Music to write to

[togitc]

I find myself popping my headphones on everytime I sit down to write. Mainly to drone out the sounds of the people next door banging around, not the good kind.

Got to thinking anyone else write to music? What kind if so?

My girlie just picked up the new Gwen Stefani record, she is in the main rotation. I spatter in some Bowling for Soup, love the song about sleeping with the roommate when the girlfriend passed out. After that I have some Black Eyed Peas and random stuff.

Also, I apologize if this is already a topic. I didn't want to have to trek through the backlogs to find it.

Long live the lazy.

 

[AppleBiter]

I don't usually listen to music when I write stories . . . I like things as silent as possible. However, when I write poetry, I LOVE to listen to music to inspire me. Usually, I throw on a little Counting Crows, REM, Jewel (when she was folk) or Norah Jones.

 

[OhMissScarlett]

Everything I write has to have its own specific soundtrack. A lot of the time I'll listen to satellite music channels, just so I have a sound that matches the flavor of what I'm writing. For instance, if I'm writing a club scene, I'll listen to industrial.

Occasionally, I'll listen to one CD throughout the writing process for an entire story. When I wrote my "Feast" stories, I listened to Vivaldi's Four Seasons over and over. I know some people say music distracts them, but it seems to help me to focus and get into the mood of the story. Right now I'm listening to Radiohead's Pyramid Song while writing my sex scene. There's nothing like a good, emotional sex scene.

 

[elsol]

Narrative --- Alejandro Sanz...

Sex -- Mark Anthony (Salsa).

sincerley,
ElSol

 

[moonlight elf]

I listen to classical music mostly....sometimes celtic and sometimes ethnic musics.

 

[English Lady]

I cannot write in silence, so there will be noise surrounding me, but as i write in the living room when my husband is with me alot, it tends to be the general drone of TV programmes that accompany. The other night I found a funky 80's online radio station and listened to that as I wrote. I'm more likely to listen to the radio than a specific CD when I'm writing, as it fades into the background better.

 

[IndigoBlu]

Music always tends to drive my moods. Sometimes toward places I don't want or need when writing. Like English Lady I do tend to have telly or sometimes a radio playing in the room, but it becomes very background and goes off the minute I get too distracted by it.

 

[impressive]

I gotta drown out the kids ... and the television ... with something on my headphones. It varies. Right now, it's a downloaded mix of upbeat 80s tunes. Probably explains why I'm not writing much.

Gonna switch this morning and see what happens.

 

[yui]

If I'm really in my "writing zone," then I want silence; anything else distracts me from the voices in my head.

If I'm brainstorming, or in a pre-writing stage, music is very important to me. Nick Drake, Tom Waite, Sarah Mc, Matchbox 20, Tracey Chapman, Lucinda Williams, Ben Folds Five, Damian Rice, etc; artist that have multi-layered lyrics, stories, and just interesting ways with words. Poets.

 

[Liar]

Music is too good to waste as background hum to anything. Even writing. When there is music, I drop everything and listen.

 

[ABSTRUSE]

Music is too good to waste as background hum to anything. Even writing. When there is music, I drop everything and listen.

do you pick it apart too? I do.

but I usually listen to mellow songs when I write.

 

[carsonshepherd]

If I'm really in my "writing zone," then I want silence; anything else distracts me from the voices in my head.

If I'm brainstorming, or in a pre-writing stage, music is very important to me. Nick Drake, Tom Waite, Sarah Mc, Matchbox 20, Tracey Chapman, Lucinda Williams, Ben Folds Five, Damian Rice, etc; artist that have multi-layered lyrics, stories, and just interesting ways with words. Poets.

OMG. You like Nick Drake AND Lucinda Williams

 

[Alex756]

Several of my stories have been inspired by one specific song and through the entire writing process that song or a line is on repease ad nauseum in my head. It won't end until the story is writen.

7 days I had the line "He wore a cowboy hat to cover up his horns" stuck in there.

Right now I have "I smell sex and candy" stuck which is at least a change from the entire song "breakfast in Vegas" which is kinda now being eclipsed by sex and candy in the writing of my story right now. Although at points "I'm not the one who's so far away when I feel the snake bite enter my veins..." has been on repeat in the head.

I've learned in the past few years how to alter the song occasionaly to change the mood of a piece. Like my story was turning too violant until I managed to get sex and candy stuck in my head. For my next story I know its going to mean getting some lords of acid stuck in there.

