What's the Best Soundtrack for your Writing?

I'm not talking about what music would play best behind the movie version of your story. I'm talking about what you listen to while you write. Of course everyone will have different tastes and different answers, but I'd like to present a few styles you may not have considered.

First off, I'll say that I usually prefer music without lyrics. It does me no good to occupy the language portion of my brain while I'm trying to generate words. If the music is in a foreign language, like the Amadou and Mariam I'm listening to right now, that's usually okay because my brain doesn't even try to translate.

One exception to my 'no lyrics' rule is that if I'm really tired and need a boost I'll put on something I can dance to – literally. I dance for a song or two, get my blood pumping and then sit down to write. And no, I can't dance for squat, but I do it anyway. It's fun, and will sometimes keep you working that little bit longer when you've already had a rough day at work and are trying to churn out a few hundred more words before turning in.

Movie and video game soundtracks make excellent writing music. It's best if you can find a soundtrack that suits the mood of the scene you're working on. Sometimes a soundtrack's mood will swing wildly because of a character turn or a quirky scene. Consider making a playlist and editing out anything that might bounce you out of the creative writing mood you're trying to set. Video game soundtracks are less likely to have such a big swing because the play of most games is fairly consistent. If the game has a dramatic story, the swings of emotion usually happen in the cut scenes, not in the main soundtrack.

Classical music is a close cousin to movie soundtracks. It's not my personal favorite, but I know some people swear by it.

One of my favorite types of music for writing is drumming and percussion. No flutes or high pitched singing for me, please. Just pure drumming. Drum circle with strong djembe influence is some of my favorite. There are drumming styles from all over the world to choose from. This type of music, usually with the volume fairly low, provides a nice motivational rhythm that keeps me moving forward. If you want specific recommendations here, feel free to ask in the comments.

If I need something that feels modern and upbeat, I often turn to Afro-pop. It falls in the same vein as US rock and blues without those annoying English lyrics that block my brain. Again, there's a whole planet's worth of pop to choose from. You need to find what suits you best.

Of course, that's the biggest answer of all. You have to do what's right for you. If blasting speed metal at top volume gets your creative juices flowing, by all means go for it. But I think it's worth it to try different things to see how you, and your writing, respond. If you have a used music store in your neighborhood, by all means, check out their cheap bin or the international section. If you're lucky enough to live in a city with an Amoeba Music, you're golden.

Whatever music you choose - Rock On and Happy Writing!

Note: On June 30th and July 1st, I'm going to be at Vandenberg Air Force Base to cover the launch of NASA¹s Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2). I will be tweeting everything live. If you're interested, you can follow me on Twitter @TrinaMPhillips.

Second Note: The advanced writer's workshop I'm attending, Taos Toolbox, runs from July 6th -19th. I'll tweet interesting tidbits from there as often as I can, depending on the workload.

Writing music: Zoe Keating (reposted and updated)

I was saddened to hear last week that the husband of Zoe Keating, one of my all-time favorite musicians, has been diagnosed with late-stage metastatic cancer. They have health insurance, but apparently it does not cover nearly enough of the very, very expensive treatment.

And to make matters worse, apparently the hospital didn't send Blue Cross the proper paperwork, so Blue Cross sent her family a letter saying, "Coverage for the requested service is denied because the service does not meet the criteria for “medical necessity” under your description of benefits...  we cannot approve your hospital stay for cancer. We do not have enough facts to show that it was medically necessary." Later, when talking to a representative, Zoe learned that apparently this is the form letter they send out when they don't get proper paperwork from the hospital detailing what care was provided/needed. Wait, what? The letter is not even a "Sorry, we need more info before we can cover." It's instead 'YOU ARE DENIED." Yeah, Blue Cross (who is my insurance company), you might want to work on that wording.

So! If you are in the mood to acquire some great cello music, now would be a good time. Here is the link to Zoe's Bandcamp page. She doesn't have a straight donations page at the moment, but bandcamp allows you to pay any amount over the asking price for an album. You could also buy Zoe's music on ITunes, but she gets a greater percentage of the cost of the album if you go through bandcamp.

