Writing soundtracks

[David Doherty-Jebb]

I sometimes try to find music, mostly instrumentals, to help me get into a certain mindset when writing particular scenes.

For example, I'm using a lot of Celtic playlists from YouTube at the moment, as my WiP is about a modern-day family of wise-women (read pagan witches) set in my native Northern Ireland. Celtic music is great for the relaxing ambiance needed for a meditative scene, or for something more dramatic when my wise-women need to whup some a$$ (only a$$ that deserves it of course, and only when whupped in a way that maintains the spiritual balance of nature!!!).

Does anyone else do this? And if so, what do you find helps your current WiP? Or maybe you need silence?

Please share

 

[Ray McCarthy]

I like R4 in the Background. Or sometimes old Jazz or 60s. Or both kinds of music. Or ...
I do listen to Celtic /Traditional music, but more just to listen to, not when writing.
But Travelling folk, pipeline and Take the floor on R. Scotland when writing.
(R.Ulster reception is rubbish here nowadays).
Sometimes Trad stuff on Clare FM at night.

There are a few of us Norn Iron folk, of diverse and mythic types on this forum. I'm very far from the Glens here in the Mid West.

Welcome!

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I write in silence but I have music that inspires my space opera stuff. (Muse, mostly, and rocky stuff like the Kaiser Chiefs) I, too, write genre based in Norn Iron, @David Doherty-Jebb, but don't tend to have music linked to that.

 

[David Doherty-Jebb]

I think it's more my subject matter, @springs rather than the setting. It's takes my mind to a place of magic and ritual.

 

[tinkerdan]

I stick with instrumentals and usually cringe when the opera sneak into them now and then. Though we have thrown a few Celtic cds on the fire now and then. W'oops did I say fire ?
Anyway not sure what music they will be playing in the far future in the middle of nowhere in space; but it doesn't hurt to channel the 2001 movie music.
I was listening to elevator music through cable a lot until my job went to half time and I had to cut my expenditures down; but all is well because the classics are much better than the elevator stuff.

 

[David Doherty-Jebb]

Perhaps some nice, expansive Jerry Goldsmith themes could help as well, @tinkerdan

 

[K.S. Crooks]

If I listen to music while I write it needs to be classical or at least instrumental. If it has lyrics I will eventually start singing. I'm one of those people who always has a song in their head anyways so music is constantly with me. I actually prefer to have an old movie on. Something that I know what is happening without having to look.

 

[Kerrybuchanan]

I actually prefer to have an old movie on

I definitely couldn't concentrate with a movie on. Usually the radio is on in the next room with the local pop channel. It just washes over me and I don't really like any of the music, so I am hardly ever tempted to sing along. Silence would be OK I think, but there's always a dog whining for cuddles or a cat trying to be a purry, furry necklace or horses/pheasants/chickens, so true silence never really exists here. The radio acts like musak and just drones in the back of my consciousness.

Speaking of the countryside, everyone thinks of it as peaceful and quiet, but it is nearly as noisy as the town in its own way!

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Blues Brothers.

 

[tinkerdan]

I once wrote a whole piece while listening to Queen.
It was a an inspiration.
Dark and moody and the main character was named Connor MacLeod...
Damn you Queen get out of my head you're ruining my life.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Galileo Galileo ...

My current Celtic Otherworld / Tuath Dé inspired WIP is at a Renaissance level of tech. I don't think listening to Queen would help.

Not even ...

Flash, Ah, ah, Saviour of the universe

 

[ralphkern]

A specific song that really is hitting with my current WIP is home by Ellie Goulding.

 

[F.J. Hansen]

In my current WIP, I'm going to end up having five different time frames that my characters visit (including their own). For each time period, I was going to have a different type of music. For my characters' original time frame, I'm listening to music by Amethysium, David and Diane Arkenstone, and space-themed music.

Then, my characters are thrown back a million years into the middle of a conflict involving out of control robots. For this, I'm using Steve Jablonsky's Transformers score, Daft Punk's Tron: Legacy soundtrack, and other techno-sounding stuff.

Then, I go back further to Earth 65 million years ago. Here I'll have James Newton Howard's Dinosaur soundtrack and the epic music that I used for my dragons in the last books. I might have Armageddon soundtrack playing for the meteor sequences.

