Mood-setting music?

[dinuriel]

Do you listen to music while writing? Any specific genre? Do you associate certain songs with certain characters? Or perhaps certain points in your plot?

Personally, I can't listen to anything with vocals while I'm writing--too distracting for me. I do, however, listen to a lot of instrumental pieces, particularly the original scores from movies and RPGs, since they were composed with the function of mood-setting in mind. That's just me, though

[thelunarfox]

I used to do that as well-- listening to RPG music while I was writing. Final Fantasy music used to be my favorite. But the problem would then be that I'd be distracted because some pieces had a strong attachment to certain scenes, y'know?

Mostly now, I use Last FM for writing music. What I want to hear will usually depend on my mood. Usually though, it's going to be something semi-mellow, probably girly, something that I don't have to listen too closely to but probably has a good melody. It's mostly about the melody.

Also, I find I have a need to use headphones even if I'm the only one in the room.

[raquelaroden]

I actually don't listen to music when I'm writing. I think it's a holdover from school--I was never someone who could study while listening to music. When I took art classes in high school, my teacher would play either classical music or music with lyrics sung in languages that none of the class knew--she claimed that words got in the way by activating the parts of the brain that weren't especially creative. I don't know if that is true, but I find that when I'm writing, even instrumentals are distracting.

I'm more of a scenic song person than a character-song person--I can envision certain scenes being appropriate for a song rather than a particular song applying to a character.

[celebkiriedhel]

I'm not sure. I think that music can get in my way when I'm right in it. But at the moment, get into it, is the hard bit. And I'm not sure how I'm going to get into the head of a rebellious goth teenager, without some music.

[laura]

Music for me depends on what stage of writing I'm in. When I'm in earlier drafts, and need to connect with the emotions of the piece, I'll listen to music. Words or not don't really matter - in fact, most of my soundtrack songs do have words. They usually remind me of a character or feeling or scene.

When I'm in later stages, the writing, editing, polishing, I don't listen to music. Or if I do, it's just on for background noise and not really by choice. Sometimes it's one of my son's cartoons. Or the news works too, lol! I don't like pure quiet either, usually.

But reading is where I'm more fickle - I absolutely cannot read to music of any kind. I think music activates that imaginative part of my brain, while reading is more logical, and it just doesn't work out. I get distracted.

Which is odd, since I usually provide soundtrack songs with most of my stories for my readers. But when I'm reading other people's stories that come with soundtracks, I'll listen to the song either before or after, but never during, lol!

[celebkiriedhel]

Laura: I usually have your soundtrack on when I'm reading your story - but don't hear it. Then I listen to it again afterwards.

I'm famous with a past boss, for not hearing her even when she was standing next to me and calling my name - because I was reading.

[Stacy]

I have 11 writing-related playlists on YouTube, lol.

Err - if anyone has any ethical problems with that, I promise that I buy my favorites to listen to while at work - actually I've found some new artists and bought music I wouldn't have known about otherwise because I found it on YouTube.

There's quite a bit of overlap across the playlists. Although I tried listening to the Valley Seth playlist while writing a 10 chapter, and it just did not work. I couldn't get into teenage Seth's head at all. All I could imagine was 80 year old psycho Seth going "My wife...was a very good cook."

There are a couple Seth songs that work for both Valley and 10, though. This one is Seth's theme song - and I didn't find it until I was writing the plot outline of the bit with Seth looking back up at Lilith and saying something like "You will always be as..." and then of course stopping before he said "beautiful". And I was like...you know, that really reminds me of a song I used to love back in high school.

I didn't know the name or the band, so I googled what I remembered of the lyrics.

And lo and behold. It is the Seth-iest Seth song in existence.

Possum Kingdom

Once I found it, man - one Saturday I was hard at work on a Valley update and kept hitting replay every time the video stopped. I heard later that I was singing along with it in a weird deep voice and that I was not aware of anything going on around me, not even people standing right behind me and having a rather long discussion about how I was actually kind of good at singing.

And even now, if I'm stuck, I play it and sing along and the words flow.

I experimented with not listening to music with Farmer Brown. I think that's part of why it took so long and why the rough draft was so incredibly rough. Really, what I have in my notebook is a far cry from what got published.

I need music to write. Any sort of music - instrumental, words, doesn't matter. It just needs to be loud, have a lot of bass and exciting bits, and preferally be epic and/or creepy. LOL!

Music is a story. It has a lot to teach me about writing - how it goes up and down, loud and soft, full out or just a few notes in the background.

I've always strongly associated music with writing - my goal in life is to write the literary equivalent of a Beethoven symphony.

[drew]

I listen to music, depends on the story and the mood I am in. If I am working on Crime Story, My retro blog thing, I listen to 60's-70's, I name each chapter after a period song, one I feel encapsulates the update.
Also love classical and instrumentals from movies, like the LOTR ones.
Also a hold over from my school days, when doing homework I had rock music blaring, I use it here too. Music doesn't distract me at all, so it is pretty much going all the time while I write.

[pinkfiend1]

I have to have music on in the background I need the noise to kind of block out the rest of the house. Doesn't mean I hear every song, but I just use the music I have on the computer loaded up from CD's of mine, some of brother's or parents. I don't tend to listen to youtube unless there is a particualr song I want to listen to that I don't have, or I just want to see what the official video is like, but it's too much hassle with loading times to listen to as normal background music. But I need songs with lyrics for some reason they just pour into my subconcious and I do sometimes find myself singing along without realising it.
The only time I tend not to have music on is if I'm reading in bed.

[blackdaisies]

I actually didn't have a soundtrack for my story until I was inspired by Stacy posting about her music. So I made one up and it grew along the way. I have a Last.fm account for it somewhere but I'll post the link when I'm less lazy about finding it again. I don't listen to music as I write, because yeah, it is distracting. I prefer to write in silence. But I like having it when I'm driving (in my business I drive around a lot ), and it helps me think of my characters.

[heredoncove]

I've been using music a lot lately and it's often to sustain the mood I'm writing in. I find that it helps me concentrate especially when I find the right song and allows me to feel a strong emotional connection to the characters.

Example: I used Lauryn Hill's Tell Him for one update. It's a non-secular song with a feeling of reverence, sensitivity, and almost stillness. I felt that was a great way to show the characters' love for each other because that's how I interpret their lives and traits, so the music was essential.

At certain points I have to turn the music off because it distracts me, mainly when I'm proof-reading because I read out loud and the music distracts me.

Now when I'm reading for fun, music has to get far away from me. I can't stand it.

[infinitygoddess]

I tend to watch TV when I write. I like background noise when I'm working. But if I listen to music, it's usually Japanese Rock artists like Anna Tsuchiya and Olivia Lufkin.

[celebkiriedhel]

I am finding listening to something I'm really familiar with, has helped to be the white noise against which I write - well, last week anyway.

Holst: The Planets. It works for me at the moment.