Hummingbirds.

RHYS: I have a confession to make. I hum. Quietly, to myself, a lot of the time. I didn’t realize I did it until my children pointed it out to me years ago. Now I’m conscious that I’m doing it. Sometimes it’s a tune I’ve heard recently that becomes an earworm, stuck in my head. Other times I have no idea what I’m humming or why. And the interesting thing is that when I stop and ask myself why I’m humming a particular tune, I’ve come to realize there is always a psychological connection or some kind of word association connection to something that has happened or been discussed.
I think it’s my way of stopping my brain from thinking about things too much. When I’m stressed, I hum. I have to stop myself from humming when I walk through airports, or I get strange looks. When I’m writing a book and my brain is hyper-creativity mode and I want to take a break I hum too. Because the thoughts don’t whirl around my head as much when I hum.

My father was a whistler. You'd always hear him coming by the whistle. My son-in-law ditto. John dislikes this so much that my son-in-law made a CD for him one Christmas called The Royal Family Whistles the Classics. The numbers were all whistled by Tom including "I'm Dreaming of a Different Son-in-Law, Son-in-Law is Coming into Town" etc. We still have it!

So, fellow Reds, do you hum, whistle, have a tune in your head that won’t go away? Have a default tune that hums around inside your skull when you are stressed. My current one is Puff the Magic Dragon. Don’t ask me why. I can’t analyze that one.

HANK: I just burst out laughing! I don't hum, but there is often a song in my head, and I agree, it comes from somewhere. And it's fun to figure out where. Puff, for instance. Anyone you know live by the sea? And it's autumn, right? Anyone bring you string, or sealing wax, or other fancy stuff.
And thanks a lot , sister, now that song is in my head. And I know exactly where it came from.
(Sidebar: I'm told that if you have a song in your head--called an "earworm," by the way--you can get rid of it by singling Jingle Bell Rock.) (And, they say, Jingle Bell Rock does not replace it.)
Worth a try.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Rhys, that is so funny! I don't hum, and I can't whistle (one of my many failings.) I do occasionally get a song stuck in my head, especially when Rick is learning something on the guitar and plays it over and over, lol. And, Hank, if Puff the Magic Dragon wasn't enough, you started me on a Joni Mitchell earworm (it was the sealing wax...) so now I'm going to try Jingle Bell Rock. Which I hate. If that sticks I will never forgive you.

LUCY BURDETTE: I am not trying the Jingle Bell thing--the cost could be too dear! I don't hum, but I do sing. Mostly to my animals. The song in my brain today goes like this: T-T-Tonka, beautiful Tonka. You're the only d-d-dog that I adore....

HALLIE EPHRON: I am not a hummer, mostly because I'm so off key I make myself cringe. When I sang my daughter a lullaby she'd ask me to stop. I do sing along with the radio, turning the radio up loud enough so I can't hear myself. And I get tunes stuck in my head all the time. Like the music that goes with the opening titles of NCIS? Aaaggggh.

JENN McKINLAY: Hummer, here! Hub and the Hooligans say I have my own top 40 countdown which includes Me & Bobby McGee, Someone Like You, Redbone, and Love Like a Bomb, just to name a few. I also sing and whistle and had no idea I was doing any of it until my men clued me in. Thankfully, they just ask me to turn it down instead of asking me to stop. LOL.

INGRID THOFT: I do not hum, and honestly, it drives me nuts if someone around me is humming.  Or whistling.  I'm like Debs in that I can't whistle.  It's part of the family lore that if you ask me to whistle a tune, one long, dissonant sound will come out of my mouth.  Interestingly enough, I actually have a decent singing voice and can carry a tune, but it doesn't translate to whistling.  My hubby is the worst when it comes to ear worms.  He'll often say, "you know what song I can't get out of my head?" and then proceed to sing a few lines, which lodge themselves in my brain.  The ear worm that reoccurs often?  "It's a Small World."  Ugh!

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Ingrid, the penalty for lodging "It's a Small World" in someone's ear should be death. Swift death. I would drive you crazy, though, because I'm another hummingbird. The girls and I will often sit together of an evening: the Smithie reading, Youngest doing her homework, and me on my laptop. Humming. They ask me to stop, and I will...right up to the point where I lose awareness of "not humming" and begin again. I've caught myself humming while in an airplane, and I'm always embarrassed! What could be more obnoxious than being forced to listen to your seatmate humming the same three bars of Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 over...and over...and over again.

Actually, I know something more annoying: the Sailor, who's been a percussionist since age 11, beats. He jiggles his leg, taps his foot, thumps his fingers on the table. At least with unwanted humming, you have the option of putting in earbuds and listening to your own music to escape. With percussion, you FEEL it.

RHYS: Julia, I'm with you. "It's a Small World" is the most earworm-likely song in the universe. When we took the kids to Disneyland when they were small that pesky song wouldn't leave my head for weeks, nay months!  But I'm not sure I want to try Jingle Bell Rock either. That wouldn't exactly induce a calm state of mind!

So readers and friends: who hums? Who whistles? Who hates it when others do?

