Classical Music Stories

Pride and Prejudice: A Choose Your Own Adventure Story with Classical Music

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If YOU were in control of the story, what would happen next?

If you’re like me and love to read novels, you also love to use your imagination. Traveling to foreign places, having adventures, and experiencing all kinds of emotions and experiences through the characters we read about can be a fun escape from the world!

Classical music can also transport us into new worlds. Film scores can transport us to a very specific place, but you can imagine your own images and storyline to match any piece of instrumental music you hear!

Here’s a choose-your-own adventure version of Pride and Prejudice, then, with which you can follow along as you listen to some music written waaaaaay back in the 18th century (around when the book was actually written in the first place!). Some details are different than what you’ll actually find in the book, but others are the same.

Ultimately, the choice is yours.

What will happy to Lizzy Bennet? Continue reading “Pride and Prejudice: A Choose Your Own Adventure Story with Classical Music”

Classical Music Stories

A Music Version of Doublethink (Classical Music Stories: 1984)

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Every new version of this unsettling theme is the Thought Police altering the facts.

Classical Music Stories is a series that connects music to your favorite books and characters. Since listening to classical music can be like hearing a story, imagining specific stories that match the music can make it that much more fun and accessible!

At first, it’s easy to hear how the music keeps playing the same melody over and over again in slightly different ways. But over time that becomes harder and harder to hear. Continue reading “A Music Version of Doublethink (Classical Music Stories: 1984)”

Music

Classical Music Stories Tutorial: What to Do When the Music Changes

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On this blog you’ll often find Classical Music Stories, a series that connects music to your favorite books and characters through storytelling. Of course, the purpose of the series isn’t to force one particular way of hearing the music, but instead to spark ideas on how to hear your own stories in music.

But how do you do that? Continue reading “Classical Music Stories Tutorial: What to Do When the Music Changes”

Books, Music

New Year’s Resolutions: Seeking Book and Music Recommendations

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Wow, how is it almost 2019 already?! With a new year comes new resolutions, new opportunities, new struggles, and new experiences. It’s also a time for reflecting on the past year. I’ve generally tended focused on the first half of this with posts like Top 5 Inspiring Book Characters for the New Year and Top 4 Independent and Inspirational Book Characters, but this year I’m combining the two by looking to the future by reflecting on the past — using some of the past year’s posts to (hopefully) provide some inspiration for the new year! But I don’t just want to share my own ideas, so please do comment below to help me and others who read this post to find even more inspiration for the new year! Continue reading “New Year’s Resolutions: Seeking Book and Music Recommendations”

Classical Music Stories

Classical Music Stories: Rapunzel’s Daydreams

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From the composer of Clair de Lune comes piano music that is equally dreamy, equally magical…

Classical Music Stories is a series that connects music to your favorite books and characters. Since listening to classical music can be like hearing a story, imagining specific stories that match the music can make it that much more fun and accessible! Continue reading “Classical Music Stories: Rapunzel’s Daydreams”

Classical Music Stories

Classical Music Stories: Romeo, Juliet, and Grieg

Adventure, drama, despair, irony…this music has it all! (And speaking of having it all, check out this photo where Grieg is rocking a truly SPECTACULAR hat and mustache…)

But anyways.

Classical Music Stories is a series that connects music to your favorite books and characters. Since listening to classical music can be like hearing a story, imagining specific stories that match the music can make it that much more fun and accessible! Continue reading “Classical Music Stories: Romeo, Juliet, and Grieg”

Classical Music Stories

Classical Music Stories: Mozart and Sydney Carton (A Tale of Two Cities)

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Classical Music Stories is a series that connects music to your favorite books and characters. Since listening to classical music can be like hearing a story, imagining specific stories that match the music can make it that much more fun and accessible!

Spoilers ahead for Charles Dickens’ novel, A Tale of Two Cities! Continue reading “Classical Music Stories: Mozart and Sydney Carton (A Tale of Two Cities)”

Books, Music

Music Recommendations for Children of Blood and Bone

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Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi has been out for a while now, but for some of us we’re still thinking about it. Flooded with determination, adventure, courage, and empowerment, there’s nothing quite like this book.

So here you go! A list of music for when you want to recapture those feelings (and for when you just don’t have time to reread all 544 pages…): Continue reading “Music Recommendations for Children of Blood and Bone”

Classical Music Stories

Classical Music Stories: Bilbo Baggins and His Search for Adventure

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It’s Hobbit Day! I stumbled upon this fact thanks to Holly’s blog over at The Nut Free Nerd, so I thought what better way to celebrate than with our beloved Bilbo Baggins and some short but hobbit-y classical music?

Classical Music Stories is a series that connects music to your favorite books and characters. Since listening to classical music can be like hearing a story, imagining specific stories that match the music can make it that much more fun and accessible! Continue reading “Classical Music Stories: Bilbo Baggins and His Search for Adventure”

Music

Top 10 Song Adaptations: The Quirky, the Funny, and the Intriguing

Quirky funny song adaptations; cat banjo

Some are quirky; some are funny; some are both. Some are even inspired by books and movies!

Back in Music Mash-Ups: Rock + Chopin, Rock + Opera, I talked about how retellings of fairy tales and books like Jane Eyre (Jane Steele/Jane Slayre) are a lot like mash-ups between different genres of music–and how amazing they both are. But lately I’ve come across some new mash-ups, as well as some looser “adaptations” of music where it’s less about two genres coming together and more about importing a song into a new context (like in the Pride and Prejudice movie with Keira Knightley).

The best part is that depending on the song and style, adaptations can be hilarious, moving, or just plain quirky! So without further ado, here are ten song adaptations to brighten your day: Continue reading “Top 10 Song Adaptations: The Quirky, the Funny, and the Intriguing”