Friday, February 25, 2011

On FINAL DISPOSITION & Music ...

Okay, now that I'm back from some work- and granddaughter-soccer-tournament-related travel, it's time to re-engage with this Blog.

I probably should explain that I intended the next post to be about the origins of my second book, THE ALCHEMIST; but a recent article about Arizona Senator Gabrielle Gifford's amazing recovery from a gunshot wound to the head caught my attention.  The article explained how her therapists were using music to help her recover her memories.


Why would this catch my attention?  Because a year or so ago, a friend sent me a book titled 'THIS IS YOUR BRAIN ON MUSIC' (The Science of a Human Obsession) by neuroscientist Daniel Levitin.  To say I found the book fascinating barely describes my feelings ... although I have to confess that a goodly part of my fascination dealt with the fact the Levitin was a rock musician who decided to begin studying neuroscience (just as the former rock musician friend who sent me the book had done), and ended up at UCSD with Dr. Watson of DNA-discovery fame a year or so before I was there.  In fact, the book describes his interaction with Watson in a small library/conference room that I was studying in a year or so later ... so I felt a weird sense of 'kinship' with Levitin, even though my own knowledge of neuroscience and music is, to put it mildly, minimal.


Another reason I was fascinated: several years ago, at the suggestion of another (author-type) friend, I started using music as a way of quickly 'getting into the flow' of writing -- a common problem of most authors I know who are frustrated by the time it takes them to actually get their creative processes going once they plant themselves in front of their computers.  Note: I pay no attention to my author friends who write their manuscripts with pens, pencils or typewriters, figuring that anyone who is that masochistic probably has other problems that I don't want to dwell on either.


Anyway, I quickly discovered that 60's rock music played by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra works great for me ... no vocals, just the wonderful music!  I've got 3 DVDs of their classic rock songs that I mix before playing so my brain doesn't anticipate the next song.  All I have to do is pull up my latest manuscript on the computer, put of the stereo headphones, hit 'PLAY' ... and 30 seconds later, I'm deep into my writing.  Have no idea why this works (my theory is that the lazy part of my brain that really doesn't want to write -- because writing is actually hard work -- quits complaining because it's soothed by the music), but I don't really care as long as it does.


So why are rock musicians (at least, presumably, the ones who haven't fried their brains with an assortment of illicit/home-made drugs) drawn to neuroscience?  After reading Levitin's book and talking with my friend, it seems apparent that their possession of 'perfect pitch' is the thing that drives them to figure out how and why the brain obsesses on music.  So what they do in the way of research is hook up a test subject to a fMRI (a machine that, among other things, measures the change in blood flow to specific areas of the brain), put on different types of music, and thereby learn how difference parts of the human brain respond to rhythm, tone, beat, resonance and all of the other components of what we call 'music.'  And then they branch out into researching how music (even a couple of notes) can trigger memories much in the way that smells do, only musical notes seem to have far more complexity (see rhythm, tone, beat, resonance, etc) ... the idea being if you hear a couple of notes with the precise set of 'harmonics', it can trigger a memory of a song you heard played many years ago.


All of the above was suddenly interesting to me because I was trying to figure out how to write FINAL DISPOSITION (the third book in my FIRST EVIDENCE series) in a way that provided some crucial suspense and uneasy anticipation --- difficult because an awful lot was given away in the first two books --- when I realized that it would work great if my hero, Henry Culver, woke up with a huge void in his memory ... which allowed me to use music and the sound of familiar voices to gradually trigger his past memories and help keep him alive and more-or-less upright to the finale.

This also gave me an opportunity to add a sensuous nurse with a very resonant voice into the mix, along with an off-the-wall-nutso radio host, a hellfire-and-damnation televangelist who froths at the very idea of visiting ETs, a homeless vet with a ear for voices, and a bunch of crazy Oregon folks who really want to believe.  It was a lot of fun to write.  Hope you all enjoy it.

Side note: FINAL DISPOSITION is currently only available as a eBook (via Amazon.com, Barnesandnoble.com, Apple, etc); but my literary agent is hopeful of finding an agreeable publisher to print it out in paperback form some day.

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