Writing Prompt: Define Musical Influence and Describe Five Artists

Cool Mud Folks, Week #2

We are now in the second week of our mud theme in conjunction with the writing principle of creative brainstorming. As we move on to cool folks with some variation of “mud” in their name, it’s clear that we need to begin with famed blues musician, Muddy Waters. Muddy was famous for many things during his life, but perhaps became most famous for his musical influence after he died. Your job is to define the term musical influence and describe five artists who have musical influence (and do it well).

Creative Idea Gal’s Thoughts

Muddy Waters is a person I researched just for the purpose of today’s writing prompt. Without knowing anything bout him, I read as much as I could and became intrigued with what I learned. While there were many worthwhile tidbits I could have written about Muddy, I chose the topic of musical influence because it is both intriguing and difficult. How do you define musical influence? Preferably, that is a definition you can develop on your own without the need to resort to research.

Today’s prompt is not about the musical influence that Muddy had on people, but about the term itself. What exactly is musical influence? Who has influence on whom? How do you recognize it? All very interesting questions worth pursuing.

Creative Brainstorming Tips

As you do Internet research, you will get a lot more research than you need. Take notes on interesting keywords and concepts in a notebook. You’ll never know when you need to reference it in the future.

Helpful Resources

“Gather more than you need. Use the library and the Internet to find potential sources for your research paper. (This is about writing research papers, but the concept applies to Internet research as well.)” – Grace Fleming, for About.com

“Zotero collects all your research in a single, searchable interface. You can add PDFs, images, audio and video files, snapshots of web pages, and really anything else. Zotero automatically indexes the full-text content of your library, enabling you to find exactly what you’re looking for with just a few keystrokes. (A pretty interesting tool for research enthusiasts like me.)” – Zotero

Writing Prompt 052

Prompt: Define Musical Influence and Describe Five Artists Who Do it Well.

• Step 1: Define the term “musical influence”. Try not to research it. The definition should derive from your own experience with music.
• Step 2: Think about the different types of music you like and the artists (singers or musicians) who have musical influence. Is there anybody who does it well (has musical influence)?
• Step 3: Describe five artists who have musical influence. Remember, musical influence is subjective and is based on perception. Your thoughts and opinions are valid.

Please be sure to leave comments about this writing prompt. We want to hear from you!

About the Author

Amanda M. Socci, J.D., is a freelance writer with 14 years of experience writing professionally. Socci currently cuts her blogging chops on her personal portfolio blog, the Creative Idea Gal blog, and on an online news site, Mount Vernon Patch. Inspired by Nina Amir’s Write Nonfiction in November writing challenge, she created a unique 10-month training program for Writenonfictionnow.com and Writenonfictioninnovember.com blog visitors.

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