Music that inspires you to write!

I don't have playlists, I'm afraid; just CDs and a CD player.

Music doesn't tend to inspire what I write, and I don't listen to it while writing (too distracting), but I do often imagine my scenes taking place to music that I like. I enjoy soundtracky-type things too. ES Posthumus (the act behind the themesong of "Cold Case"), some Cirque Du Soleil, and Hans Zimmer are good examples. I'm also starting to like some of the more mellow "metal"-type music which doesn't seem like metal at all to me, like Within Temptation and the instrumental version of Nightwish's "Dark Passion Play" (which I've been listening to, and envisioning my writing to, like crazy lately). Oh, pretty much anything with a big orchestral sound and Latin chanting, too. I'm a sucker for Era and Lesiem, and really love Globus's "Epicon."

And there are also songs where the lyrics make me think of my characters or their situations. I shan't get into all the different groups because there are just too many. The above examples are good for more epic soundtrack-type music though.

I have found its a good idea to remember what your listening to when you feel a particular emotion. Then when you re-listen to this song you get all that emotion back again, and it flows into your writing.

This is the only explanation for why 'NY state of mind' by Nas belongs in my 'happy' playlist.

Also, if crafting a fight scene, then Welcome Home by Coheed and Cambria is all that is needed. You stormed off to scar the armada/ Like Jesus played letter/ Now drill through your hands. Brilliant.

Tchaikovsky's fourth symphony and Rachmaninoff's second piano concerto. I keep thinking, if only I wrote prose that evoked the range of feelings that those guys did with their music . . .

I'm ashamed to admit it, but the ending of that fourth symphony brings tears to my eyes quicker than jerking out a nose hair!

Oh Gentle Light of The Holy Glory by Ipolitov Ivanov
C

Brian Eno,
Music for Airports.

If I'm writing action scenes (in a screenplay) I tend to like the louder stuff like AC/DC, The Who, etc. If I'm struggling or have to really think hard I'll go for Enya or classical. Sometimes I listen to Movie Scores from AIM.

I always play country in the background. Even if I'm away from home, working from my laptop, I'm playing songs through my computer. My muse is a country girl and responds well, especially to Toby Keith.

Music does inspire my writing. I have an iPod but haven't gotten around to making the playlists for certain moods and 'atmospheres' as I've been intending to. I find that the right mood of music tends to shift my own mind in the right direction to write the right scene with the right atmosphere.

In the past though, listening to music whilst writing can be a distraction. But it depends on my own frame of mind. Sometimes I'm just more easily distracted because I'm either not into the story, or other real world things are in the way.

Also, "new music" makes it hard. You're so caught up in listening to the song and the words that you can't write. I find stuff you've listened to a hundred times that can just sit in the background works far better.

I usually prefer having the tv on low versus music- but when I am in the music mood- I love these for while I'm writing:

Tchaikovsky- esp. Swan Lake
Liszt
Rachmaninoff

soundtracks like: The Hours- Glass's music is so monotonous it helps bring me into a flow state

oh, and I love Rasputina. They're a cult band with a small, but fiercely devoted fan base. They sing and play cello. Their music is sorta a mix of dark victorian gothic with a wicked sense of humor.

Neutral Milk Hotel, to me, is 'where it's at.'

They make me feel sad and happy and not lazy.

The soundtrack of Mishima by Philip Glass
Vivaldi's Four Seasons
Atomic Heart Mother and The Wall by Pink Floyd

I've only just now started downloading my CDs to my computer, so at the moment I only have one playlist. It is all the Black Sabbath I own. Nothing inspires me to write more than Black Sabbath.

Eminem's Lose Yourself motivates me. And sometimes distracts me with dancing daydreams. Move over Janet Jackson ...

I have a playlist for each character and a theme song for the book


Try and imagine this one:

I am the one, orgasmatron
the outstreched grasping hand
My image is of agony
My servants rape the land

I hold a banner drenched in blood
I urge you to be brave
I lead you to your destiny
I lead you to your grave

If you can't get a fantasy novel out of that, you just aren't trying.

Protest the Hero, Bloodmeat

ENEMIES of Khanate
Strung on hooks like pigs to slaughter
Heads will roll
HEADS WILL ROLL
Heads will roll throats will be slit, blood will flow like springs of water
To the rivers end
Across the ochre steppe

A thousand fathers killed
A thousand virgin daughters split
The sword still wet the sword still wet
With the blood of their dead

Click to expand...

None of that stupid "power metal" glamourising war and making it all seem wonderful and manly, just the reality. A bloody struggle followed by an orgy of mayhem and indiscriminate raping and killing.

Something all writers should understand if they're writing about strife or war.

IdiotsRUs said:

I am the one, orgasmatron
the outstreched grasping hand
My image is of agony
My servants rape the land

I hold a banner drenched in blood
I urge you to be brave
I lead you to your destiny
I lead you to your grave

If you can't get a fantasy novel out of that, you just aren't trying.

Click to expand...

o_o I think I must be writing a considerably different kind of fantasy novel!

IdiotsRUs said:

I have a playlist for each character and a theme song for the book


Try and imagine this one:

I am the one, orgasmatron
the outstreched grasping hand
My image is of agony
My servants rape the land

I hold a banner drenched in blood
I urge you to be brave
I lead you to your destiny
I lead you to your grave

If you can't get a fantasy novel out of that, you just aren't trying.

Click to expand...

Orgasmatron? Is that the subtitle for an upcoming American Pie film?

Na, it was in Sleeper already.

Actually I did always wonder about that word in the song....but it's about a god, so maybe he has a special way with the ladies?

Regina Spektor "Samson" You are my sweetest downfall, I loved you first, beneath the sheets of paper lies my truth...
Fiona Apple "Love Ridden"
Leigh Nash "Just a little"

maxmordon said:

The soundtrack of Mishima by Philip Glass
Vivaldi's Four Seasons
Atomic Heart Mother and The Wall by Pink Floyd

Click to expand...

The soundtrack to The Illusionist is pretty awesome too (also by Philip Glass).

John Denver.... gosh I miss him.

Hmm. The music I listen to might be related in some way to the tone/mood of the stories I write, but one doesn't directly influence the other.

(aggressive, melancholic, bleak, wistful, ...)

When I read the thread title, I immediately thought of the opening sequence of 'Romancing the Stone'.

MM