Here is my original post.

*****

For my last music post, I talked about a group whose music I used to create a dark, atmospheric mood for writing. But this time, I’ll switch to music that still has dark undercurrents, but is also lovely and even hopeful at points. At least, that’s how I hear it.

I first came across Zoe Keating many years ago when she was the opening act for Imogen Heap. One woman and her cello seemed an odd opening for an electronica artist, but I was almost immediately transfixed. I desperately wished for a seat so I could close my eyes and focus on the sound, rather than the jostle of other concert-goers and the fact that I’d stupidly worn heels to a standing-only concert. In any case, I've been hooked ever since.

(Permission through Zoe's flicker album; shared under a partial license, as long as I attribute the work to its original source - flicker album here). 

The cello is one of my favorite solo instruments (my other favorite is the oboe, though it’s harder to find solo oboe music). Zoe creates gorgeous, layered compositions, so it sounds like it's an entire symphony playing. It's hard to explain, so just listen to some of the music (thank you, Zoe Keating's official Soundcloud!)

  

EXURGENCY 

Legions (War)

Here's a live performance:

I listen to Zoe's music when I need inspiration, or in writing any bittersweet passage. I listened to Fern continuously when writing the last chapter of my novel, Graveyard.

You can also hear a longer selection of her music on her Soundcloud page.

Take a listen, and have a lovely summer evening.

Christmas Bells are Ringing

Merry Christmas everyone!!!  It is Christmas Eve, and like everyone else who celebrates this holiday, I’ve got a million things to get done before tomorrow.  So this is going to be a quick post. 

Many times in writing, I try really hard to make my words hit those emotional chords.  I believe that stories speak to us through emotional truths.  I know that I struggle immensely to get the right emotion on the page.  It is extremely challenging.

I’m sure that writing a song is far more complicated than I can imagine (writing a story sure was), but writing is just words and a song is words and music.  The music alone can tap into our emotions and make us feel, but combine that moving music with strong lyrics and the song can create a powerful emotional experience that words alone cannot do.

I love music, especially Christmas music.  Nothing else can bring the spirit of the season into my home like Christmas carols.  I love so many of the Christmas songs, and it is hard to find one that I can't at least sing a bar of, so it was touch to narrow this down, but here are my top four favorite Christmas songs.  I hope they will bring the spirit of Christmas into your home.

My favorite secular Christmas Carols:

1.  Carol of the Bells

 

2.  The Christmas Song (Chestnuts roasting on an open fire)

 And because I am a Christian, my favorite religious Christmas Carols:

1.  O Holy Night

 

 

2.  What Child is This

 

To me, these songs just capture the spirit and meaning of Christmas. 

What are your favorite Christmas Carols?

~MaryAnn

Writing music: Ludovico Einaudi edition

I've talked a lot about what music I love to listen to while writing. Overall, the music I've discussed has been pretty dark - not surprising, because I mostly write dark fantasy or horror. But every so often, I do need to write a happy scene, or even a peaceful one. For those times, my favorite artist by far is Ludovico Einaudi.

I'm not generally much of a fan of solo classical piano music. I suppose it can sometimes seem very jarring to me (see previously discussed dislike of baroque music), or sometimes like nothing more than a display of skill. I'm sure it doesn't help that my musical brain is completely lacking, so I can't properly appreciate skilled playing (this may also be why I'm not a huge fan of instrumental jazz).

Okay, I'm wandering off topic. It's probably because I've spent the past two days doing nothing but filing at work. It's amazing how much doing mindless tasks like that completely kills your mental faculties.

Anyway! Music. I could keep trying to explain why I love Ludovico Einaudi's music, or I could just put in a sample for you.



Divenere is my favorite album of his by far (the album art above and below are from his Best Of CD). It's 100 percent lovely and hopeful and melodic. Some tracks are solo piano, but others have strings as well, as does the above track.



Who knew Mondays could sound so nice?


