Dear Charlie,
It may surprise you to know that I don’t usually listen to music when I write. I think I am one of those who are not effective in multi-tasking and generally, I can’t concentrate on my writing when I have music in my background. I can’t help but sing along or dance when I listen to music. Not a good idea when I need to write.
I realize though that we always had the music player on every single day while we were still writing for one company a few years ago. So let me clarify that when we were writing those things we wrote about in the office; that is to say, when we were writing 10 to 15 articles each day on lasik surgery or car rentals or that online guide to Disneyland or that guide to dating a Russian girl, when we were writing those kinds of things, I liked to listen to music. I loved listening to songs that make me feel positive and still believing in the beauty of life. I had Jason Mraz, Lighthouse Family, Apo Hiking Society, The Beatles, Lenka, Keane, The Cardigans , Donna Lewis, Bonnie Bailey and I even had Hawaii Five-O in my office writing playlist back then.
But when I need to write, especially when what I need to write is something that I haven’t “written” in my mind, like a topic proposal for an academic paper or a poem, there is I think only one song that I can listen to that calms me and puts me into the zone. It’s Chopin’s Nocturne in E Flat Major Opus 9 Number 2. I learnt about it during piano lessons back in high school.
To me, the song feels like how real love should be: gentle, soulful, comforting, liberating; with playful parts, some suspense and rests only to prepare for passion and invincible certitude. I want the “me” in me to be overpowered by the song when I write so that it will come to a point when that love is the one writing and I am only the typist.
I wonder what song or songs that for you encapsulates what you think real love should be? I’ll be waiting with excitement for your kuwento. I want to know your view of that utopian love and I want to know what song/s you associate with it.
Until that day.
Your friend,
Sharb
P.S. Listen to Chopin’s Nocturne here:
