When I was in my early years of college, my parents told me that I bit off more than I could chew with my academic path. I am a jazz musician and writer, two artistic fields that require separate practice schedules. I thank myself every day for pursuing both interests. Working in two separate fields is the key that makes my body of works unique. Skills learned in one artistic medium can be translated into another, and here is how I made that revelation.
Music fascinated me from a young age because the tunes evoked emotions in me that could only be described through abstract experiences. For me, Frank Zappa’s “Blessed Relief” is like you are reading a favorite book after you tuck into bed sheets fresh out of the dryer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-Qk8VxUwuM). Not everyone will have that same thought of books and laundry as I did, but that is part of the fun.
I have only heard musicians use two words to describe instrumental pieces: bright and warm. This is one of the first concepts you learn in college level Music Theory courses. The writer in me cringes every time I hear those words alone because it feels like an injustice to the piece being discussed. Reducing Sun Ra’s “Springtime Again” to bright is like only saying Sylvia Plath’s poetry is sad and leaving it at that (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PhqwpPcAMo). That song feels like a ray of sunshine kissing your face after a harsh storm, yet musicians feel so comfortable with describing every piece they hear those simple adjectives.
Use the gift of gab given when you listen to tunes. Put on some music, and write down everything that first comes to mind during a song. Yes, many of those feelings or phrases will sound cheesy at first, but I promise that if you are listening to your first instincts, you will find ideas that can stick. Repeat that process until you think that you have a solid foundation for your work. When beginning the drafting process, do not throw away those notes until you have submitted your final draft. I guarantee that you will finish your first couple revisions and then remember some weird abstract thought that you forgot about in your notes you think could work to your advantage as you finish up your piece.
When I first started using this strategy, I would write down the colors of the songs that I saw in my peripheries. For years I thought nothing of this strange occurrence until I heard it had a name: synesthesia. A song like “Omega Man” by the Police is a bright red song, and usually this type of song bursts with energy, but “This Must Be the Place (Naïve Melody)” by the Talking Heads is a lavender song, which are typically tranquil and serene (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mKLxttBgnc, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsccjsW8bSY). What is interesting to me is that not all purple songs are tranquil and not all red songs are energetic, so instead of trying to write a melancholic poem, I will try to tap into my musical synesthesia and try to write a white poem. As you write down your thoughts during the song, write down some of the first colors that come to mind. You never know where it might lead.
The poems that you write from the music you listen to do not have to be the names of the songs that inspired them. In fact, it makes for a different experience if you let the poems live separately. This is how I wrote a lot of my early poetry, and it is a practice that I still continue. With a couple of tweaks, the poem will become a separate piece of art then the inspiration tune that birthed it. If the idea is solid enough that you feel confident with it, then the theming and lyricism will wash over you as you write, creating something entirely new in the process.
The connection between poems and tunes does not stop there. We can also analyze the lyricism of some of our favorite songwriters and figure out what works about their approaches. One of my favorite lyricists is Captain Beefheart, and something that I find fascinating about him man is that man was not a trained musician, not in the slightest. He was painter who spent much of his free time writing poems. Most musicians that I know view his music as child-like cacophonies because they are so atonal and dissonant. But underneath his abrasive harmonic choices, there lives a beautiful body of poems that each of us can learn from.
Captain Beefheart’s most well-known album, Trout Mask Replica, is not pretty by any stretch of the imagination (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CeLjmIW5wk). It is difficult to listen to it casually without wanting to turn it off after the first couple of songs, but Captain Beefheart knew that. Underneath Trout Mask Replica’s malicious sonic scape are beautiful lyrics about optimism, about facing off against your internal thoughts of crippling self-doubt and nihilism. You would have never expected that the first time listening to the album. Beefheart is master of a poetic technique. A skill that takes years to master: juxtaposition.
Trout Mask Replica’s opener, “Frownland,” begins with a disgusting strike of the guitar. The band riffs on the slimy chord for a couple of seconds, and Captain Beefheart sneaks in with his signature oily croon, “My smile is stuck/I cannot go back to your Frownland.” Despite what the instrumental would lead you to believe Beefheart instead serves us a warm plate of optimism. He continues the phrase by singing, “My spirit’s made up of the ocean/ and the sky and the sun and the moon/ I cannot go back to your land of gloom/ Where black jagged shadows/ Remind me of you coming doom.” Instead of reveling in the morbidity that the harmonies want us to dwell upon, Captain Beefheart is instead deciding to focus on the beauty of the world around him. He has no interest in dwelling on his inner demons, let alone somebody else’s. After all, his spirit is made up all the things that are beautiful around him, the ocean, the sky, the sun, and the moon.
Captain Beefheart sends us off with his idea of how to save humanity and himself from nihilism. He says, “I want my own land/ Take my hand and come with me/ It’s not too late for you if it’s not too late for me/ Where a man can stand by another man/ Without an ego flying/ With no man lying/ And no one dying by earthly hand./ Take my kind hand.” In Beefheart’s perspective, humanity’s ego brings us all down. He wants to live in a world where no one lies, or even dies of unnatural causes. His paradise is a land where greed and power are all but forgotten. Beefheart even tells the listener that he has been there before and we still have time in the line, “It’s not too late for you if it’s not too late for me.” The final line before the chorus, “take my kind hand,” invites us to the harmonious world Beefheart lives in. His own land. It’s up to us to decide if we want to accept. A fast ticket away from our internal struggles, our Frownland.
Instead of thinking about your artistic endeavors as competing for mental real estate, instead think of them as a family sharing a house together. For the family to function, they need communication. Have your writing and music communicate with each other. Then you will find success and harmony.
Comments