I Giorni is another lovely piano track:


But one of the biggest contributions that Einaudi has had to my writing is that he is responsible for one of my two Inspiration Tracks. My Inspiration Tracks are for those nights when I'm feeling a little down. When I'm not quite in the mood for writing. When I need to get a bit pumped up for being creative, but not in an Eye of the Tiger or Chariots of Fire way.  For those moments, this song is perfect:


(The second of the two songs is by Zoe Keating, previously featured on one of my writing music posts, and her song "Escape Artist.")

What kind of piano music do you like best, and what are the songs that help you get started writing?

Four Chords and Seven Basic Plots

I remember being surprised when I learn about Christopher Booker’s theory that every story fits into one of seven basic plots.  It seemed to me that there was such a variety of stories out there.  How could they all be reduced to seven basic plots?  And as an aspiring writer who is constantly bombarded by the idea that agents and publishers are looking for something original, the idea that every story ever written fits into one of these seven patterns is a bit disheartening.  How many original stories can come from seven basic plots?

Maybe a lot more than you would think.

My husband showed me this YouTube video a few weeks ago by a group called The Axis of Awesome, a comedy band.  In the video, they showed how all the greatest hits in the past forty years are based on the same four chords, and by repeating those four chords, you can sing almost any pop song ever written.  I found the whole thing fascinating because a lot of the songs that I knew were really so different from each other even though they all used the same basic four chords.

So below are two of the Axis of Awesome’s four chords YouTube videos.  In the first one, they discuss what a four chord song is and list all the titles of the songs they used while playing them.  The second one is their music video which is just funny.  I will give a warning that there is some strong language (very little actually), but don’t let that keep you from watching it.  It is pretty funny and also amazing to see how all these songs use the same four chords.

I don’t know anything about composing music, so link here to someone more knowledgeable to explain why those four chords are so magical if you’re curious.  The above link talks about how the four chords is just one aspect of a song, the harmony, but music contains so many other elements like “melody, rhythm, tempo, meter, dynamics, articulation, and timbre.”  Maybe I’m over-estimating a bit, but I think by tweaking other variables there may be an infinite number of songs that can be composed based on these four chords.

I’m sure you can see where I’m going here.  Stories also have a lot more aspects to them then plot.  There is characters, setting, tone, style, theme, conflict, etc.  I think you could take one of these seven basic plots and by changing the other story variables come up with an infinite number of stories. 

I’m not really sure if every story can be boiled down to one of Booker’s seven basic plots, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they could.  I believe all stories have familiar patterns in them and part of becoming a good story teller is getting a feel either consciously or subconsciously for those patterns.  For some reason, maybe it is because they are somewhat familiar, we are drawn to those patterns.

Maybe that is the same with the four chord songs, that there is a familiar pattern there that we find so appealing.  Maybe what we want from stories and songs and art in general is something familiar and surprising at the same time.

Happy writing and Happy New Year’s.

~MaryAnn

Writing music: Philip Glass

The term ‘background music’ can carry some negative connotations with it. Forgettable music, uninteresting music, something to put in the background to wash away the silence. But for me, background music for writing is something different. As I probably mention on every one of those posts that I do, I select my music to create a mood. If I ever need to hold a mood for writing dark fantasy without interruption, it’s Philip Glass that I choose, hands down.

I'm not even really sure how to describe his music; I've never been much of one for understanding musical theory. I can tell you there are lots of arpeggios, and that the music seems to shift subtly and quietly between themes. I posted another one of his pieces, a collaboration with Ravi Shankar, quite a few months ago.

Picking the videos was hard, because I don’t have favorite Philip Glass songs, I have favorite albums.

I particularly enjoy the textures of his soundtrack to the Naqoyqatsi documentary.  I cannot, however, listen to the title track without snickering. The first time I heard those voices intoning “NAQOYQATSI” with solemn menace, I almost choked on my toothbrush.

