When I was writing a lot back in high school and college, I required COMPLETE SILENCE to concentrate. I always marveled at the other kids who could compose coherent sentences with music blaring or the TV prattling. Come to think of it, when I first learned to drive I required the same kind of preternatural tranquility. Decades later now, and I'm the exact opposite. I can't write without mood music (all instrumental, no singing, thank you), and even a milk-run to Discount Drug Mart is accompanied by bumper-to-bumper jazz music, the latest audio book or a Great Course from the Teaching Company.
Toiling at my work desk all week, I find the surrounding drone of worker bees stultifying. It's not that they're talking, per se; it's that their banter is so mind-numbingly banal. Yeah, I'm a kind of dick when it comes to stuff like that. If you have something to say about Dancing With the Stars or the latest Cleveland sports debacle, please at least try to make your take somewhat fresh. I don't expect everyone to be Dennis Miller or Sarah Silverman, but at least make some effort. Otherwise, I'll tune you out and keep my own counsel. Sorry. It's like I just said. I'm kind of a dick like that.
Speaking of being a dick, I whistle. (Yeah, I'm that guy.) Not "Yankee Doodle" or the theme from The Andy Griffith Show, but jazz solos or entire symphonic movements I've subconsciously memorized. In my defense, I'm not even aware I'm doing it. My lips just transmit the background music eternally playing in my mind. People generally think I'm happy when they hear me whistle. But actually, I whistle when I'm stressed or preoccupied with a problem or puzzle. When I'm actually happy, I tend to be either laughing or asleep.
Anyone who reads Cat & Cat will know exactly what I was listening to as I wrote each chapter in Chris Telamon's voice. Tons of Clifford Brown, Fats Navarro, Don Ellis, Gerry Mulligan, Buddy Rich & the Gerald Wilson Orchestra. And absolutely no Miles Davis. For the Ryan Leach chapters, I changed it up and piped in the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Big Sam's Funky nation and a lot of instrumental blues-rock. My dream is to one day record an audio version of Cat & Cat with soft music soundtrack to accent some key passages.
These days, as I write the new novel about Civil War reenactors, my soundtrack is a solid assortment of period tunes (Lorena, Tenting Tonight, Kingdom Coming, etc.), bluegrass, contra-dance along with heaping helpings of Gaelic music. For anyone interested in setting an 1860s or down-home fiddle vibe, you can't go wrong with Sarah Wilfong, The Second Carolina String Band, Martin Simpson, Mithril, Jenna Reid, Alasdair Fraser and Jay & Molly Ungar. By now, I've become so attuned to capturing the correct mood music that I literally can't write a word until I've found it. Which is a far cry from the kid who needed complete silence to pound out one word.
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