Comments on: Your Brain on Jazz

by: Cathy Herbert

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 00:05:11 +0000

Very cool, I wonder if anything that “short circuits” the established thought processes might do the same thing. I work a lot with horses, and just having communication that is not language-based is wonderful–it seems to free up the “stuck in a rut” framework. I wonder if so many of the writing boondoggles I get into stem from just following the routine connections. Anything that gets me off that, even for a second, has to be beneficial.

by: Gail Clark

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 18:20:21 +0000

That’s fascinating Therese! My teenage son is a jazz bassist and aspires to major in jazz performance and composition in college. I sort of turned him onto jazz, and then he got in the jazz band in school. He’s very creative, and honestly could just play and listen to music all day long. I’ll have to show him this and see what he thinks.

I’d love to be able to “turn off” some parts of my brain that seem to hinder my writing process because they won’t.shut.up. My inner editor is always on duty as well. Writing something with a black screen where I could not see it sounds like bungee jumping or something to me - scary as heck.

Gail

by: Therese Walsh

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 19:59:17 +0000

Good conversation here, thanks for all the comments. In music lingo, I think it’s probably best to have a key for your song and a general feel for the work before charging into something with your horn held high. (And I think most improvisations start after those basics things are established.) What does that mean for writers? Establish the genre, the tone of the scene and then let fly? Having at least a loose outline for my muse to improvise in is probably the best solution for me…at least for novel-length fiction.

by: Eric

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 18:40:38 +0000

I think it depends on what type of elements we’re talking about as spontaneous. For me spontaneity is not with higher level stuff like plot or over-arching story development, but smaller level things like when I’m writing a scene. “How would this character say this?” or “What would be a believable unfolding for the events of this scene?”

Micro-event stuff and dialogue. Actions & Reactions. Stuff happening on that level is where the spontaneity is for me.

I’ve always had a hard time being spontaneous from a blind drafting standpoint of “Just write and don’t think about anything!” Getting in the zone isn’t just about hammering on the keys for me, it’s about getting in the right rhythmic thought process of laying down the story scene by scene.

Another way to think of it is unpacking your scenes. Nitty gritty of character interactions and events, etc.

by: Kathleen Bolton

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 18:21:02 +0000

I use the Alphasmart to “turn off” the inner critic when I’m starting to hear its chatter too much. I can only see 4 lines in the screen, and it forces me to move forward into the story. After a few minutes, the critic is turned off, and I can let it flow.

The physiological response to the riffing jazz players Therese describes reminds me of The Zone that writers talk about.

by: Eric

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 15:50:57 +0000

I don’t try to shut down the analytical mind. Instead, I let it run loose during my story’s preproduction — the time I spend working on my story before I actually write it.

By fleshing out characters and plotting things out, breaking things into sequences and scenes, I let the analytical part of my mind feast on that process.

When I feel the story is developed enough, letting myself flow with the writing is much easier.

But that’s just me.

by: Lyle

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 14:19:23 +0000

For me, it depends on why I’m writing: is this piece just for me? Is it a rough draft? In those cases, I think “riffing” is very helpful - I can discover things about my story that I wouldn’t have come across were I going about it analytically.

But if I’m revising, polishing something to submit, that’s when I have to step back and let the Inner Editor work. Otherwise it’s all chaos that no one else would ever want to read.

by: Cath

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 13:52:04 +0000

That’s fascinating…now that I think about it, my writing style is not the same for all my writing. My first draft for a piece of flash fiction, or short, short story tends to be written in a flow. Maybe that’s my brain shutting down that analytical/critical part? But then it comes back on when I’m editing/proofreading and says, “What were you thinking????”

Still, I love it when I’m writing in the zone like that.

by: Sean Ashby

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 12:36:13 +0000

I definitely write by “improvisation”, BUT, I still follow a very basic outline. I don’t really refer to the outline while I’m writing, but it’s in the back of my mind.

To me, it’s like a musician deciding beforehand at least what key they’re going to play in, whether they’re going to play a slow song or a fast one, if they’re going to include a piano and horn section or maybe just a bass and drums. After THAT, all the details (the notes, the riffs) are more intuitive and expressive (and often surprising!)