Sometimes a soundtrack happens, sometimes it takes work, but everything I write seems to have a sound track of sorts.

-Alex

I do not believe in simple answers

 

[Bizkit_Writer]

music to write to

I just let my mood pick out the music. If I'm writing something sexy I'll put on a ballad or my Celtic Woman record I recently purchased. If I'm writing anything I'll put on whatever I'm in the mood for.

 

[NoJo]

Music distracts me, good or bad. I also can't carry on a converstion when the TV or radio is on. It's a symptom of getting older. I'm inexorably mutating from a fine young fart into a miserable old one.

 

[yui]

When there is music, I drop everything and listen.

do you pick it apart too? I do.

Yes, I understand, I think! I'm always trying to listen to the lyrics and figure out what they mean, eh?

OMG. You like Nick Drake AND Lucinda Williams

You, too?

 

[yui]

Music distracts me, good or bad. I also can't carry on a converstion when the TV or radio is on. It's a symptom of getting older. I'm inexorably mutating from a fine young fart into a miserable old one.

You are music, Joe, that's why you distract me.

And I can't carry a TV with the radio on, either.

7 days I had the line "He wore a cowboy hat to cover up his horns" stuck in there.

Like it.

Right now I have "I smell sex and candy" stuck which is at least a change from the entire song "breakfast in Vegas" which is kinda now being eclipsed by sex and candy in the writing of my story right now.

Sex & Candy is a popular theme; I wrote a story titled "Sex & Candy" about a year and a half ago and I think velvetpie has written one, with the exact same title, since then.

"I smell sex and candy…" Inspiring words, eh?

 

[togitc]

Marcy Playground did Sex and Candy right? I bought the CD when it first came out, very disappointing.

Third Eye Blind is a guilty pleasure of mine, something about a song with 'send me all you vampires' in the background makes me smile.

I found myself looking through a CD rack today for sexy sounds. Mainly female.

Jewel doesn't do it for me, aside from that one song "Near Me Always".

Who needs a quote button when you can spout random stuff?

 

[sophia jane]

You are music, Joe, that's why you distract me.

And I can't carry a TV with the radio on, either.

I adore you, Yui. Really.

 

[shannon_est]

I used to have a specific playlist to listen to when writing. The primary songs I listened to were 'The Game' by Disturbed and 'Turn Up the Radio' by Autograph. It also included other Disturbed songs, Marilyn Manson's remakes, 'Sweet Transvestite' and 'Time Warp' from Rocky Horror, Tom Lehrer's 'Masochism Tango', Depeche Mode, Jackyl, Alice in Chains, ohhhh.... it's been a while, can't quite remember everything I had on there. The one song that didn't fit in with all the rest was Alan Jackson's version of 'Kiss an Angel Good Morning'. Don't ask.

That computer crashed, and didn't have the heart to search and download all those songs again for the third time. No longer have that computer, so all I hear now is thewhirr of my fan.

 

[The Neon Wolf]

Music

I listen to a variety of things, sometimes industrial music like KMFDM, other times if I'm looking for more relaxed or lighter inspiration I'll listen to Persephone or the gathering.

I live with other people, honestly my music is easier to deal with then them.

 

[thebullet]

Our local Cable TV system has about a hundred music channels. I keep mine pasted to something called "Soundscapes" - which is mostly New Age music. I call it the meditation channel. It fills the background with inobtrusive, calming, hypnotic sounds while you write your porn.

 

[Guest]

 

[logophile]

I have several play lists in WMP that I use for writing. Here's the contents of one of them:

Diary Queen - Indigo Girls
Chuck E's In Love - Ricky Lee Jones
Deadbeat Club - B52s
She Talks To Angels - The Black Crowes
Black Heart Today - Amy Ray
Got My Mojo Working - Muddy Waters
The Times They Are A Changin' - Bob Dylan
Perhaps Perhaps Perhaps - Cake
Everything In It's Own Time - Indigo Girls
Death Letter Blues - Son House
Ossun Two-Step - Mamou Playboys
The Last Chance Texaco - Ricky Lee Jones
All That We Let In - Indigo Girls
The Thrill Is Gone - B. B. King
This Land Is Your Land - Woodie Guthrie
I Will Survive - Cake
Cara Mia - Indigo Girls
Weasel And The White Boys Cool - Ricky Lee Jones

 

[scheherazade_79]

Mahler, Sibelius, Rachmaninov. If it's late, chilled out jazz.