Then, I return to the future, 200 years after my starting point. I don't know what I'll do here, probably listen to soundtracks to Star Trek, Star Wars, Babylon 5, and other such space-based shows and movies.

For my final time frame, 26 years after my starting point, I the focus of the story shifts to a world that's basically a duplicate of Earth but with a much different history. Here, I will have Peter Crowley's Celtic, Fantasy, and Medieval music on YouTube playing.

 

[mgilmour]

I listen to a soft instrumental playlist that I've created from movie soundtracks. I don't like writing to any music that has words in it as I find it really distracting. I collect movie soundtracks and so it was pretty easy to piece together about 4 hours of music that was conducive to the environment that I was wanting to create.

 

[David Doherty-Jebb]

I think most of us agree that instrumentals work best for us. Lyrics tend to distract!
Does anyone feel the opposite?

 

[MWagner]

I always put the headphones on when I write. My Writing folder in iTunes includes some classical (the Rites of Springs, Sibelius, Vaughan Williams, Holst's Planets) and a bunch of movie soundtracks (Conan the Barbarian, Gladiator, The Dark Knight, etc.). I've sorted the pieces into four different playlists: Calm, Mysterious, Menacing, and Action. When I set out to write a scene, I select the appropriate playlist and set the music player on shuffle.

 

[mgilmour]

I always put the headphones on when I write. My Writing folder in iTunes includes some classical (the Rites of Springs, Sibelius, Vaughan Williams, Holst's Planets) and a bunch of movie soundtracks (Conan the Barbarian, Gladiator, The Dark Knight, etc.). I've sorted the pieces into four different playlists: Calm, Mysterious, Menacing, and Action. When I set out to write a scene, I select the appropriate playlist and set the music player on shuffle.

I've done exactly the same thing. I call it relaxing and inspirational. I'd forgotten that I had "The Planets". I'll have to dig that one out.

 

[LightSeeker]

I listen to a soft instrumental playlist that I've created from movie soundtracks. I don't like writing to any music that has words in it as I find it really distracting. I collect movie soundtracks and so it was pretty easy to piece together about 4 hours of music that was conducive to the environment that I was wanting to create.

I collect soundtracks too. Excellent brain music - if you take the time to create applicable playlists, like the following quote...

I always put the headphones on when I write. My Writing folder in iTunes includes some classical (the Rites of Springs, Sibelius, Vaughan Williams, Holst's Planets) and a bunch of movie soundtracks (Conan the Barbarian, Gladiator, The Dark Knight, etc.). I've sorted the pieces into four different playlists: Calm, Mysterious, Menacing, and Action. When I set out to write a scene, I select the appropriate playlist and set the music player on shuffle.

I think most of us agree that instrumentals work best for us. Lyrics tend to distract!

Does anyone feel the opposite?

Generally, I need instrumentals. But I've written 2 stories where my playlists consisted almost entirely of lyric based songs, because those songs best embodied the feel I was going for.


Obviously music plays a big part in my creative process. I make playlists for each project, add as I'm writing & finding new inspiration. There are project specific playlists, and general writing playlists. For the latter, just general "thinking music", I rely heavily on Trent Reznor's various soundtracks, Clint Mansell soundtracks, & lots of classical music. Seems to work for me!

 

[Venusian Broon]

I don't really have many soundtrack albums, but then I realised I have huge numbers of 'electronic music' albums where lyrics are generally non-existent. So Orbital, The Orb, Boards of Canada, and a pile of other stuff in the same vein. Not dance music (Orbital probably the closest, but they have a lot of different styles that they cover in their oeuvre.)

Not everyone's cup of tea, I admit, but it's the sort of stuff I put in 'writing' playlists.

 

[J. L. Holtz]

I like the alpha and theta brainwave music, like Steve Halprin, or the meta-music, the kind that can put your brain completely in the zone. Altered states... Free-writing... Candlelight flickering on the table enhances my breadth of vision, my creativity, and accidentally, I have been known to burn the paper I am editing on, and then I know without doubt: there is spark of creation in the words.

A writing playlist, that's fascinating, I will in the future consider the music I am playing as my personal playlist.