In Praise of Phrasing

We've been listening to Lambchop all weekend and it's not just Kurt Wagner's haunting voice, his haunting voice, which I can't get out of my head, it's his supple phrasing.  It doesn't just give texture to his music, it gives it drama, as well.

There's a lesson to be learned from such a maestro. To explore the importance of phrasing in your own work, here's an exercise you might want to experiment with.

Try writing a paragraph with sentences of a similar length.  I am using ten words in every one I write. I am not going to allow myself to use nine. God forbid that I should over run and use eleven. After a while my prose will become very dull indeed. It won't just be dull, it will be predictable too.

What if you shorten them, though? Truncate them? Alternatively you could allow them to drift from clause to clause, meandering like flowing water, until everything you want to say has been expressed. The effect is palpable. Immediately (and in a sense regardless of what you're talking about) they become easier to read.

When I'm working, I listen to the words inside my head before I write them down.  I listen to the music of them: the rhythm and the stresses; I listen to hear where the pauses fall. So remember that if you want to discover the musicality of your own voice, thinking about the phrasing may be the place to start.

Inspiration - It Must be the Sap Starting to Rise....

As time off for good behaviour went to see the inestimable Lambchop play The Fleece in Bristol yesterday. Kurt Wagner took three years off from making music to come to terms with the death of his close friend and collaborator James Vincent Chesnutt and the gig last night perfectly illustrated what I was noodling on about in my previous post: that in any form of creativity, beauty should always be the servant of truth. Lambchop's new songs chart the shell shock of bereavement, Wagner's  resonant voice articulating our own griefs for us. He sang from the heart about the ravages of waste and loss  - private emotions, profoundly expressed, in a public space, have a beauty that is almost incidental.  It was humbling and elating to listen to him.

Supplementary thought - it's really good for you, as a writer, to absorb the very best of the creative arts that are available to you - gigs in pubs, borrowed books, fine art in galleries for as long as there is free admission, sun streaming through stained glass - none of it need cost much, and it will feed your soul.

As the Spring starts to spring, allow yourself to be inspired....