My Use of Music and Sounds

Most fiction writers have themes or motifs they employ often in their stories. Writers of erotica have them too. A motif I frequently couch my gay male stories in is that of music or sounds being the motivational factor of storylines, the careers or passions of the characters, or the background of sexual seduction or pursuit. I have been active in music all my life--as a stage and concert singer, a pianist, and the producer of concerts and musical stage productions. My love of, and work with, music has become a key element of many of my stories.

One of my first connections with music combined with attraction was when I was given my first album, Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade by a music conductor who was a dinner guest of my family's in Germany. I fancied he was interested in me and, although I was too young to be thinking of sex, he impressed me as well. Having subsequently learned of his interest in young boys, my parents didn't invite him to dinner again--but I had the album he gave me to think about him. A story that captures and enhances this is keithd's "Thousand and Second Night" (Thousand and Second Night - Gay Male - Literotica.com)

I also include music reference in my stories because my first realizations of being hit upon sexually, although I didn't pick up on the propositions at the time, were while being in casts of stage musicals. A stereotype is to consider most men on the stage or in stage production being gay and that has borne out in my experience.

Thirty of my short stories featuring music in some form were brought together in a voluminous anthology, Music of the Night: Gay Music Theme Stories. These bring together stories that can be read for free on Literotica. This collection provides glimpses into my use of music as a motif in my stories or at least the inclusion of music in the story's setting or plot. Sometimes music is a key element of the story and sometimes it only is employed to help provide the background or the framing of the storyline or an insight into one or more key characters.

The stories in the anthology, posted to Literotica in either the sr71plt or keithd accounts, are provided in five sections--Instrumentals, Orchestras and Conductors, Vocals, Bands, and Music Festivals--illustrating how broad based the territory and my use of the theme are.

[Instrumentals] "Guitar Me," "Galician Guitar," "Pianoman," "In His Own Time," "Controu's Release," "Bangkok Defection," "Atonement of Exorcism," "Hidden Flute," "Drums in the Night," and "The Celtic Sonata of Life."

[Orchestras and Conductors] "Unlikely Obsession," "Forced Layover," "Vienna Woods Release," "Breakout," and "Siren Song Symphony."

[Vocals] "The Songbird and the Philanthropist," "Background Swinger," "Unfathomable," "Pearl Fisher Ecstasy," and "Butterfly."

[Bands] "Snaked on Anjajavy Beach," "Tempting Memory," "The Yellow Cadillac," "Lesson Unlearned," "Summer Deceptions," and "Doubling Back."

[Music Festivals] "Tanglewood Entanglements," "Mountain Music Retreat Treats." "Adopted to Inherit" and "All That Argentine Jazz."

Music also is provided as a thematic focus in my standalone novellas. Thus, sr71plt's Harmony and Dissonance (Harmony and Dissonance - Gay Male - Literotica.com) is a mystery in which a hypersexual German stage set engineer, Lars Krieger, is on a mission in Bangkok, Thailand, while helping to stage a royal-sponsored concert.

Through sexual machinations, Krieger has worked his way into being included in setting up a royal-command Chopin piano concert at the royal summer palace in Hua Hin, Thailand. In the process he has suborned the premier Thai set designer, Amnad, of the royal house, to gain access to other royals, Krit, a concert pianist, and his wife, the soprano soloist, Somsri. Lars is clearly working all of these people--through sexual manipulation--to some end. There's more going on here than setting up for a royal-command concert. But what is it? Who and what are Lars's real targets? And at who's behest is he operating? And does even Lars know what is actually going on, and who is really manipulating who?

In sr71plt'sCome Me Mr Sax Man (Come Me Mr. Sax Man Ch. 01 - Gay Male - Literotica.com), Trent, a young, handsome, lithe stage dancer, enjoying the best mix of the genes from a Jamaican father and French mother, is cruising the ocean with a dance troupe. He also is cruising for older, experienced men--and sometimes fending off the advances of younger, athletic men and sometimes not. While pursuing the sensual and dangerous-looking ship's saxophonist, Buzz, in competition with a bevy of wealthy widows, on a Bahamas cruise out of Baltimore, Trent falls under the sway of an older and openly sexual and inventive Brazilian. Buzz at last shows interest in Trent too and acts on that in an overpowering way. Now Trent is left with a choice to make, if the men in his life will permit him to make the choice.

I use sound motifs in my writing too, in which the rhythm of sex is matched to that of some accompanying sound. Several times I have used the sound of train wheels clacking on the tracks, as in keithd's "On the Night Train to Mandalay" (On the Night Train to Mandalay - Gay Male - Literotica.com) and his "Extreme Gay Thailand 1978" (Extreme Gay Thailand 1978 Ch. 01 - Gay Male - Literotica.com), and I also use the sound the headboard of a bed beating against the wall, as in keithd's Shore Leave (Page 2 - Shore Leave - Gay Male - Literotica.com) or his "Green-Eyed Ginger Fetish" (Green-Eyed Ginger Fetish - Gay Male - Literotica.com) or the springs of the bed singing as in keithd's "Snowbound Laid" (Page 2 - Snowbound Laid - Gay Male - Literotica.com)