I was performing in front of crowds. The only odd thing was that I always envisioned myself on USO tours instead of huge stadiums. I wanted to live that iconic image of the Bob Hope show for the troops in war zones, otherwise the touring did not appeal to me.
So off I went to college with the hope of someday cutting a platinum album and going off to war to sing. I was young. It is my only defense. That and being a military brat.
I flew through the required classes quickly and found that I needed a ton more credits to graduate. Faced with registration, I reviewed the catalog and decided that I had always loved to write and added a new degree. Little did I know I would fall in love with the new choice. It suited my introverted ways and need to create.
The bonus I did not expect was how much I had learned about writing from my music classes, more so than I did in my writing classes. I learned about cadence, rhythm and flow. I learned how to modulate my ideas and build toward a crescendo. In short, I learned musical composition as it applied to story.
There were so many lessons in creating layered stories when learning musical composition for multiple voices, each with its own musical line that worked with the other parts in a cohesive piece. Each element had to build toward the same ending and find harmony and dissonance along the way, resolving into the lyrical line and ending cadence.
These lessons were exactly what my writing teachers had tried to explain but without the press of the bass line and movement of the notes. Music added a dimension of understanding I had missed with mere words.
When I went into film and speechwriting, those lessons about cadence and rhythm were invaluable. I relied on Mozart’s use of triads in construction. I borrowed Beethoven’s expansive sense of drama. Pulled on Brahms’ quiet sense of peace.
Like a play has acts, music has movements, verses, choruses. These give a structure for the notes. Find the right structure (waltz, symphony, concerto, song) and add the notes to bring it to life.
Writing is the same. It begs for structure (an necessary element of a successful piece, no matter what form it takes–novel, speech, script) and flow.
When you get stuck in your writing, turn to music. Listen to it carefully, mindfully. Let it propel you forward. If you feel like singing along or dancing a bit, go for it. It will help you find your own rhythm…or voice.