Music that you write to

[stickygirl]

Following on from Simon's Movie Inspiration post, here's a music based one.

I find music sets the tone for my writing and puts me in the right mood. On a typical busy day the right piece of music washes away the grit of stress from my head and reminds me to put on my happy head.

So to kick off with my favs
Velvet Moon
Lemolo
Stella Donnelly
Wolf Alice

my kind of people. Who are your people ...or maybe you don't like music playing?

 

[KeithD]

I can't write to anything more intrusive than the background instrumentals put out by sources like Atmospheres. I was a stage and concert singer, and any sort of vocals will take me away from my writing.

 

[BiscuitHammer]

I tend to have music playing that I associate with the story I'm writing in some way. So if I'm writing my series 'The Great Khan', I put on Mongolian music, or Steppe Metal, like Tengger Cavalry, the Hu, or Hanggai. If I'm writing my fantasy series, Amberley Bloodstar, I just find a fantasy music playlist on the Tube of You.

The Alexaverse music tends to be very scene-specific, so it can range from the Hurrian Hymns, to Wagner, to Zeppelin, Bay City Rollers, the Sweet, or Lloyd Price and the Crystals. It's actually fun to see where that story takes me music-wise, because music and lyrics figure a lot in the Alexaverse.

The same holds true for Time Rider, I tend to play music from whatever era my protagonists happen to be in.

 

[stickygirl]

I used to listen to a couple of tracks by Air, French electro kinda trance stuff that I first heard it as a track for Lost in Translation which is very background. Writing to Foo Fighters is a no-no!

 

[Ginlover]

Love sex and Magic https://youtu.be/Z9PDzf81h20 great on a loop for the rhythm of a sex scene build up

The Fray
Way too many to list including Corners, You Found Me, How to Save a Life
Heartbeat is one of their best for a good build up and sex scene rhythm https://youtu.be/hp0_2fjPlbM

I bunch of eighties songs for mellow parts of a story including
The Cars who’s going to drive you home https://youtu.be/xuZA6qiJVfU
Foreigner I want to know what love is https://youtu.be/r3Pr1_v7hsw

 

[oggbashan]

To listen to:

Rossini and Donizetti operas.

But to inspire my writing? I have used many pieces of music:

Mozart's Countess's Aria Dove Sono from the Marriage of Figaro.

Mozarts' Aria Voy Che Sapete (same opera)

Lensky's Aria from Eugene Onegin

Jeannie with the long brown hair

Ivor Novellos' We'll Gather Lilacs for English Lane etc.

 

[gordo12]

I bunch of eighties songs for mellow parts of a story including
The Cars who’s going to drive you home https://youtu.be/xuZA6qiJVfU
Foreigner I want to know what love is https://youtu.be/r3Pr1_v7hsw

Those are favs.

I turn on Itunes and sing (croak like a dead frog) along with them while writing.

 

[Sonatatre]

I prefer to listen to classical music when I write. Like some other people mention, lyrics usually bring me out of it. Sometimes I can do that, but I have found that classical is the best for me, and it also has a lot of emotions in it, making it easy to get into the correct spirit to be creative.

Tchaikovsky is probably the composer I have written most words while listening to

 

[SimonDoom]

I prefer not to write to music because it's distracting. Sometimes I do, anyway. But most of the time I like quiet when I write.

 

[Ginlover]

Those are favs.

I turn on Itunes and sing (croak like a dead frog) along with them while writing.

We either have great taste or we are showing our age, lol

 

[TadOverdon]

The Covers Channel on SiriusXM is one.

 

[MetaBob]

Following on from Simon's Movie Inspiration post, here's a music based one.

I find music sets the tone for my writing and puts me in the right mood. On a typical busy day the right piece of music washes away the grit of stress from my head and reminds me to put on my happy head.

So to kick off with my favs
Velvet Moon
Lemolo
Stella Donnelly
Wolf Alice

my kind of people. Who are your people ...or maybe you don't like music playing?

I like Wolf Alice (and Shake Shake Go, for similar reasons) but not while writing; their music is too foreground for me.

I make playlists of songs I excerpt in my writing. Listening to them can help put me in a writing headspace. One example:

Valley Winter Song - Fountains of Wayne, from which I drew the title (and some inspiration) for the piece I hope to finish next.

An example from my Cascade Fire and Crossings follows. All of the songs are Easter eggs of a sort, providing depth into what the characters are experiencing in their own heads at the time, even if it isn't expressed in the text:

I Want Your (Hands on Me) - Sinéad O'Connor
Out Of My Head - Sun 60
Cat People (Putting Out Fire) - David Bowie
Less Cities, More Moving People - The Fixx
I Don't Know Why - Kieran Kane & Rayna Gellert
Return of the Grievous Angel - Gram Parsons
Babyfather - Sade
A Case of You (Live) - Diana Krall
Love Has No Pride - Jane Monheit
Sexual Healing - Marvin Gaye
The Order of Death - Public Image Ltd.
Lovers Rock - Sade
Nightswimming - R.E.M.
Between the Bars - Metric
Slow Life - Of Monsters and Men
Get Me On - Poi Dog Pondering
Unwritten - Natasha Bedingfield
Sing Me to Sleep - Fran Healy
Skin Graph - Silversun Pickups

 

[Handley_Page]

Beethoven, Mozart or Sans Sans.

