Music for writing

Try foreign music. Especially K-pop.

 

Oh man - I've had my husband make me three mix CDs from iTunes for writing.

The Seth Experience

The EmoTeen!Seth Experience

The Gunky Experience (STDs Not Included)



And I have playlists on YouTube that I listen to while I'm writing. The Valley Seth list is up to 80 songs, the teen Seth list is nearing 40, and the Gunky list is just about 15 or so, I think. And then I have a beautiful letters playlist, so named because I hated the draft I had of the final update for Valley but then I listened to the music on that playlist and suddenly the letters became beautiful.

All of my characters have their own songs.

I really need music to write. And to think about my stories. Basically - I breathe music almost as much as I breathe writing.

 

I like to listen to smooth jazz when I write but it has to be instrumental only and volume set low. If there are any vocals, they really distract me and I, sometimes, end up typing the words to the songs instead of my own words. lol. I hate it when that happens....

 

It varies a lot. I tend to listen to indie rock, alternative rock, acoustic, or stuff that I have no idea how to classify because it's so odd.

The general criterion for writing music (for me) is if it evokes that weird creative state of mind, or some emotion that is appropriate for what I'm writing at that time. So usually it's something a little unusual or intense sounding.

 

I Love this question.
It always depends on what I'm writing. If it's romance I listen to love songs. Also, if a characters mad I listen to hype up music, if their sad I listen to sad song. It helps me accurately react to whats conflicting them.

 

Exactly. For me if I listen to music that pertains to that state of mind it's easier for me to get in my characters' heads. Plus I've led a very emotional and difficult life so it's not difficult for me to dig down and describe emotions.

 

listening to God is an Astronaut's 'All is violent All is bright". glad i found em.

 

I have a collection of Traditional Chinese Erhu Music that I play whenever I write.

 

I can't hear music while writing unless I'm writing about music itself. Its influence is too strong and it alters my writing, which is kind of funny when I review it and see that I forced a frenetic rhythm on what should be a peaceful description, or vice versa.

 

I love both music and writing. But personally, I keep them separate.

 

I listen to The Killers and Coldplay most of the time while I'm writing stories.

 

I like all genres of music and my characters tend to end up having favourites. The genre I'm listening to creates mood which effects my writing, so I struggle to write a moody scene / character with upbeat music in the background and so on.

 

When I write I tend not to listen to music as it can often distract me from ideas and scenes that I am thinking of.

 

I can't stand listening to music while writing or reading! If I listen to music, then I associate the song with whatever I'm reading or writing, so I can't go back and listen to the song without thinking of the writing, and I can't read the section withouth thinking of the song!

 

I tend to get ideas while I'm listening to music, but I don't always enjoy listening to music while I'm writing. And when I do the music has to be somewhat related to the kind of writing I'm working on. It's an annoyance otherwise.

~Eliza

 

Music can help me envision scenes when I'm walking down the street or eating breakfast. But I rarely listen to it when I'm actually writing. That being said, I find it's good to have a "soundtrack" for really emotional scenes.

As to what kind of music... nothing with words. Or at least, nothing with words that I can easily understand. Otherwise I get distracted. But classical music and opera works well. Favourites include Orff's "Carmina Burana," Schubert, Mendelssohn, and for this latest project, Britain's boy choir "Libera."

 

Music is an okay addition to my writing time. When it comes to poetry, only Tool will do and that’s mostly because of Lateralus. It was written with Fibonacci in mind, meaning it’s written with a scheme of 1,1,2,3,5,8,13,8,5,3,2,1,1 - each number symbolizing the number of syllables needed per line. Just google “Fibonacci” to get the gist. ALL of my poetry is written in that particular scheme. It's more difficult than it sounds.

For longer pieces (like the novel that haunts me), I have a playlist I stick to. So far, at least.

1. Skinny Little Bitch - Angelspit
2. The Reflecting God - Marilyn Manson
3. Gravity - Sara Bareilles
4. Rev 22:20 - From the Underworld SDTRK
5. You and Me and the Devil Makes 3 - Marilyn Manson
6. When It Rains - Paramore
7. Thinking of You - A Perfect Circle
8. Supermassive Black Hole - Muse
9. Come In Closer - Blue October
10. Within You - David Bowie
11. Counting Bodies Like Sheep - A Perfect Circle
12. Zlotnik - Hansel
13. Letter to Hermione - David Bowie
14. Whatever (I Had A Dream) - Butthole Surfers
15. A Jagged Gorgeous Winter - Main Drag (I think?)
16. Lazy Eye - Silversun Pickups
17. Major Tom - Shiny Toy Guns

Anyone wanna make a suggestion?

 

Instrumental Music

Music inspires me, but sometimes a song's lyrics end up messing up my line of thought. So, I decided to find some instrumental music... Something that's proving to be quite difficult. What I'm looking for is epic or dramatic instrumental songs, something in the lines of Each Lullaby by Motoi Sakuraba. If you can help by putting some good instrumental songs here, I;m sure that more than one person on this site would appreciate it!

 

search jojoking7 in youtube. He has good colection of epic song.

 

Have you looked at soundtracks? Film and TV soundtracks are often very good for writing to. My personal favourites are the Lord of the Rings soundtracks, and Bear McCreary's Battlestar Galactica soundtracks.

 

try music in another language I have lots of fitting music in Faroese, Finnish, Russian, Gaelic, Dutch, Czech, Danish, and Norwegian. I don't understand a word of it so it can't mess up my train of thought !

 

I agree, Mila! I listen to a lot of German or Russian music myself.

I prefer writing to music that makes me envision something. Actually, there have been times where a song has made me start a piece because of the images in my head.
Circus Contraption (especially their instrumental stuff, like Red Noodle), UNKLE (positively phenomenal. GREAT to write endings to), Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails, Blaqk Audio, Coldplay, Emilie Autum (only her instrumental) and Dead Can Dance are all just really visual bands, I find.

 

Listening to music whilst writing

Does anyone else listen to music whilst writing? What sort of things do people listen to?

I prefer to listen to instrumental stuff as I find lyrics interrupt my thoughts. I mostly listen to the soundtracks of the Elder Scrolls computer games - Morrowind and Oblivion. I found the music files (about 100 minutes in total) on my hard drive and listen to them on repeat. I dunno what it is about it but I can listen to it over and over without getting bored.

 

I mix diffrent playlist for what im working on. A general broad theme for the book and specific list themed things like "Aggressive", "The city", "Power" or whatever else feels nice to have.

The music used stretches from Madonna to the Donnie Darko and Stardust soundtrack to Arch Enemy death metal.

 

I agree that instrumentals are great to listen to when writing.
I listen to anything. It depends on what music phase I'm in. I guess I try and listen to songs that aren't too upbeat and don't have a lot of lyrical meaning, but it doesn't matter too much because when I'm writing either I zone out completely from the music and focus entirely on my writing, or my music helps get me in a rhythm to write whatever I'm writing.