Music for creative writing

Playing instrumental tracks as children write will free their minds to wander down some unexpected and creative avenues, says James Carter..

Over the past 10 years I have visited more than 1000 primary schools and have seen a welcome increase in the number of practical music activities taking place, which is wonderful. But as a poet and someone who is deeply concerned with children’s reading and writing, I would like to see more primaries using music in the context of creative writing.

When music is a regular feature of creative writing sessions the results can be stunning. Played in the background, music helps children to become lost in what I call the ‘fog of their creativity’ – allowing their thoughts to wander into many interesting and unexpected places.

I first started to experiment with this approach whilst working as a lecturer in creative writing at Reading University, where I encouraged classes to actively listen to music and write in direct response to what they heard.

I was in the habit of taking in photos, postcards and pictures from magazines as a starting point for writing. Then one innovative student, now a KS2 teacher, suggested I also bring in some music. As a result, I began playing the students ambient music by Brian Eno (in particular, his sublime Apollo soundtrack, much used in TV adverts and documentaries). It was a fantastic success. The writing students produced was wholly different to anything else they had done previously. They were taking more risks, writing more freely and openly, and seemed less inhibited and more – dare I say – creative.

Keen to share this experience, and because I couldn’t find an existing resource, I began work on what was to become Just Imagine (Routledge, 2012, second edition): a book of images and ideas for stimulating creative writing, with an accompanying CD of music, for both primary and secondary teachers.

The Just Imagine CD features 11 instrumental tracks that I assembled with my good friend, the TV and internet composer Mark Hawkins. These are of varying genres and styles – from gentle ambient pieces to upbeat African soukous. Four are ‘soundscapes’: instrumentals with sound effects such as trains, church bells, distant voices, bird noises, footprints in snow, etc. It is the intention that all these pieces will generate a variety of responses in the listener’s mind’s eye – including images, narratives, events, words, phrases, memories, thoughts and emotions. Any language is valid, for this activity is all about generating fresh, raw material that can later be refined and crafted.

Choosing music for creative writing

Songs with lyrics do not work for this purpose; the lyrics are too intrusive. The language and subject matter guide the mind and take away the autonomy and freedom it requires. Instrumental tracks taken from any genre and originating from all parts the world can be used: the overriding feature I look for is atmosphere, something that generates mental pictures or a creates a distinct mood.

Why not pop over to YouTube, Spotify or iTunes and check out some movie soundtracks? You should ideally choose something that children will have not heard before (i.e. nothing from Disney, Pixar or Dreamworks’ film) so they won’t have automatic associations.

When I use music as a creative stimulus in classroom workshops, I let children hear a track at least twice. I am rarely prescriptive in content and merely request that pupils concentrate fully on what they can hear and write in response. I offer advice such as, “You might want to write a short poem; an opening to a story; a drama; a description; a list – anything at all that comes to you.” I also encourage the children to write without ‘thinking’ and immerse themselves in the music.

Just occasionally, I may play a track that could be used to inspire a narrative, and I might decide to write the words ‘Who?’ ‘Where?’ ‘What?’ ‘When?’ ‘Why?’ on the board to help the group generate some good story material.

Because the boundaries are open and stabilisers off, the results are very varied. A few children write nothing at all; used to writing to set templates and fill-in-the-gaps structures, they don’t know what to write without specific guidance. Or perhaps equally valid, responding to music is not for them. (I’m always conscious of this and try to reassure children by telling them that some weeks I can’t stop writing, and then for a few months I can barely get started at all. Children need to know that creative writing is not automatic; it will not always happen, yet other times it will, and there is no real logic to this.)

Some children write whatever is on their minds, or what amuses or preoccupies them. Even a quiet, ambient track can inspire a multiplicity of forms, tones and voices. Some children might write a silly Spike Milligan rhyme, others a reflective free verse poem, and there will be pupils who simply list all the sounds and instruments they can hear. All of this is good, if not essential. Children need this empty, quiet time to reflect, to mentally roam and to write, irrespective of the quality of the end product.

It is the deep enjoyment of the process that matters.

Clearly, the initial outcomes from these music-as-a-stimulus-sessions will be first drafts. Because of this, teachers might choose to play the music continuously during a session, ask children to go back over what they have written, expand upon ideas and phrases, lose anything unnecessary, and work, tweak and polish their creations. But hey, why not leave it at a first draft? Let the right brain dominate for once.

Those children that really let go with these music sessions are frequently surprised by what they have written. When they read their work out, I will often respond with “Wow! Where did that idea come from?” To which I invariably get the response, ‘I don’t know! I’ve never written anything like that before.” Kerching! That’s creative writing.

Music, like no other stimulus, allows children to get into an unconscious writing state, one in which they don’t even realise they are writing as they are so absorbed in the magical process of writing.