Introduction - Listening to versus understanding music
Hello there everyone, and welcome to this workshop on musical inspiration! This is an (admittedly very particular :P) topic I’m really passionate about and I’m excited to share it with you :D

A quick notice before we begin: this workshop specifically pertains to music, not the lyrics it may contain. All of the examples that are going to be used are either instrumental or in languages other than English that you (hopefully?) may not know. That is not to say that you cannot use what you learn in this workshop and apply it to music that does have lyrics, but in this case we will be focusing on what can be taken from the music itself and not the words overtop. If you’d like to learn how to take inspiration from lyrics, Zura did a workshop on writing prompts a few sessions ago: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/545597059/

Alright, so now we just have to get one more thing out of the way: how to actively listen. “What?” You say, “Sun, I already know how to listen!” And you would be correct. Listening is something we already do naturally—it isn’t really something we think about consciously. However, it is still something we can do with intent, and this is what active listening is: concentrating while listening, focusing on trying to understand what the different elements of the music are that make it come together. When we pay attention to music instead of putting it on in the background, we allow ourselves to be swept up in the emotions the composer and performers wanted us to feel when they composed/performed the piece; this is where the inspiration comes from :D Consider skimming an article while thinking about your homework versus being immersed in a good book—this is similar to the difference between listening passively and listening actively.

There are a couple of ways to make it easier to pay attention while you’re listening: good headphones are very helpful, as is allowing yourself to get up and walk as you’re listening if that’s what you feel like doing. You can listen to a piece of music as many times as you need to get a good grasp on what you think is happening. The most important things you can do are relax, not do anything else while you listen, and put aside other things on your mind so it won’t drift. Other than that, you just wait for the music to connect, and if it doesn’t, that’s okay! Not every piece in the world is going to make you feel or imagine something, and not every piece in the world is going to be something you enjoy or consider good.

And don’t worry, no musical knowledge is needed to actually understand and participate in this workshop. You won’t have to answer things like “those two notes sounded discordant/off together, why might the composer have done that?” only “I wonder what that could be in my writing?”

With that, let’s get started! The best way to learn is through practice, after all; all links are Scratch-safe and remain on-site. Once again headphones are highly recommended, and with that crank up the volume (but not too much) and LET US BEGIN :DDD

Part 1 - Mood
Music is a very similar art form to writing in that due to its long history, many conventions, tricks, and rules of thumb have been established over the years. As with writing some are more noticeable than others, and many of them are intuitive. The feelings and mood of a piece of music you can use in your writing are caused by a number of these conventions composers use, which you can learn to recognize if you listen carefully to enough music. For now though, we’re starting simple! Nothing too crazy to imagine here yet, just a quick exercise to get you thinking :D

“Ilus Ta Ei Ole” (4:23 with a second song after) translates to “It is Not Beautiful”. The music, written by Pärt Uusberg, is set to a poem in Estonian by Juhan Liiv, wherein the speaker laments that Estonia is boring and gives reasons as to its ordinariness until they eventually realize that even in its simplicity Estonia can be beautiful.

Can you pinpoint the moment the poet changes their mind? What are the two different moods of the piece, and if you were to write something based on this, how could you incorporate this change into your writing? You don’t actually have to write anything, just providing some food for thought :P

(A heads up that at 4:23 the video suddenly launches into “Fire”, a very different piece, so watch your headphone volume at that time— You can keep watching “Fire” if you’d like, but this is just focusing on “Ilus Ta Ei Ole”)

Part 2 - Tone
Adding on to what we heard in the above, we’re going to listen to a slightly different change this time: that of tone. As in writing, musically tone and mood are similar but still separate: whereas mood comes from the composer and the music itself, tone is also affected by the musical choices of the performers: where to be loud, where to be soft, the arrangement, etc. Imagine the same piece of music played in two different ways: one where it’s played by an organ and one where it’s played by a guitar. Both pieces may be, say, sad, but how they are sad and your reaction is going to be very different!

I’m not giving you any context for “Förklaring” (3:26) this time, but the poem by Karin Boye is in Swedish with a translation by David McDuff if you’d like to look up the words after :)

For now, listen: there is a lone soloist singing their thoughts to the audience. What do you think they are saying? What do you think this intimacy adds to the message?

How does the tone change when the rest of the choir comes in? What could you do with this shift?

