Beccy: Thoughts on Reading, Language and Music

Lynness’s post and everyone’s responses to it gave me much delicious food for thought! I think I read pretty fast, but other than in grade school when you're told your reading grade-level, I’ve never been timed—like how many words/minute I can type. Have any of you? When I read fiction, especially something suspenseful or very compelling, my eyes take in several lines at once like Abby described. I read differently when I am reading non-fiction.

Is sub-vocalizing pronouncing the words mentally as you read—“hearing” each word in your mind? If so, I’m a sub-vocalizer for sure when I’m reading with learning as my specific intent; non-fiction reading such as the scriptures or The Art of Practicing, for example. It depends on my intent, though, because some parts of the scriptures I read more like a novel (the war chapters in the last part of Alma, for example).

For me, much of learning is fused with hearing. If I am given a list of seven unrelated words to memorize, I do it by sound, not by meaning or visualization. I often find I have unintentionally memorize scriptures because of their peculiar language and memorable sound (there are certainly better reasons to memorize them :).

Like Lulu and Rae, I love to read out loud (ask my kids) because I love the actual sound of the words. More specifically, I love human expression in spoken language. And, like all of us, I subconsciously judge people, or learn much about them by how they speak. I am delighted by accents, quirky speech impediments and colloquialisms. To my thinking, language—in an aural sense—is a form of music. For me, reading is taking in meaning from the music of language. Add to that the joy of imagination—no wonder we love it.

Aside from the sound of it, language captures so much of personality. I enjoyed acting in plays as a youth because I loved becoming a different person; talking differently than I talk and trying to convince listeners that the pretend emotions were genuine. When I read out loud to my kids I am just being a ham and indulging myself in that pleasure. My kids’ (when they were small, but Katie’s still) most requested picture book for me to read them is Eric Carle’s Polar Bear, Polar Bear What Do You Hear? because each animal has it’s own distinct voice and accent suggested to me by their appearance/type of animal. The more I exaggerate, the more we laugh.

Rae’s post about music and the brain led me to compare my mental process when writing words to writing music. When I write words, there is an idea I want to express, and I am accessing my vocabulary and emotions, trying to find words that capture the essence of my thoughts. Usually there is an initial “brain dump” and then lots of editing to clarify, capture subtle nuances, etc. When I write music (without lyrics), there is something to express, but I’m not sure what to call it. It’s some combination of idea, sound and emotion. There is an outpouring of musical mess as I try to convey the ‘idea,’ and then lots of highly-detail-oriented refining. I consider each note, constantly going from micro to macro to measure the value of the individual sound and its place in context. In writing prose or poetry, we do that with words, sentences, paragraphs, etc. It’s interesting to me that in both cases, the finished product is so much more than the sum of its parts. I suppose that is the essence of creation.

It’s lunch time and I’m still in my pajamas and slippers. I’m down with flu today and finishing Stradiveri’s Genius. I average about 3 nose-blows per page (on tissues, not the book). I’ll comment on that and my November book pick next post.