Music in books: Continued

To start off, this post is a continuation from yesterday's. But the real story is that I was reading the work of one of my fellow writers in my critique group and I got to wondering how to put music to the page in a story. There are a few ways to handle music in books. I've seen plenty though I can't remember all of them. Here are a few:

• J.R.R Tolkien - The Hobbit (and I guess the Lord of the Rings is also similar): Tolkien shares long, wonderful, and lore filled lyrics. But he bookends them heavily with the reactions of his characters. Especially useful here is his line from The Hobbit "...this is like a fragment of their song, if it can be like their song without their music." 
• Lord of the Rings: I think it's handle in a similar manner, but I don't remember specifics.
• Terry Brooks - The Wishsong of Shannara: The wishsong is used in multiple books as a type of magic. I don't remember specifically, but I think that lyrics are eschewed here in favor of effect. Saying things like, he sang them a summer day. (That's not a quote, just an example of type.)
• Alan Dean Foster - Spellsinger series: This is a comic series and uses the same method of description of effect rather than lyric.
• Piers Anthony: I don't recall the title of the book, but one character performed magic by creating and singing rhymes. The rhymes were all one or two lines, so they hardly count as songs. It was easy to read and didn't detract from the narrative because it was part of the fun to see what rhyme he could use to solve each problem as it came up.
• Frank Herbert - Dune: In this he distinguishes poems from songs. The poems are somewhat longer as I recall. He does give us a short bawdy song. The lyrics are well made and fit the scene, but they are easily skipped.
• Garth Nix - Lirael: Nix is a wonderful and inventive storyteller who uses music as a part of his magic system again. This time there are no lyrics, only music, so he can focus on the effect.
• C.S. Lewis - The Magician's Nephew: One of my favorite uses of music in a book is found here when Aslan sings Narnia into being. A wonderful scene in the book which again focuses on effect without lyrics. 

That's a very small sampling, but includes some very fine books. I'm especially fond of Garth Nix as a writer because of his unique voice and style.

Now here are my ideas about music:

It's all about effect. I have rarely read a poem in a novel that has moved me the way they book says it moved the character. And let's be honest, if I heard the music from this foreign culture it might sound really bad to me even though it was supposed to be a moving ballad. The strength of a book is the ability to describe characters thoughts, feelings, reactions.

If I have a bard singing a song and I say, "The youth of the village gathered around her with wide eyes. They sat drinking in her music well into the night and rebelled at their parents insistence that the dying embers of the fire pits meant that they must leave their listening seats." Well, now you know what the music did. If I told you the name of the bards song was an epic poem called "The eternal battle of Veras and Nir." you might be interested in the poem, but it probably wouldn't have the same effect on you as the children in the story. You don't have the haunting tune, the slow tap of the minstrel's hand upon the belly of her lute, or the perfect variations of her voice.

In short, you may have a wonderful poem, but it will never be music. As Tolkien said, "...if it can be like their song without their music."

So here is the fix. Figure out your goal. Do you want to wow your audience with your poetic ability? If so, then practice your poetry. Learn how to really write a poem. Learn to craft words so precise and powerful that the reader cannot help but drink them in. But be aware that any poem will break the flow of the story. Make sure that the words of your poem fit your world, and the skill level of the in story writer. The poetry should draw a reader further into the story. It is no longer a stand alone piece of art, it must be powerful in conjunction with the prose.

If your goal is not poetic greatness, then think about how much of the poem needs to be in the book. Often one or two lines will be enough, especially if those are the lines that mean something to the characters.

If your goal is to create a sense of music in the scene, think of the words that you use in your prose. Lean on your poetic skills in the way you craft your sentences. Look at what that music does to the world in your book. Music is powerful. Show us what happens when your world has it. Show us how the singer halts in tears each time the chorus returns to his children who were lost in the fire. Show us how the heroes rise up in response to the anthem of their comrades as the music echoes through the mist like a brigade of long lost friends.

Show us what the characters think of the light brigade, because we may not know what that means.

