It's a playlist of 18, all over an hour long. No stops, no interruptions to pick a new song. Great stuff. I'm not one who needs their music to reflect their story or scene, so this is perfect for whatever I'm writing.
I am one for listening to what I feel my characters would listen to. I've got quite into Snarky Puppy though trying to get into my Jazz obsessed detective's head.
My best writing music so far has shown to be Dubstep or anything within its various sub-categorizations.
I've been listening mostly to Andeas Vollenweider music while writing my current WIP. Under One Moon Wanja the Wanderer But my opening scene (so far at least, because I tend to rearrange a lot) is 100% this Banco de Gaia - Big Men Cry
So my vampire-mage bank robber/bomber has a new theme in my head: I also have a Two Steps from Hell playlist for my human protagonists, the two biggest being Moving Mountains and Starfall Spoiler and I'm thinking that the YuGiOh "Toon World" theme is going to be one of the best for my intended climax Spoiler
Since I have been working on something else other than my sequel, I have toned it down a bit. New Retro Wave is good for what I working on currently.
Personally, I don't know how anyone can write, draw or do any other creative act while listening to music. For one thing, it pushes one's mood in a particular direction, usually a negative one... because the lyrics of nearly ever single song ever written are sad (Johnny Nash and Stevie Wonder being two notable exceptions). They're about love gone bad (Baby, come back, etc.) or loneliness (Only the Lonely, etc.) or tragedy (Ode to Billy Joe, for instance). And even though these examples are all from the 1960s, I'm sure things haven't changed that much, if at all. So unless a person wants to write sad stories—and these days, publishers demand happy or at least satisfying endings for novels, at least—this just sounds like fighting an uphill battle to me. Secondly, the splits one's attention. Perhaps I feel this more sharply because I'm a musician, but even if there are no lyrics to distract me, the music itself carries me away and off there in la-la land, I'm not telling stories, I'm digging the music. Mozart is so distracting, it takes days for me to settle down again enough to write. And finally, there's always the chance that the music will cast its shadow over the work, bringing influences that aren't mine to bear. I can barely hear the voices in my head as it is. I don't need that voice to become someone else's.
You set me on a mission to find happy music now and yeah, there isn't much. Why are we such sad creatures?
I stopped listening to anything for a few days, see if silence helped my writing any. It didn't so this is my current writing music. I found a playlist of all their stuff on youtube - 200 videos including all their full albums - should last me months. Perhaps the best ambient music I've ever heard.
I don't know how you guys can listen to music and write at the same time. When I'm writing, I can block just about anything out. So, if music was on, I really wouldn't be listening to it anyway. Or it would distract me. I like to really focus. I need that focus. I need to be completely into whatever I'm working on. I really am surprised that you guys are trying to write and listen to music at the same time. I really don't see a benefit to having anything else competing for my attention while I'm writing.
Where 'regular' music and songs are concerned I can see where you're coming from, but when it comes to ambient music, something like Loscil are so brilliant it almost taps into my brain. I'm not listening to it, because it and my brainwaves become one and the same.
- one playlist is assorted Vaporwave songs. I like a lot of the analysis about Vaporwave: consumerism, capitalism, languor, the self-conscious shallowness you see in postmodernism, dispossession in the face of globalisation etc. - Another is Shoegaze: My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive, The Brian Jonestown Massacre etc. This may sound pretty edgy, but the music is softer than the names suggests.
Seeing as my husband is currently wrangling our two toddlers into a bath in the room next door, there is no way I can write (or procrastinate) without listening to something. I use mynoise.net - huge selection of sounds, drones, tones, etc. that are calibrated to cancel out distracting background noise. There are so many choices I've been able to select a particular sound for each of my last projects. Hearing that sound put me right back into writing mode - very helpful!
Me again. I just realized how much Hans Zimmer's Wonder Woman theme sounds like a combination of his Bane theme and Henry Jackman's Winter Soldier theme, and this works so much better as a villain anthem than I'm sure he was intending for it to EDIT: Now that I think about it, I should look for Zimmer's Bane theme. Thank you everybody for a most interesting conversation
Selected tracks from the first two Final Fantasy XIV OST albums. Kind of disturbing, though, to see blatant copyright infringement in a forum for writers.
Rise, thread, and obey my necromatic powers. This is a go-to for writing, unless I turn on something for a more specific mood setter.
This and many others from the soundtracks to the two newest Deus Ex games. Loved playing them, and find the music very inspiring for when I'm writing. Michael McCann is a hell of a composer. There's a ton of haunting, atmospheric tracks that really get me in the mood. I'e struggled a bit with metal for writing. Tend to get too amped up and my work usually suffers. I've always had something on in the background though, I have a rough time without it. I'm guilty of playing the same song on repeat for hours at times, which eventually drives me mad. Thanks to YouTube autoplay, this doesn't happen too much when I'm really in the zone.