Okay, after that introduction, I probably have to add that song:

 Silly vocal tracks aside, here's another favorite from the album:

 Another favorite album is his Symphony #3 as performed  by the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra. And yes, all of these tracks are incredibly lengthy, but some of his shorter ones don't do the scope of his work justice.

If you prefer piano music: 

What's your favorite background music?

Fun fact: Philip Glass is cousin to Ira Glass of This American Life fame (best radio show ever, IMO) 

Mood music: Zoe Keating edition

For my last music post, I talked about a group whose music I used to create a dark, atmospheric mood for writing. But this time, I’ll switch to music that still has dark undercurrents, but is also lovely and even hopeful at points. At least, that’s how I hear it.

I first came across Zoe Keating many years ago when she was the opening act for Imogen Heap. One woman and her cello seemed an odd opening for an electronica artist, but I was almost immediately transfixed. I desperately wished for a seat so I could close my eyes and focus on the sound, rather than the jostle of other concert-goers and the fact that I’d stupidly worn heels to a standing-only concert. In any case, I've been hooked ever since.

(Permission through Zoe's flicker album; shared under a partial license, as long as I attribute the work to its original source - flicker album here). 

The cello is one of my favorite solo instruments (my other favorite is the oboe, though it’s harder to find solo oboe music). Zoe creates gorgeous, layered compositions, so it sounds like it's an entire symphony playing. It's hard to explain, so just listen to some of the music (thank you, Zoe Keating's official Soundcloud!)

  

EXURGENCY 

Legions (War)

Here's a live performance:

I listen to Zoe's music when I need inspiration, or in writing any bittersweet passage. I listened to Fern continuously when writing the last chapter of my novel, Graveyard.

You can also hear a longer selection of her music on her Soundcloud page.

Take a listen, and have a lovely summer evening.

But is it the future of publishing?

I’m taking a short break from the dark fiction series for a couple of weeks, in part because I’m out of town next week, and in part because what I want to talk about today has something of a deadline.

Before I get to the main topic of the post, a few things.

1) Guess what I did on Tuesday night.

I met Sarah.

Yes, our Sarah. She was down in San Diego on vacation with family and she took a night away to meet me for coffee. We talked books and writing the entire time. It was fantastic, and she’s just as sweet and wonderful as in person as online.

So that’s two Prosers I met in two months. Anyone else want to come to San Diego? :D The weather’s gorgeous, and we have zoos and delicious bakeries……

2) NPR is running a poll of the top 100 YA books of all time. They have a list of about 250 up on their website (which seems like not that many to me). There are a few glaring omissions (discussed here), but a few good ones. Some of the easiest votes for me were The Last Unicorn, Howl’s Moving Castle, the Song of the Lioness series, To Kill a Mockingbird, the Dark is Rising series, and the Abhorsen series.

  

On to the main topic!

Kickstarter

In case you haven’t heard, kickstarter is a crowd-funding source. Basically, you put together a project, and ask people for money in exchange for rewards.

For example, take this project I discovered today. The organizers want to launch a satellite into space – with 100 student science projects on board. Each project has to fit in a ping pong ball. The project is free for students. I think it’s an amazing thing, for a child to know that something of theirs has been to space, and to see the results of that experiment.

If you want to support the project, you pick a pledge level, anywhere from $1 to $3,500. For pledge levels of $10 and above, you get a reward – for $10, for example, you get to send a business card message into space. For $50, you get a photograph of your name (with others, on a business card), in space. I think that’s worth $50, but I need to buy groceries, so it’s not happening.

Kickstarter works wonderfully for some types of projects. For music, it’s allowing some musicians to raise funding for creating albums and promotion. Amanda Palmer raised over a million dollars for her upcoming album. Insane, no? With so much music going online and out of record stores, it makes sense that new sources of funding could become very popular for music.

So could this apply to the publishing industry? There are some similarities – writers and musicians can put their work up for free (or a small price) on the internet, but have to contend with everyone else who’s doing the same thing. I think Kickstarter could be a great thing for an author who’s self-published a few books and has gained a loyal following, but who needs an advertising budget to make it to the next level.