 

[LAHomedog]

Classic rock. I have two playlist with an universe of around 800+ songs each. Rock, and slow rock (what's now called Yacht Rock). I'm so familiar with the songs they become white noise in the background.

 

[SamScribble]

Classic rock. I have two playlist with an universe of around 800+ songs each. Rock, and slow rock (what's now called Yacht Rock). I'm so familiar with the songs they become white noise in the background.

Jazz. Mainly post-bop. Instrumental. NO vocals.

 

[soflabbwlvr]

I used to listen only to instrumental music while writing. Vocals were intrusive. So I listened to classical in the morning or jazz in the afternoon. I took a break from writing and now that I'm back I can listen to anything I like. I have couple dozen playlists on Spotify and a few hundred CDs, and I just rotate through them.

 

[lovecraft68]

Writing-anything hard heavy with screaming vocals and music, for some reason the chaos of the music allows me to focus. Then again I'm like that with everything, I excel during all manner of turmoil or chaos, when things are slow and calm, that's when I get edgy.

Editing- Doo wop/Motown Jackie Wilson, The Drifters etc...

The metal speeds up the muse, the mellow slows the mind down to fix the mess the high speed tying made.

 

[XerXesXu]

Anything high energy to warm up, run to get high, turning over ideas in my head. Warm down, putting ideas onto paper, writing in silence.

 

[Euphony]

Phases

Wolf Alice is an excellent call.
Quickly moving into a ring of honor in my "writing rotation."

As far as my own specifics, music is critical to writing and I have different phases and works/groups to help me in those.

Vocab/"wake up": About pulling my cortex out of the shorthand we're stuck in nowadays. This is often music listening first letting my subconscious work in the background and signal to me when it has something it wants to show me.

10.000 Maniacs/Natalie M
Death Cab for Cutie/Postal Service
National
Wolf Alice
Bon Iver

Mood: Lot of crossover w/"wake up" but more active listening and less dependence on language. Looking to really set a stage here.

Mitski
Tori Amos
Bjork (special curation)
Joni Mitchell
Carol King
Everything but the Girl
Indigo Girls
Sade
Taylor Swift (heavily curated)

Pen to paper: Actual writing so on background is critical. Ambient or Classical but both are complex kettles of fish so its critical to find your own fit that moves you downstream but doesn't throw rapids at you unexpectedly.

Aphex Twim (ambient works)
Gas (Königsforst is my best zone but there's heavy debate of all 4 Gas works)
Pauline Oliveros/Stuart Dempster/Panaiotis: Deep Listening
William Basinski: Disintegration Loops (careful, is repetitive but also not. Google the story)
Stars of the Lid (a touch dry as all drone tends to be but unlike anything else)
Brian Eno: (so so much Eno. Apollo is a good fit RN b/c my brain has a knack for remembering his stuff. Ambient for Airports is excellent but too imprinted for me.)


Specifics are of some utility so I included them but I suggest really considering what you want out of the music (other than distraction) and focus on finding what works for you in furtherance of your goals.

And kill off your musical darlings when they no longer serve you the same.

I stumbled onto much of this almost accidentally but it has both improved my writing, my motivation, and my musical appreciation.

A rare win-win-win, if you will.

Happy writing. E.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Just one of many playlists I have and use...

Johnny Cash - Aint no Grave
Mimi and Josie - Creep
Ramones - Blitzkrieg Bop
Demi Lovato - Stone Cold
Cover by Stephanie Madrian - Dance Monkey (Tones & I)
Guns N' Roses - Welcome To The Jungle
The Who - Baba O'riley
Blondie - Heart Of Glass Lyrics
ACDC - Thunderstruck
Weird Al Yankovic - Amish Paradise
Weird Al Yankovic - Smells Like Nirvana
A-Ah - Take On Me
The Edgar Winter Group - Frankenstein
The B52s - Love Shack
The Bangles - Walk Like an Egyptian
The Bangles - Hazy Shade of Winter
The Beatles - With A Little Help From My Friends
Bee_Gees - Stayin' Alive
Billy Joel - Pressure
Billy Joel - Piano Man
Blondie - Call Me
Blondie - One Way Or Another
Blue Oyster Cult - Godzilla
Bob Seger - Ramblin Gamblin Man
Bon Jovi - Wanted Dead Or Alive
Bruce Springstein - Born To Run
Christina Aguilera - Genie in a Bottle
Collective Soul - December
Credence Clearwater Revival - Run Through the Jungle
Deep Purple - Smoke on the Water
Dire Straits - Money for Nothing
Donna Summer - I Feel Love
Duran Duran - Rio
Eddie And The Cruisers - On The Dark Side
FloRida Ft. Kesha - Right Round
Genesis - Tonight, Tonight, Tonight
Genisis - Land Of Confusion
Guns N' Roses - Paradise City
Daryl Hall & John Oates - Private Eyes
Heart - Barracuda
Jeff Beal - Paradise (Jesse_s Theme)
Journey - Anyway You Want It
Lady Gaga - Love Game
Metalica - Enter Sandman
Micheal Jacksone - Beat It
Nickelback - Rockstar
The Power Station - Some Like It Hot
Queen - Under Pressure
Rolling Stones - Sympathy for the Devil
Black Sabbath - Iron_Man
Trans Siberian Orchestra - Wizards in Winter
The Knack - My Sharona
Blue Swede - Hooked on a Feeling
War - Lowrider
Ying/Yang Twins/Greg Tecoz -Fist_Pump_Jump_Jump
Unknown - Ghost Riders in the Sky

