‘Music to unite and reunite’

Once a week I host a writer who uses music as part of their creative environment – perhaps to connect with a character, populate a mysterious place, or hold  a moment still to explore its depths. This week’s post is by Denise Kahn @DKpolyglot

Soundtrack by Brahms, Chinese Guqin music, Walter Kirchoff, Wagner, Sacred Spirit – Yeha Noha, throat singers, Nana Mouskouri, Bruce Springsteen,

My very first memory of life was the sound of my mother’s glorious voice singing to me, most likely a Brahms lullaby.   I’m convinced that is why music always has a delicious way of creeping into my writing, and becomes one of the most important elements. I find that music is almost synonymous with being in a state of trance, and that is how I become when I write.  I get very focused, and live the scenes with my characters.  As each mise en scène blooms music envelopes my mind with a melisma, or a melody that already exists.

Peace of Music

I wrote my book Peace of Music for my son, so that he could have the story of his ancestral family.  It became a novel (much more fun that way) as I could take a few liberties, such as the scenes in China’s 13^th century Song (what else?) Dynasty.  One of the scenes is of a blind potter who is commissioned by Quan Yin, his Goddess, to make a special vase, but he doesn’t know how.  Chinese Gugin music was the key to the scene.

…From the back of See-Fu’s house a soft melody rang out.  It came from Lotus Blossom’s room.  Her long delicate fingers plucked her qin.  Her performance was ethereal See-Fu thought, a combination of earth’s gentleness and mysteries of the night.  Every once in a while Lotus Blossom accompanied the harmonics with a song, an ancient love poem.  See-Fu felt his entire body mellow as his daughter’s voice reminded him of birds, and the melody painted the portrait of nature’s beauty where they had collected his ingredients.  He smiled triumphantly and delicately touched the statue of his Goddess.  He now knew.  He remembered Quan Yin’s guidance:  “When the music is played, your heart will be your eyes.”

While about 10 percent is fiction (like China), the rest is fact, and since the characters/family members were opera singers and concert pianists I thought their stories would make a good novel.  My tag line is ‘Spreading the Power of Music through Words’, and in this book music proves how it can unite and keep people together and strong, especially in difficult circumstances.  Throughout the book, music is the glue that keeps this family saga together.  One of my favorite scenes takes place on Christmas Eve during WWI, the true ‘silent night’ of that horrific war.  The only sounds were that of soldiers, from both sides, singing Christmas carols together, all started by two brilliant tenors, one German, the other French.

Split-Second Lifetime

The second book that I published was Split-Second Lifetime.  I was visiting some friends in New Mexico.  We went to see some Native American dancers and I was mesmerized by their throat singing—a very unique form of song.  I did some research, and found that the only other people that sing that way are the indigenous people of Tuva, in eastern Siberia.  I also saw this attractive woman, in jeans and jacket, standing very regal.  As I watched her she suddenly morphed into an elegant mountain lioness.  And then I saw the entire story, frame by frame, as if playing on an old moviola, all of it surrounded by the music in the background.  This is what came out of that moment in time:

The main protagonist (Jebby) is an ethnomusicologist, who roams the world recording indigenous music.  On a plane to her next destination she meets her seat mate (Dodi), who seems to trigger past life memories from the old American Southwest.  As they travel through Uzbekistan, Jebby realizes that in a past lifetime they were man and wife as members of the Hopi tribe. As she encounters some magnificent musicians each one seems to give her a new ‘clue’, or vision, into that past life.

The book is filled with scenes of music and musicians:  Nana Mouskouri at the Royal Albert Hall in London; an Uzbek, with a horrible English accent, trying to imitate Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the USA, while traveling in the middle of a desert; traditional and modern Uzbek music; and even elements of Rumi in a Dervish ceremony.

I journey with the protagonists on their voyage, as they discover the beauty of other cultures and their musical traditions. It is food for my passion and my senses, as it travels down to my fingers on the keyboard.

Denise Kahn spent 20 years in Europe because of her father, who was with the US Diplomatic Corps, and her mother who was an opera singer. She worked mainly as a simultaneous interpreter and translator as she is a linguist and speaks several languages, five of which are fluent. Because of her exposure to people of different nations her writing includes many foreign settings and cultures. She is a proud mother of a gallant Marine who served in Iraq, and among the members of her household is Louie the cat, so named because of his clawing love of Louis XV and XVI furniture, and surely thinks he must have been a fearless Marine in one of his former lives. Her books are here, her website is here and you can find her on Twitter as @DKpolyglot