There are caveats, of course. With Kickstarter, if you don’t reach 100 percent of your funding goal, you get no money. If you don’t have enough supporters, or you ask for too much money, you might lose it all. And you’re competing against a whole other group of people who are looking to catch the eyes of funders.

One brand new middle grade writer was wildly successful with his project. I forgot to back it in time, but I hope I can find a few of the books once they're finished. 

From the description of the project:

11 year old Ada has a problem: her governess, Miss Coverlet, has quit her job to go get married (a dumb idea if ever there was one, if you ask Ada) and her new tutor Percy ("Peebs") is a total drip. She'd rather be left to her own devices – literally – inventing things and solving math problems and ignoring people altogether.

She's also forced to study alongside the imaginative girlie-girl Mary, who's always going on about romance and exotic travels. Fortunately, Mary's appetite for adventure leads her to propose the two girls open a detective agency, and when an heiress shows up with a case about a missing diamond, it's the perfect puzzle to coax Ada out of her shell.

This is the made up story about two very real girls – Ada, the world's first computer programmer, and Mary, the world's first science fiction author – caught up in a steampunk world of hot-air balloons and steam engines, jewel thieves and mechanical contraptions. For readers 8-12.

Doesn't that sound lovely?


The author has a page on his blog giving tips on successful Kickstarter projects. 

I'm also excited about this project.

I've wanted to be a part of Clockwork Phoenix for a long time (it's edited by Mike Allen!), but I never seem to have a story ready when the anthology opens. The other things I love about this project is that whatever they make over their goal goes toward paying the authors pro rates.

Mostly, I love Kickstarter because it's a wonderful feeling to back talented creators and scientists and artists. Maybe I would do something like this someday, but it's a long way off so far.

What do you think? Do you like the idea of crowdsourcing your next novel?

Mood music: Delerium edition

I’ve blogged before about how music can be very helpful to me for creating a particular mood. I always listen to music when I write, but there are certain songs that are much more active in my creative process. This is especially important for horror stories. I’m not exactly going around all day thinking dark thoughts (except when someone forces me to listen to Nickelback).

My favorite group for dark, inspiring music is Delerium. Yes, that’s how it’s spelled.  Delerium got its start in the late 1980s, and released seven albums just in the 1990s. You might have heard their song “Silence” with Sarah McLachlan. It was all over the radio in the late 1990s.

"Silence" from Karma 

Unfortunately, after 2000, they took a sharp veer toward pop. Their latest releases have sounded like standard pop with a slight new age tinge.

Wikipedia describes their early sound as “dark ethereal ambient trance and voiceless industrial soundscapes.”  I love the imagery of the latter phrase, like dark skies over cement factories and identical-looking workers with tape forever over their mouths.

In any case, here are a few of my favorite tracks for creating a proper horror-writing mood.

"Inside the Chamber" from Faces, Forms and Illusions

"Tundra" from Stone Towers

Delerium also released a double CD with a more science fiction /space vibe.  The tracks were inspired by 2001: a Space Odyssey, and some lines from the movie are in a few of the songs.  One of my favorites is Hypoxia.

Two of Delerium’s more upbeat CDs, before the too-commercial turn, became the soundtrack to my cross-country trips.  They were usually the first things I put on as I set out, before the sun rose.  Songs like Consensual Worlds are now the epitome of night driving for me.

 Consensual Worlds, from Semantic Spaces

Whew, that's a lot of videos - and believe me, this is me holding myself back. 

Unfortunately, some of Delerium's earlier CDs are near impossible to find these days.  On ITunes, Archives I and II are a collection of some of their earlier songs. For anyone looking for less dark and more upbeat trance music, I highly recommend Semantic Spaces and Karma. Those albums also feature an excellent collection of female vocals (anything with Kristy Thirsk is a must).  And, of course, this song, which is one of my top three favorite songs of all time.

"Euphoria (Firefly)" from  Karma

What songs do you listen to in order to create a dark  - or a light - mood for writing?

