Do you listen to music when you write?

Xelah

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Just curious.

No matter how exciting something I'm writing may be, I'm probably going to get bored and my mind will wander. Having some music on helps keep me on task.

What do you do?
 
Not normally, but lately I've been doing most of my writing at work, and I'd really get noticed if pulled out my iPod while I was doing it! I have done in the past, if there's a particular piece of musuic that fits the mood of my piece. Has to be instrumental, though. Usually film scores or classical...
 
Usually yes, i find it helps me to picture what i'm doing in my mind that little bit better, but it has to be absolutely relevant to what i'm writing about. For example if i'm writing a battle scene for an SF novel, i may play some James Horner from star trek II (big fan of his), or the crimson tide theme.
 
Yes I do, all the time...

But it cant have any words, or they end up in my book, scary as it sounds its true. I listen to Yes, Tangerine Dream, Led Z occasionally. I might add this is not my normal choice, but when the house is empty, this stuff kicks while I write.

I was, sometime back listening to Rick Wakemen - journey to the centre of the earth, try it, awsom. Any how, they get to a bit when their on a lake and>>>
Cumulous clouds formed heavily in the east, heaped together like huge wool-packs, moving slowly in picturous disorder, forming one menasing mass. The raft lay motionless on the sluggish, empty sea... and in silence, they waited... for the storm. (or words to that affect) (or is the effect)

How can that not influance your writing.

Steve

BTW, I have Jazz moents too, Miles Davis, luv-in-it
 
I do listen a internet radio, and mainly music without any sort of singing because that would make my head in. So I have to channels in the di.fm that I listen, one is the ambient and another one is the space-music channel.
 
You know, I used to, but now I find I can only really do it if I have music on quite quietly, or not at all. It might be partially because I keep my playlist on random, and sometimes skip tracks I'm not in the mood for, or which are too embarassing for my housemates to hear. It distracts me from actually writing.
 
Wouldn't call it listening, or even mood-setting, and sometimes the intrusion of any sound whatever is enough to break my immersion in writing, but I'll slap on a Beatles CD or else something I've never heard just to get me started, sometimes.
 
oddly enough, more likely to be talk radio than music. background as much as anything else.
 
I'm the same as 2ndchance, I can't have words but will have something instrumental on in the background. I can just about get away with words in another language (one I do't understand) as I can't latch on that.
 
That is weird.

I prefer rock, preferably something fairly angry sounding, like Disturbed.

I do occasionally listen to instrumental stuff, but it has to be up tempo like "Manila Chase Scene"
 
Some music I find inspiring, some distracting. The same piece can be inspiring one day and bloody annoying the next, depending on what I'm trying to write.

Current fave is the Princess Mononoke soundtrack.

Music can genuinely inspire your writing, but there is a corresponding danger. If you hit on exactly the piece that fits your story, it can flatter the writing as you write it, because you get caught up in it more. The reader isn't going to have the same piece playing in the background as they read it.
 
If you hit on exactly the piece that fits your story, it can flatter the writing as you write it, because you get caught up in it more. The reader isn't going to have the same piece playing in the background as they read it.

That's an idea. Have footnotes or a sub-heading: "[For this action scene you will need to have playing Wagner's 'Ride of the Valkyries', the Barenboim BPO version for preference]". Interactive books.

J
 
That's an idea. Have footnotes or a sub-heading: "[For this action scene you will need to have playing Wagner's 'Ride of the Valkyries', the Barenboim BPO version for preference]". Interactive books.

J

A few years ago I did almost start such a project, a book written with its own soundtrack, in collaboration with a friend who was a decent music composer. Never got beyond the drunken planning stage though.
 
I usually write at work and prefer silence -apart from the heating system, electronic hum, owls recently and, oh, calls for me to handle. However at home, where I've been editing a piece of work, I've had the soundtrack from 'Caprica' on in the background. This is an instramental work and the whole tone is 'does not end well'...
 

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