Words and Music

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: One of our regular backbloggers, Karen from Ohio, mentioned Tuesday that she could read almost anything while writing, but had to be very careful about what music she listened to, since she had a penchant for earworms, those snatches of melody and lyric that embed themselves in your conscious and Will. Not. Leave. (I once had a dear friend who would sing Karma Chameleon to me for the sole purpose of implanting the worm.)

Karen got me thinking about music and writers. We have a long history of being inspired by songs - in fanfiction, there's a whole form known as "songfic." When I was working on my sixth book, I SHALL NOT WANT, I was deeply entrenched in Bill Deasy's music, especially his Good Day No Rain, which felt like a soundtrack to the story I was writing. I actually changed a pivotal scene in that novel because one of his songs created such a powerful sense of place and mood--I wanted to explore that further.

Like many authors, I make up playlists for my characters, usually with songs particular to the individual book. It's a way of intertwining fiction with music that's only been available since the advent of digital music and easy-to-use playlists (there may have been some determined authors back in the day recording mix tapes on cassette for their characters, but that strikes me as the same obsessive attention to detail that leads to map-drawing and cutting out costumes from magazines, i.e., thankfully uncommon.)

I also insert songs into the work itself, all of which have meaning and deliver an extra message to the reader ("Let him who has ears, listen..") For instance, in my second mystery, A FOUNTAIN FILLED WITH BLOOD, Clare is snooping around a guest bedroom and has to hide in the en-suite bath. During the whole scene she is listening to the Dave Matthews Band on the suspect's CD player. The name of the album is Crash, which is exactly what's going to happen about a hundred pages on. The first song she registers is So Much to Say, which begins, "I say my hell is the closet/ I'm stuck inside/ Can't see the light/ And my heaven is a nice house/ In the sky..." It's a bit of a poke at the fact she's literally stuck in a [water] closet, but it's meant to echo her own constraints- she's in the closet as to her feelings for the town's chief of police, and she will continue to have to "Keep it locked inside/ Don't talk about it."

Yeah, as soon as we get ebooks with add-in soundtracks, I will be all over that. How about you, Reds? Music: inspiration, while working, in the story, out of the story? What's your preference?

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  Thank you, not, for Karma Chameleon.  Which is now in my head. I was also, for a time, a sad victim to Let It Go--let it GO!--and now it's going to happen again,  I fear.


JULIA: I know, right? All you have to do is see the title and it's 1984 again and Boy George is hanging out in your head.

HANK: I am so suggestible, I cannot have one bit of music when I write. Not even without words. It's too distracting, WITH words, completely impossible, as the words take over my brain. Without words, is...okay. But I'd rather have quiet.

Music while reading? Nope. (I've seen Jonathan, though, read and hum along to classical. Even--read and conduct. No way could I do that.)

LUCY BURDETTE: I'm with Hank, can not, absolutely not listen to music while writing. My characters don't have playlists and neither do the books, for better or worse. The only time I've really gotten hooked on using a bit of song is for the forthcoming FATAL RESERVATIONS. I was in the Miami airport and saw these words tattooed on a young man's arm: I used to disregard regret, but there are some things I can't forget.

I was so taken by the words, I had to ask him about it. Turns out this is a line from a song by MAKE DO AND MEND, a band I'd never heard of. So it's not the music that became an important part of the book, it was the words.

It's always all about the words, one by one. Sigh.

And it's kind of interesting, because in my reporter job, it's constant chaos and noise ,and it doesn't bother me at all. And thinking about it, I can write in a coffee shop, or on a plane or train. So conversation around me, I can tune out. Music, I can't.  Wonder why that is?


HALLIE EPHRON: Music while writing? Me neither. Nope. Never.

And right now Taylor Swift's Shake It Off has wormed its way into my head, along with Carole King's PIERRE from her songs for Really Rosie. DO NOT listen to it. You will never shake it off.

HANK: Players gonna play play play play play play....  Sigh. ALL DAY.



SUSAN ELIA MACNEAL: It's so funny that all of us are the same — can't work with music on! Like Hank, I can work anywhere — airport, train station, cafe, and conversation is no big deal. But music? No, absolutely not.

Funny side note — we live near and know Robert Lopez and Kristin Anderson Lopez, who wrote "Let It Go," and Kiddo used to play with their daughter, who sang the first few lines of "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?" in the film/soundtrack. (OK, great, now I'll be singing that all day...)


RHYS BOWEN: I'm with the other Reds. I have to have silence when I write. But my grandson did an interesting experiment at school last year. He gave a math test to students with silence, with music in the background that they knew or with music that they didn't know. Turns out they scored highest when music that they knew was played. If it was music they weren't familiar with they paid attention to it.

I am a huge victim of earworms. If I get a song in my head it won't go away, haunting me day and night. Yes, I wake up singing it. Right now I've been so focused on tax that there hasn't been a square inch of brain for even an earworm song.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I've been very inspired by different kinds of music when writing specific books--several books revolve around music (opera, Gregorian chant, and rock. Go figure.) --but I CANNOT actually listen to music when I write. Not even Bach or Mozart, the things that are supposed to trigger creative centers in your brain. Sigh. So frustrating. (And so interesting about the studies, Julia.)