Reining in a scattered mind

I spent all day yesterday at a meeting/symposium thing for work.  As I sat through the morning lecture, trying not to squirm, and then through the afternoon discussions, trying to keep my mind from drifting away from a very important conversation, I thought again about focus. I've been meaning to write about it ever since Sarah's excellent post on the subject. Now that I look at it again, we do have a lot of similar coping mechanisms, even if the details differ.

One of the most interesting things I learned from Sarah's post was that ADD is in part not having enough stimulation to the brain. I've been thinking about it, and maybe my mind works that way a tiny bit. I often like to play minesweeper while watching tv because I get too twitchy otherwise, and I swear, if I could do cross-stitch or play Tetris during meetings, I would be a lot happier – and I'd absorb a LOT more. But alas, that sort of thing is frowned upon at work, so I resort to drawing endless spirals on my notepad and trying not to squirm.  

Here are the coping skills I've gathered throughout the years.

1) Routine and tradition

Having a set schedule definitely benefits a scattered mind like mine. My ideal pre-writing routine is to make a cup of tea and sit outside on my backyard patio for a few minutes thinking about what I'm going to work on that night.  Alas, there's this funny disconnect in my mind so that I somehow believe that routine takes up too much time. Of course, when I don't utilize my routine, I end up spending ten plus minutes playing on the internet, assuring myself that I'll get started any second now.

2) Stopping to take a deep breath.

Even once I've got my bottom on the couch and my hands on the keyboard, I still can freeze up searching for that ever-elusive moment of flow. Sometimes it works just to be stubborn and forge on putting words, any words, on the page.

But sometimes I need to stop, take a deep breath, and take my eyes off the computer. To remind myself of the grand scheme of the story, or maybe to realize it's time to stop beating the poor scene to death and move on. Sometimes it helps to visualize the scene I’m supposed to be writing, to go through it in my head like I'm watching a movie. It's actually kind of fun, and I end up with details to add to the scene that I'd not conceived of before.

(Does anyone else like to imagine the movie trailers for their stories, or is it just me?)

3) Holding myself accountable for distraction.

I went poking around the web a month or so ago looking for ideas on how to improve focus. One tip I found was to take a small piece of paper and set it next to my working area. Every time my mind wanders or drops out of focus, I draw an 'x' on the piece of paper.

Seems rather obvious, right? But I was actually surprised how well it worked. Not only did it make me aware of how often my mind wandered (lots of x's on the paper...), but it also held me accountable for it. The piece of paper gives me something concrete to focus on, something to shoot for, and maybe that's what I needed.

4) Music. 

I have to have music in the background at all times. But unlike Sarah, I can't stand Baroque. I have an active hatred of it, as a matter of fact. If I knew anything at all about musical theory, I could probably say something intelligent about structure and composition. All I can say is there's something about it that's profoundly irritating. Maybe it's too sprightly.  Maybe it's the… is rhythm the right word? No, but there's a rhythm-type-thing that bothers me the most about Baroque.

And every time I think about Baroque, I think of this. Thanks a lot, Disney.

Anyway, I much prefer Romantic era music, like Tchaikovsky, or Debussy, or Dvorak. I also love modern composers, like Clint Mansell and Philip Glass. For me, the best music for writing can help me get into the mood of the story I'm writing. I have a whole slew of industrial/darkwave music for when I'm writing horror or dark fantasy.

And then there are some songs that are inspiration on their own, either because they invoke a picture I like, or a hopeful or dreamy mood. Or sometimes, because they're just so amazing inspires me to create something of my own. 

Do any of you have any songs like that, that make you want to create?

Here's one of my favorites, a collaboration between modernist composer Philip Glass and sitar virtuoso Ravi Shankar:

A Chant Sublime

Half my living room is consumed by a grand piano, which my parents bought when I was 13. The house is too small for this behemoth instrument and I know I should sell it, but I can’t bring myself to. I hardly ever play, but every year, on December 1st, I pull out a book of carols.

