I am delighted to welcome
THOMAS ENGER
AUTHOR OF KILLED
(PUBLISHED BY ORENDA BOOKS)
TO TALK ABOUT HIS LOVE OF MUSIC
Have you always played
the piano?
I started playing at the age of seven, and I did take lessons for about seven years. However, I'm almost illiterate when it comes to reading notes, and for a long period of time I hid that from my piano teacher by making her play the songs for me, and then I would memorise them and learn how to play them by ear. Needless to say, progress was slow, and for a good long while I only played the piano when I was having 'lessons'. I didn't really get anywhere with it, (I must have struggled with Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata for YEARS), so I stopped altogether when I was about 13. For a few years even the thought of playing the piano repulsed me; I was so fed up with it. Until something quite magical happened when I was about 18... (notice the cliffhanger here? Occupational hazard...)
I started playing at the age of seven, and I did take lessons for about seven years. However, I'm almost illiterate when it comes to reading notes, and for a long period of time I hid that from my piano teacher by making her play the songs for me, and then I would memorise them and learn how to play them by ear. Needless to say, progress was slow, and for a good long while I only played the piano when I was having 'lessons'. I didn't really get anywhere with it, (I must have struggled with Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata for YEARS), so I stopped altogether when I was about 13. For a few years even the thought of playing the piano repulsed me; I was so fed up with it. Until something quite magical happened when I was about 18... (notice the cliffhanger here? Occupational hazard...)
And have you always
composed music?
This is a funny story. Well, not ha-ha funny, but ...
bear with me here for a second. When I was about 18 I was watching this movie,
and there was a song on it towards the end which struck a chord in me (pardon
the pun). It was a sad song, a piano song, and this was way before the age of
Spotify and internet, so I couldn't just look it up and listen to it after the
film was over. So I learned it by ear and ran up to the piano, just to see if I
was able to play it. Because I loved it. And would you believe it, after just a
few minutes of me tinkering around with these unfamiliar keys - there it was.
The whole song. I could actually play it. That just completely blew my mind,
and it sparked my interest for the instrument again, let me tell you. I tried
to play some other songs I knew. Could play them, too, quite quickly. And after
a while I wanted to see if I could compose some songs for myself, and ... you
know the answer to that as well. After a while I played a few of them for my
Dad, and he loved them. So I've been making music ever since.
Which movie was it, you may wonder? 9 1/2 weeks starring Kim
Basinger and Mickey Rourke. Yes, the one (the closest thing you got to porn
back in those days). I was 18, remember?
How often do you play
the piano and compose?
It depends on my schedule, and it comes and goes a lot. I
can easily go for a few weeks without playing it at all, while in other periods
of time I'm on it on a daily basis. For hours. Especially if there's something
I need to process somehow. I find it very rewarding to be able to put feelings
or emotions into a piece of music.
Do you think your
composing/music helps your writing?
Not really. They are two completely different processes. The
writing has a lot to do with learning the craft and applying the tools that are
available to you (through many years of experience and trying), while the music
thing has a lot more to do with instinct. I just feel my way through the piano keys. But I would say that the music,
whether it's mine or the work of others, is helpful in the way that I listen to
music all the time when I'm writing. Depending on what kind of scene I'm
writing, I can choose music accordingly. Metallica, for instance, is perfect
when I want to write a fight scene. Guess I don't have to explain that.
And do you think your
writing helps your composing/music?
Not in a specific way, no. But what I've found over the
years I've been doing this, is that writing is a good way to process or examine
my own views or feelings towards certain topics or challenges. I've said this a
number of times on panels, but it's true: I don't think I could have written
Henning Juul, a man who has lost his son in a domestic fire, without the
experience of being a father myself. To write about a man like that, who has
experienced something so horrible, I needed to imagine what that would be like,
and it made me appreciate being a father a whole lot more. And, I think,
because of that, I became a better one. You can imagine the amount of music I
have composed over the years when I tried to process the emotions of having lost
a child.
Can you provide a link
to an example of your music?
I most certainly can. I have just started a musical
collaboration with a magnificent violin player in Norway called Ingrid Berg
Mehus. We have named our project Moods From Norway, and we have just released
our first single, Torn.
Here's the YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amnuunQ2Sjw
Is your music
available to buy/download/listen to?
You can find us on Spotify or iTunes as well, or any other
digital platform there is.
Or you can check out my Soundcloud account: https://soundcloud.com/thomasenger/tracks
THANKS FOR TAKING PART, THOMAS!
About THOMAS ENGER
Thomas Enger (b. 1973) is a former journalist. He made his debut with the crime novel Burned (Skinndød) in 2010, which became an international sensation before publication. Burned is the first in a series of 5 books about the journalist Henning Juul, which delves into the depths of Oslo’s underbelly, skewering the corridors of dirty politics and nailing the fast-moving world of 24-hour news. Rights to the series have been sold to 26 countries to date. In 2013 Enger published his first book for young adults, a dark fantasy thriller called The Evil Legacy, for which he won the U-prize (best book Young Adult). Enger also composes music, and he lives in Oslo.
Find Thomas Enger on his website, on his Facebook page and on Twitter - @EngerThomas
I'm hoping to feature more Authors' Creative Pursuits
on Off-the-Shelf Books in the future.
on Off-the-Shelf Books in the future.
So if you're a published author and have a talent for arts and crafts, music, photography, baking or other creative activities, and would like to feature on my blog, please do get in touch!
