Is there anyone who doesn’t enjoy music? If so, don’t read any further.
Music has been part of human existence before recorded history. By the time humans began recording their history, they mentioned music in their writings. They mentioned instruments: drums, cymbals, pipes, horns, lyres and harps—most of the basic sounds of orchestration. They also mentioned some musicians and referred to songs and melodies that they had heard.
One of the attractions of researching for an historical novel is learning about the music of the times. Germany and Austria, as most people know, have contributed much great music to the world including some of the greatest classical composers: Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, and Wagner. Two of these are mentioned in the book.
However, when I researched popular music in the late 1920s and early 1930s, the time when Luther the protagonist was maturing and attending university, I discovered that many young people were listening to American music: jazz and swing. I had to research which musicians Luther might have heard and danced to in Bonn.
Thanks to YouTube being a vast repository of music, I was then able to locate the swing and jazz pieces that Luther might have heard from groups that toured Germany and I listened to them. Listening to them helped me write more convincingly about the music and the feelings that they stirred for young people. Songs like “Huggable, Kissable You” and “I’m Doing What I’m Doing for Love” are two of the songs I listened to and included in the book.
I also learned about the martial music that German soldiers and sailors might have listened to, especially naval marches and U-boater songs; two of these were “The U-Boat Sailor’s Song” and “Hamburg am Elbestrand,” Luther’s favorite.
In fact, at one point I thought it would be great to add links to the pieces mentioned, so anyone who bought an eBook, could click on the link and listen to the music. However, that idea was nixed by editors and publishers because I wasn’t writing a self-help book, but a narrative for which such additions would break up the flow of the narration. Besides, anyone who was interested in listening to the music could find them on YouTube just as I had done.