Since my manpanion is in a band, I know a lot about being on the girlfriend/audience member side of bandship and have been waiting to channel this into a YA novel. The dank bars, the hardcore groupies, the hot shows, the rank acoustics, the possibilities for settings and characters are endless!
But often when I read novels that TALK about music and songs, I can't get into them. I mean, I can LISTEN TO music, but I don't like listening to someone TALK ABOUT how music sounds.
Does that make sense?
Some examples of YAs with musical contexts that I've enjoyed are:
HARMONIC FEEDBACK (great novel about a girl with Asperger's who is a musician)THE HALF-LIFE OF PLANETS (dual pov of a girl with a rep and a boy with Asperger's who is a musician)
AUDREY, WAIT (hilarious novel about a girl whose ex writes a hit song about her)
FREEFALL (guy drops out of his bro's band but plays a solid bass)Others probably love the music talk in these books, but for me I liked the musical ELEMENTS and could relate the characters' musical interests, but I skimmed over the details of the SONGS.
Does that mean I shouldn't write a band book? Or that I should skip the music TALK and just get on with the dynamics, settings, and characters?
Do others have problems "hearing" music when it's talked about in books? Could music "aps" for ebooks create a whole new reading-of-music-based-novels experience?
Deena, Miss Subbing for Pubbing
Oooh, the audio book for King Dork was fantastic! Included the author singing original songs at the end. Loved it!
ReplyDeleteI think that will be one of the advantages of the digital age for books--being able to have such enhancements. Though I hope they won't take over the text altogether.
ReplyDeleteOther good "musical" books: Struts & Frets (Jon Skovron). Fat Kid Rules the World (KL Going).
I'll definitely start looking for some of these on CD! Another good one: Adios to My Old Life by Caridad Ferrer.
ReplyDeleteTina -- I LOVE that there was actual singing in KING DORK! I really liked reading that book too.
ReplyDeleteJen -- yeah, I wouldn't want my ebook/audio book to be TOO much like a podcast.
Kate -- yes! ADIOS was great. I'm reading Barb's latest WHEN THE STARS GO BLUE and it is about a drum and bugle core. More well-done music scenes and has more descrptions of dance moves and costumes so far than the music. Really good book.