Music for writing academic works in a frenzy

September 14, 2007 2:59 AM

Music for writing academic works in a frenzy

You know that scene where the rising young genius sits furiously in his desk chair, flails his fingers against the typewriter, producing the manuscript that will transform thousands of minds; a near-empty vodka bottle is almost rolling off the table, and dramatic music is playing in the background? I want that.

I've got the rest of it worked out, but I still need to find the music. I'm probably going for classical, perhaps jazz, but I know very little of either. I took some discs from the library half-randomly, and now I'm listening to String Quartet No. 2 by Dmitry Shostakovich, which sounds pretty good. I like the lurking madness in this piece, but I think I need something even more, I don't know, majestic, so maybe a symphonic work would be more suitable.

If you think you know what I'm looking for, please tell me.

posted by Anything to media & arts (14 comments total)

And please, in addition to just giving me the name of the piece, give some praise as well. I will go through the suggestions in the order of how convincing they sound.
posted by Anything at 3:15 AM on September 14, 2007

Now that I look at it, that was quite a rude and demanding way to put it. Answer as you please, but, as you know, if I get a lot of suggestions, I'll have some trouble going through them without some heuristic.
posted by Anything at 3:26 AM on September 14, 2007

How about Bernstein and the NY Philharmonic's recording of Mahler's 6th? The one that fits on a single CD. It marches along at a terrific pace and definitely has the madness and doom thing going on.

Or, Ifukube's "Ritmica Ostinata for Piano and Orchestra". That thing defines urgency. It makes Flight of the Bumblebee sound like When it's Sleepy Time Down South. The recording on Naxos is pretty good (the best I know that isn't on a Japanese label) and cheap.

Bruce Brubaker's Glass Cage has a lot of insistent music on it, too, but you have to like Philip Glass... or at least not dislike him.

Jazz-wise, how about Alice Coltrane's Ptah, the El Daoud or Miles Davis's A Tribute to Jack Johnson? Or, further out into experimental territory, John Zorn's Xu Feng?

Of course, if you really want frenzy, you're going to have to listen to some klezmer. The Naftule Brandwein CD is great. So is everything by Naftule's Dream on Tzadik. I guess I'm just free-associating now.
posted by No-sword at 5:32 AM on September 14, 2007 [1 favorite]

Directions from Black Beauty is what comes to mind. Frenetic, powerful and moving. I would score this to time lapse film of New York traffic, or perhaps as you describe, a scene of madness, work, creativity and ambition.
posted by horsemuth at 5:46 AM on September 14, 2007

If you want frenetic & half-mad orchestral music, then twentieth-century Russian composers are the way to go. The second movement of Prokofiev's Symphony No. 5 comes to mind, especially the recapitulation section after it's gotten back up to its original tempo. It seems like it might fly apart at any time, and the whole thing has always struck me as the kind of music one would do mad science to.

If you're looking for something a little more demented & furious, you might be able to use part of Prokofiev's "Scythian Suite", especially the second and fourth movements, or his "Love for Three Oranges" Suite (the last movement, "La Fuite", would be ideally suited for this.)

Shostakovich has some good stuff along these lines, too: the third movement of his Eighth Symphony is particularly driving and frenetic.

Finally, if you're looking for something that's a little more joyous & playful (in addition to being off-kilter and a little mad), check out the fast sections of Richard Strauss' tone poem "Don Juan".
posted by Johnny Assay at 6:17 AM on September 14, 2007

Thinking Music?
posted by donut at 6:39 AM on September 14, 2007

How about Beethoven's 9th? Specifically Leonard Bernstein at the Berlin Wall?
posted by ZenMasterThis at 7:01 AM on September 14, 2007

Urgent and frantic sounds like Venetian Snares' "Hajnal" from the Rossz Csillag Alatt Született cd. It descends into techno halfway through, but it starts out the way you want. Give it a try, it's only 7 or so minutes long. You can listen to it on deezer.com.
posted by Skyanth at 7:05 AM on September 14, 2007

This is lame, but:

Occasionally, when I start writing a paper, I put on the theme music from Murder, She Wrote.
posted by painquale at 8:48 AM on September 14, 2007 [4 favorites]

How about Beethoven's 9th?

All 74 minutes of it?
posted by ludwig_van at 10:31 AM on September 14, 2007

Final movements from piano sonatas are a good place to look. Third movement, Moonlight Sonata (Beethoven, Piana Sonata 14, Opus 23, No. 2); the Rondo Alla Turca from Mozart's Piano Sonata 11, K331 (aka one of the annoying Nokia ringtones). I don't know if they're 'frenetic' enough, but allegro unaccompanied piano from the late-1700s onwards seems well-suited to the whole typing-out-the-masterpiece theme. Or the opening to Mozart, Symphony No. 24.

But that's almost bordering on soundtrack cliche, which means 20th-c Russian (esp. w/ vodka) seems more appropriate. Though I'd be more inclined towards piano than symphonies.

Prokofiev, Toccata in D minor, Op. 11? The Scherzo: Vivace from Piano Concerto No. 2, Opus 16? But Prokofiev always feels like the soundtrack to outdoors. Hm.
posted by holgate at 9:35 PM on September 14, 2007

Holgate just made me think of another fantastic composition for this purpose: the 11th Etude from Chopin's Op. 25 ("Winter Wind"). You'll have to work fast, though, because it's only a few minutes long.
posted by No-sword at 2:45 PM on September 15, 2007

I'm late to this thread, but man, do I know that scene. For me, it was espresso to start, Jameson's down the stretch, Dunhill blues, the occasional toke to adjust the groove, take a right at the light and write straight on through the night. I'm too old for that shit now, which means I write a lot less, but still have to get into that space when the deadline is yesterday. You want to really make it cook? Do it in a hotel room in a faraway town while attending a conference or something. *That* is a peak experience. I've done my best under-deadline-pressure writing in hotel rooms for the last few years, usually hitting send at 7 AM, staggering down to breakfast and going off to give a talk or doze through panels or get on a plane.

Music is always a vital element of this mis en scéne, but it's so personal that all anyone can recommend is what worked for them, once. Great suggestions in this thread. For me, it's evolved over the years, and my current soundtrack for writing is (usually) Hindustani music (Ajoy Charabartis Thumris are in the mix this year); lately, when it's OK for the music to have words (which is true when I am editing, not so much writing raw words), it's Whisketown's *Pneumonia,* which is one of the more zenned out alt.country records of all time. Luckily for me, I get to pen my billiant insights *about* music, so whatever I'm writing about can help me write too. And then, when the flow gets established and the pages are adding up (you know that juiced-up feeling when you already know what the next section you have to write will be, all the time, so you're impatient to finish each paragraph?), I tend to switch to classic soul/R&B, to get my physical body entrained with something else while my mind grooves to its own drummer.

It is really about entering an altered state where your body ceases to exist in the chair and all you are is brain and typing fingers. So damn elusive. So amazing when it happens.
posted by fourcheesemac at 6:56 AM on September 19, 2007 [1 favorite]

Thanks, fourcheesemac; thanks everyone! Prokofiev and Mahler are already giving me magic, and all the other suggestions seem very interesting as well. I will probably be revisiting this thread every time I know I'll be near a library that has a music section. So once again: thanks a lot! You people have made my day future!
posted by Anything at 7:14 PM on September 19, 2007