But I love the whole play list idea, and actually made one for The Sound of Broken Glass. My favorite song for that book was Good Riddance by Green Day. Now I have to go play it so that I can dislodge the latest earworm--Wherever You Will Go by The Calling. Rick is learning it on the guitar and now I hear it in my sleep... Maybe it will go in the NEXT book.

JULIA: You know, Rhys, there is that song about the Taxman by George Harrison...

How about you, dear readers? How do you combine - or separate - words and music?

ON EARWORMS

Music, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory;
******Percy Bysshe Shelley

HANK: I had an erudite and thoughtful idea for this week, I really did. All based on a Gail Caldwell column called Lingua Fracta. But then I read that RO's current favorite song is Walking After Midnight by Patsy Cline. A song I love, too. So I started humming it, and thinking about it. And that was days ago. And now it's in my way. I think they call them "earworms."

Now that you've heard that term, you can’t get it out of your head, right? And that’s exactly why I can’t listen to music when I write.

In the 60's I insisted I could not do my homework without listening to music. I had my little transistor radio, and I would put that plastic earpiece in, and bop around to Da Doo Ron Ron or I Get Around or It’s My Party. Dancing in the Street. Anything Beatles.

Today. I'm a TV reporter, have been for 30 years, and there’s not a moment of my workday when the television is not on. Sometimes three of them, all turned to different stations, all humming and buzzing in the background. And I ignore it, until my brain (is it the hypothalamus?) picks up on a word or phrase or sound that drags me to the remote to zap up the volume. Extraneous noise? Nope, it’s just the music of the news, and I’m used to it and embrace it.

But at home, writing, I cannot, cannot listen to music. It’s the earworm thing.

What’s an earworm? Let’s say you’re in the grocery, and that Muzak is on. Just in the background. And you have the misfortune to hear "It’s A Small World after All." Ahhhhh. That darn song is going to stick in your brain, humming over and over, forever. It’s an earworm.

How about Saturday in the Park by Chicago? (Saturday, in the park, I think it was the fourth of July…) Ah…stop. Oh Mickey, you’re so fine, you’re so fine you blow my mind… There’s a commercial for sour cream about "a dollop of daisy." Have you heard that? I heard it once, and sang it for about a week.

Hey, Macarena.

And so, I work in silence. If a song has words, they stick in my brain and play where my own words are supposed to be.
So can you manage music when you read or write?

JAN:
Not only can I NOT work with music on in the room, I can't work if the construction guys at my neighbor's house are blaring the radio as they install new garage doors. Really, the power tools don't bother me, but I've had to go next door and beg them to turn off the music.

I think it's called EASILY DISTRACTED. Or maybe -- Rather-be-listening-to-the-lyrics-than-writing-this-scene. But it's odd because I spent many years writing in a newsroom -- which is loud and chaotic. Of course, then I was on a tight deadline and there was a lot of peer pressure and editors on hand to help with the discipline.

I've never heard the term earworms, but its great. Perhaps its the pattern of melody that's the problem. Our brains want to keep track of the chorus - are ever-ready to chime in.

From watching too much baseball on NESN last year -- I had that god-awful Foxwoods jingle stuck in my head. The Wonder of It All -- and I HATED those commercials. When the kids were little we used to listen to Sesame Street tapes in the car and for years - it seemed-- I had PUT DOWN THE DUCKY and the MONSTER MASH worming their way though my ears.

I take two Pilates classes, in one, the music is wonderful, and I never think about it afterward, in the other, its one Euro-pop song after another. You can barely make out the lyrics for all the reverb, but these innane melodies get cemented into my head. Which leads me to another question for debate: does only the annoying music get stuck, or do we simply not mind if a good song continues to play and play and play?

HALLIE:
Earworms, ick. Sounds like earwigs, which I can easily imagine slithering into an ear. I wonder if you could turn them off by eating some really stinky cheese or listening to the Nixon tapes.

I don't get earworms so much as noseworms. Smells that haunt me. Fresh baked bread. Watermelon. Bar-b-que flavor potato chips. It usually haunts me until I'm driven into the kitchen to forage. This is a major disadvantage of working at home.

RO:
You guys are cracking me up. Sorry for having caused this but if you've got to have something stuck in your head, better to have Patsy Cline than the damn Foxwoods jingle. (Was it the playoffs last year? It drove me crazy..oh yeah, pop a cork, like those guys are all drinking champagne...)

I write longhand first, then put on computer. First time, I couldn't possibly listen to music, or anything. (Like my neighbor's children who don't know how lucky they are to still be alive.) Entering on computer, I'll sometimes have a game on in the background.

The good songs get stuck too. The Clash frequently take up residence in my little brain - "darlin' you got to let me know..." but more often it's the excruciating stuff. I had to stop taking my spin class because the instructor kept playing "My Humps" and it was unseemly for a grown woman to be walking around singing about her lovely lady lumps, which I found myself doing on Tuesday afternoons.

HANK:
Someone told me: if you get an earworm, the only cure is to sing Jingle Bell Rock. Okay, I know. It sounds weird. But it does seem to work.Do you have your personal earworms? Tell us—if you dare!