Part 3 - Structure
It’s not just the feelings that define music, but its structure; music is all about tension and then releasing it, building expectations and then either subverting them or paying them off. (Whoa that sounds like writing :000)

Over the years composers have figured out some basic patterns that sound nice, so many of the conventions that music has built up over the years are structural. This way music ebbs and flows is a great source of inspiration when you’re not quite sure how to plan out a story: does the piece grow to a big climax? Start with a bang and then fade out into the aftermath? Does the same theme/motif pop up throughout? Does it follow an ABA structure where the beginning is repeated? Seemingly jump between different sections disjointedly?

All of these you could work into a story to give it an interesting structure, whether you're playing with chronology or plot or format.

“Apotheosis” (7:06), by Austin Wintory, is from the video game Journey. No more context :) Listen, go— once you’re heard the whole thing, how could have this been used in the game? What kind of story is this telling?

Part 4 - Details
In contrast to the above, we can also take small details as inspiration! Music has lots of room for secrets due its many layers, and in paying attention to the little sounds that creep in every now and then we can take these embellishments and turn them into motifs or symbols or stylistic choices! Some pieces are made up of many of these touches layered together to get a chaotic and full sound, where it always feels like something is going on.

“Smoke Rising Like Lifted Hands” (1:06) by The Oh Hellos is a great example: this short little song uses up all of its minute to cram in as many little embellishments on top of each other as possible, and the result is something that feels full even as it slowly grows in volume. Listen as it grows: what are the little twinkling chimes? The synth droning in the background? What could you do with the gradual inclusion of voices, of harmony?

If you’re feeling particularly imaginative, so much is happening that you can get a whole scene from this: close your eyes as you’re listening. What do you see?

Part 5 - Putting it all together!
Now that you have some aspects of music you can use, you can go out and apply this to any piece of music that catches your fancy! It doesn’t have to be choral, though now looking at the music I chose for this I realize I like choral music a lot oops lmao~

Keep in mind that these are things you can also mix and match; it is perfectly reasonable to take inspiration from only one or two facets of a piece of music and then build characters and a story on top of that, or if you’re lucky you can also happen upon a piece of music that is so inspirational you get a full novel from it :P

Either way, go out into the world and listen! There is so much music out there to take inspiration from and it’s all beautiful :D

If you’re not quite familiar with international/instrumental music, here are some good places to start:

• Sa Kanyang Paglalayag - Ily Matthew Maniano
  
• Cassini: The Grand Finale - Sleeping at Last
  
• Give Us Childhood/ كورال روح الشرق - René Bandali + George Yammine arr. Fadi Al Husseini
  
• A Kindling, of Sorts - The Oh Hellos
  
• 14.3 Billion Years - Andrew Prahlow (from the Outer Wilds OST)
  
• Der Erlkönig - Franz Schubert (yes I know ‘classical music boring’ it’s not boring I promise)
  

(Also if you're still here please no matter what drop what you're doing right now and go listen to the 10 year anniversary Journey album Traveler: A Journey Symphony aksjdfhkdsajlkdsahfhfds it's so good LKSADJHFKDSAHFLKJDSAHF)

okay I've never done this so imma do it this once: first! okay bye.

Sunclaw68 wrote:

14.3 Billion Years - Andrew Prahlow (from the Outer Wilds OST)

WHAT IS THIS IT MADE ME CRY I LOVE IT

3rd!

oh- and also, can something like this be used?

4th

I know exactly what I’m going to do >

6th?

I love this workshop, by the way!

7th, I think….

Also I don't understand what the heck I'm supposed to do xD I need major help.

Do we have to use a out of language song or instrumental?

can we use lo-fi music?

Further music recommendations for those who need it:

Instrument of Surrender - Sea Power (From the Disco Elysium OST)
Gris Part 2 - Berlinist (From the Gris OST)
City of Tears - Christopher Larkin (From the Hollow Knight OST)
No Escape - Darren Korb (From the Hades OST)
Scattered and Lost - Lena Raine (From the Celeste OST)
Main Theme - Yasunori Nishiki (From the Octopath Traveler OST)
Main Theme (Beta) - J.J. Ipsen (From the Planet Zoo Beta Soundtrack)
Medley of the Outer Wilds OST - Andrew Prahlow arr. Mattymattykk
Floral Fury - Kristofer Maddigan (From the Cuphead OST)
Descent - Austin Wintory (From the 10th Anniversary Journey Symphony)
Katamari Nah-Nah - Yuu Miyake (From the Katamari Damacy OST)
^ That is the best one fight me /j

To me these don't really make me imagine stuff like the ones that are in the workshop, but I also have no idea what your brain is like lmao so let me know if nothing clicks once you've listened to them all the way through

this is genius

GREAT JOB <333

Anyone else really really confused-

Are we required to listen to these songs? Bc even though they are converted to scratch my mom has blocked all YouTube to my devices through the Wi-Fi