 

[AlexBailey]

I put on music that my wife likes so she will leave me to my train of thought.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Here's another...

Boston - Foreplay-Long Time
Donna Summer - I Feel Love
Nickelback - Rockstar
Pitch Perfect - Freedom! 90
Billy Joel - Piano Man
Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit
Daryl Hall & John Oates - Private Eyes
Chicago - i'm a man
Rush - Tom Sawyer
Bad Company - Bad Company
The Bangles = Hazy Shade of Winter
Heart - Barracuda
Tom Petty - American Girl
Heart - Crazy On You
Bruce Springsteen - Born To Run
Joe Walsh - Life's Been Good
Tom Petty - Free Falling
Rush - Limelight
Heart - Even It Up
Chicago - 25 or 6 to 4
HEART - Magic Man
Styx - Fooling Yourself
Chicago - questions 67 & 68
The Bangles - Walk Like an Egyptian
Boston - Don't Look Back
Cheap Trick - Ain't That a Shame
Led Zeppelin - Immigrant Song
Martin Solveig Ft. Dev - We Came To Smash (In A Black Tuxedo)
The Moody Blues - I'm Just a Singer (In a Rock & Roll Band)
Rush - The Spirit Of The Radio
Peter Gabriel - Shock The Monkey
Queen - Under Pressure
Rolling Stones - Sympathy for the Devil
David Guetta - Titanium
Lynyrd Skynyrd - Freebird
Steppenwolf - Magic Carpet Ride
PETER FRAMPTON - Do You Feel Like We Do
Nickelback - Rockstar
Unknown Artist - Late Nights and Street Fights
Styx - Blue Collar Man
Talking Heads - BurningDownTheHouse
Rush - Fly By Night
Blondie - Call me
The Zombies - Tell Her No (1964)
Murray Head - One Night in Bangkok

...Last one.

 

[yowser]

Gornisht. Silence. Certainly nothing with lyrics.

I need sometimes to be able to say a sentence out loud to hear if it's 'right'.

Birdsong, wind in the trees - all are fine background.

 

[stickygirl]

Just one of many playlists I have and use...

Johnny Cash - Aint no Grave
Mimi and Josie - Creep
Ramones - Blitzkrieg Bop
Demi Lovato - Stone Cold
Cover by Stephanie Madrian - Dance Monkey (Tones & I)
Guns N' Roses - Welcome To The Jungle
The Who - Baba O'riley
Blondie - Heart Of Glass Lyrics
ACDC - Thunderstruck
Weird Al Yankovic - Amish Paradise
Weird Al Yankovic - Smells Like Nirvana

~snip~

Trans Siberian Orchestra - Wizards in Winter
The Knack - My Sharona
Blue Swede - Hooked on a Feeling
War - Lowrider
Ying/Yang Twins/Greg Tecoz -Fist_Pump_Jump_Jump
Unknown - Ghost Riders in the Sky

You write to those?! All good but I couldn't write to such in your face songs

 

[Emirus]

I don’t listen to anything except whatever background noises there are the time, although those which are raucous are a pain in the arse. That’s the time when I wish guns were legal in the UK so I could dispatch the odd neighbour.

If I was to listen to music I suppose it would be:

Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence
In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone
'Neath the halo of a street lamp
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence

I find dreams are one of the best sources of inspiration. Provided when you wake up because of a good idea, you make a note of it immediately. If you don’t, when you wake in the morning, you know you had a fantastic idea during the night, wrote a multi-million best seller and/or an Oscar winning screenplay. Unfortunately all you can remember is you had a fantastic idea.

Daydreams are a good alternative. Amazing what idea can pop into your mind no matter what you’re doing at the time. But remember there are some circumstances when it’s not a good thing to stop what you’re doing to make a note of your idea.

I find, during the day, silence is best. Failing that, I find Albatross by Fleetwood Mac very relaxing.