BUT! If you want to expand your world and give it depth, then write your songs. Build a story around the song that is so full that your readers want to know it. Put the lyrics right there on the page, but be aware the readers can skip it. I have never felt like I am missing something by not reading the words to a song on a page, but I have read a song on the page an felt like I was missing the meaning. Poetry takes training to read and to write. I love me some good old fashioned poems, but the only poems that I read in books are the poems that are books. I read Shakespeare. I read Homer. And I will read your poem, but only if the story was good enough for me to go back and want to find out what I missed.

Put your poetry in, but be aware that it can be skipped. If it can't be skipped, then have your character analyze it. We are reading what your character thinks, senses, and cares about. If you want to break down a poem so much that we really read it, then have your character really read it. As your character comes to understand the meaning (this is often done with prophecies) so will we.

Wow, this was long. So, I'll sum up.

• Focus on effect, and then put your lyrics in if you want. 
• If the lyrics are important then have your characters recall or think about them often. 
• Don't sacrifice the story for the poem. 
• If you have to choose between story and poem, then choose. Publish a poem if that's the most important part. Otherwise, give us a good story. 
• Don't confuse music with lyrics. 
• Lyrics and poetry have power, but they are different from music.

Good luck, good writing, I'll see you again tomorrow.

Mini Post: New Feature

I'd like to announce the creation of a new feature. Take a look at the link to the right for Literary Portraits.

Ever wonder what you'd be like in a novel? Let us immortalize you or a loved one in a personalized description fit for a main character (or a plucky side character if you prefer). Take a look and get yourself immortalized in the written word.

The concert was today? My father's gonna kill me!

The title to this post started off with a quote from a childhood film. If you don't get the reference then it probably won't do any good to explain, so I'll just jump into the meat of this post.

Music.

There is plenty of music in the world today. I think that's a good thing. I like music. I love the almost mystical power it has to move us directly to an emotional state. Really if you think about it, that's the power of music. But why? How? How is it that sounds cause an almost universal reaction? My son was playing a video game and he said, "Dad, this part of the game kinda makes me want to cry because of the music." Bing! Right on son. You have discovered the manipulative tool. And it's not just melody. Rhythms can increase or decrease our heart rate. Harmonies or dissonance can make us nervous or relaxed. And I'm sure there's more that I don't even know about. What am I saying? If you want to experience real life magic where John Williams is the musical equivalent of Howell Jenkins, then get into composing. This music is powerful stuff.

So, what does this have to do with writing?

Well, if music is such a powerful facet of the human experience then we want to tap that. We want to capture the experience that music brings to our lives in a way that shows its power. But how do we do that? One of the strengths of music is that we can experience it as a background to anything else we are experiencing. Working out? Put on some music. Watching a movie? Listen to the soundtrack. Having dinner? Throw on some tunes. Driving down the highway? You get the picture. As an experience, music ties itself to whatever we are doing in a non-invasive way. With few exceptions, we don't listen to music just for the music's sake (this is not always true, and enjoying music on its own can also be a powerful experience). Music is magic funneled into our ears and through every cell in our body that feels the vibration of sound waves.

Unfortunately, when reading a book we don't have sound. Books don't have the sheer aural power that even one single note can bring. We can read the book out loud, but the magic of books is in the words, not the music.

This causes problems for writers in a few ways. First, since we can't draw on the aural strengths of melody, rhythm, syncopation, harmony, disonance, etc., we often rely on lyrics. I mean, lyrics are words right? All I have to do is put the right words in and my reader will be drawn into the song, right? Wrooooong.

In novels, at least the novels of today, we don't write in poetry. Our entire purpose as authors is to draw our readers so far into our words that they simply absorb the experience. Poetry, though writing, has different goals. Poetry is all about imagery, rhythm, and hidden meaning. We can use all of those tools in storytelling, but when we switch from engaging prose to occlusive lyric the sudden shift in style can jar us out of the experience. In my own reading, when I am presented with lyrics or poetry (especially when not directly necessary for the plot or story) I skip it. I jump down to the next line of prose and say, "What next?" Now this is not always the case, but more often than not it is.

So how can we harness the power of music in our stories? How can we limit the jarring effect of lyrics? I've seen it done before, and in the next post I'll posit a few ideas of my own on how we can use music in our books.