Every song is special for its own reasons. I remember my first book of carols, with water-color illustrations on each facing page. "Good King Wenceslas" was the easiest to sight-read, and so I played it over and over. To this day I have no idea what that song is about.

I remember playing through "Lo How a Rose E’er Blooming" and falling in love with the simple melody. My father came into the room, singing the bass line of the four-part harmony.

My sister and I used to sit at the piano and sing "Angels we Have Heard on High" over and over and over again, trying to harmonize, trying to make our Glo-o-o-o-o-o-rias operatic. She has a voice that can be shared in public and I don’t, but I like to think that together we were lovely.

I remember Christmas Eve, joining my father in a living room lit only by the multi-colored lights on the tree, listening to The Messiah.

I remember singing "Oh Come All Ye Faithful" as we marched down the stairs—in ascending order of age—on Christmas morning. Our family was kooky, but a sweet kind of kooky. (After years teasing me mercilessly about this tradition, my husband was the one to start singing at the top of the stairs  the first time we spent Christmas morning in our own house.)

I remember opening presents and listening to the Nine Lessons and Carols broadcast from King’s College in England. "Once in Royal David’s City" always begins with a boy’s solo.  My father told me that the boys never knew which one would sing until the last second; that way the chosen singer wouldn’t crumple from nerves.

I remember when my children were babies, and I realized how many Christmas carols are just lullabies in disguise. I remember the first Christmas that I was the grown-up in my own darkened living room, lit with a rainbow of lights from my own tree, and how I sat holding a tow-headed infant and nursed and rocked and sang carol after carol.

Last year my younger one demanded "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" every night at bedtime. I thought it would stop after the holiday, but we’re going on 380-ish days and counting.

I play through all these songs and more on my living-room-sized piano. I flip through and focus on the easy ones, since I'm out of practice. I don’t usually play a second verse, except for one song that I have to play five times through. I can’t help it. I can’t stop at one verse. This song has to be sung to the end, even if the singing is in my head because my voice doesn't have much range.

On Christmas Day in 1864, in the midst of a brutal war, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was not feeling the holiday spirit. He’d lost his wife in a fire three years earlier, in which he was also badly burned. Then the Civil War broke out. His son joined the Union against his wishes. At the end of November, 1864, Charles Longfellow was severely wounded at the Battle of Mine Run in Virginia.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Hearing the bells on December 25, certain his son was going to die*, Longfellow did what any writer would do: He channeled his despair into a poem, titled "Christmas Bells." The poem is longer and much more specific to the Civil War than what we sing today. Here is a link to the text.

I like knowing this history, knowing that Longfellow found hope in the face of overwhelming grief. That's part of the gift of writing. Often I find that something good starts to emerge as I get all the bad stuff down on paper; a poem taking shape can transform sadness into beauty almost on its own. 

The holidays are supposed to be joyful, but they also bring depression for a lot of people. My holiday blues usually take the form of wishing I could hold a baby in my arms again, or missing the magic of childhood and feeling overwhelmed with grown-up things to do. Longfellow’s words comfort me every year, reminding me that there is always hope to be found in your own heart, no matter how deeply buried it may seem.

Here's a link to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing my favorite carol. The opening melody is by John Baptiste Calkin. That's the one I play, and it's the one I love best:

I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day

Their old familiar carols play,

And wild and sweet the words repeat

Of peace on earth, good will to men.

I thought how, as the day had come,

The belfries of all Christendom

Had rolled along the unbroken song

Of peace on earth, good will to men.

And in despair I bowed my head:

"There is no peace on earth," I said,

"For hate is strong and mocks the song

Of peace on earth, good will to men."

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:

"God is not dead, nor doth he sleep;

The wrong shall fail, the right prevail,

With peace on earth, good will to men."

Till, ringing singing, on its way,

The world revolved from night to day,

A voice, a chime, a chant sublime,

Of peace on earth, good will to men!

Have a wonderful holiday!

~Sarah

*Charles Longfellow did recover from his injuries and went on to travel the world.