Listen to your words.

By Peter P. Jacobi

The Listening Book is a slim volume by W. A. Mathieu. Its subtitle is Discovering Your Own Music.

Matthieu is a composer and teacher. He postulates right off: "The eyes are hungry. When we see," he argues, "all other senses seem to show it off. We miss at least some of what others tell us. The world of sound becomes less distinct when we shut our eyes, to let ourselves listen; we can discern the flowers of sound, the glorious messages that reach us through the years, through listening."

"When you close your eyes," Matthieu writes, "your brain opens to your ears; sound rushes in to fill the sphere of the skull. Your mother's lullaby just before you drop off to sleep. Earphones on, lying on the couch, Beethoven's Seventh, your arm over your eyes."

Matthieu asks his readers to listen -- to music, to rain, to francs, to breathing, to laughter, to the squeezing of tin cans -- and thereby open their senses to a heightened sense of existence.

Listen Intensely

Another composer, the quixotic and experimental John Cage, in his own way asked us to do that some years ago with his composition 4'33". For it, a pianist sits quietly at the keyboard for just that length of time, not striking a note. Silence. But there really is no silence because of coughs and whispers and paper rustles and the hum of electric lights and sounds of traffic outside the theater. Listeners were being asked to listen more intently.

Question to the writer: Do you listen when you write? Do you listen intensely?

In an earlier column, I listed as one of a writer's 10 commandments to "be a listener." Well, I urge again that you listen to what you write.

We don't listen. As human beings, we tend not to listen. Our minds wander back and forth, tuning in and out, catching just enough of the elements of what is being said or produced, but missing the beats and maybe the best.

A writer hasn't that luxury. The listening chambers of a writer's mind must be tuned in fully. To what is round about. To what is within.

First of all, the listening sense, if applied to what is experienced in the outside world, can add immeasurably to the completeness of coverage and the description. We do ourselves a disservice when dealing only with matters of sight. What we hear (and what we touch and what we smell and, on occasion, what we taste) enriches our informational pool and gives us far more to write with and about.

The Power of Language and Composition

Second, what we hear from inside ourselves can add to the power of our language and composition. What tones and rhythms and timbres are discernible from the words chosen to tell, to show, to explain?

It is not enough merely to look at words. They're comprised only of letters, symbols to make other symbols. But listen. How does each word sound? How do the words in the union sound? Do they contain a melody? Harmony? Tonal color?

The eyes will lead the writer astray, not as he gathers information, of course, but as he shapes that information into language.

Writing Not Listened To

"Designed in 1792 for $500 by James Hoban, an Irish architect, John Adams became the first US president to reside at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue," a magazine writer tells us. That's writing not listened to.

"Thursday afternoon at four there will be a meeting of the Little Mothers Club. All wishing to become Little Mothers, please meet the minister in his study," a church bulletin notice announces. Writing not listened to.

Test Writing Against Ears

Listening is essential just to make sure we're making sense. But more than that, as I wrote in detailing my 10 commandments, "the eyes cannot hear the naturalness of chatting, the flow of conversation reality, the feel of linkage from word to word, sentence to sentence, paragraph to paragraph, idea to idea.

I suggest that what you write to be tested against the ears. That way, I said, you'll be freed of convolutions and, in place thereof, "be embraced ... by the radiance of flowing, crafted language."

I'll continue with this theme next time. We'll also get into the topic of a melodic flow. Meanwhile, practice listening.

A classic article from a past issue in tribute to the late Peter J. Jacobi, longtime EO writer and author of The Magazine Article: How to Think It, Plan It, Write It.

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