Musical Notes

[mattbcl]

I'm curious, for all the other writers around here - do you listen to music while scribing? If so, what gets you going? Do you have a playlist you prepare, or do you just hit "Shuffle" on everything you've got? What bands do you listen to in order to get the juices flowing?

For me, I know I need the noise. And curiously, it tends to be when I listen to one tune continuously that seems to get me in the best mood for writing. But I do have "Matt's Writing Playlist 01" for when I want a little more variety than that. It's littered with Apocalyptica, Breaking Benjamin, Disturbed, Evanescence, Five Finger Death Punch, Lacuna Coil, a few others. Sometimes I'll even cue up my Rock Band game and rig it to play continuous music for what doesn't appear in my usual playlist.

But probably my favorite setup is the Halo soundtrack one can find via YouTube. I have a playlist to play it all in proper order continuously - and then for background noise, I set up endlessvideo.com to loop a video with only the sound of falling rain. It's strangely comforting, and oddly inspiring. It's done wonders for me, despite the difficulties I've mentioned previously.

[nsmbwii]

I listen to Videogame music all the time along with Daft Punk.

Personal favorites are Labyrinth Zone from Sonic The Hedgehog 1, Yin-Yarn battle from Kirby's Epic Yarn, and the E4 Theme from Pokemon RSE.

[Hikari of Dark Rose]

Depends on what I'm writing.

the english opening theme for Case Closed seems to have become Becoming a Hero's unofficial theme song.

but I also find myself gravitating back to

flogging molly
Avril Lavine
Avenue Q
and any anime con pannel video with scott Mcneil ( TJ Omega on youtube has some nice ones from metrocon)

[Crystal Tears]

8D Disturbed! :3 You make me happy by mentioning them as inspiration/idea pool for writing. Any time I mentioned them as something I draw creativity from; people always give me a strange look.

Do I listen to music when writing? All the time, it really does help me get the words out, and even helps me see the scenes in my mind like a movie or a music video (I can’t just stare at a screen/piece of paper and write, I day dream and see movies playing before my eyes). Most of the music I listen to when scribbling down things tends to be hard rock, or something with some sort of punch to it. I guess because I don’t tend to write any sort of nice, fluffy scenes or something. My stories and ideas always drift towards violence and/or anger, and the songs tend to reflect that. Only recently with a story I’m writing has the music become really varied and not linked with each other.

I am currently (very slowly) writing an StarCraft ficcy entitled ‘Innocence’ after the song by Disturbed, because that’s what inspired the entire idea (the songs actually playing now), the entire story moves along different songs by Disturbed actually, as a sort of personal challenge to myself.. Alongside that though, is a story called ‘Mischief’ that has five songs that really put me in the mood to write it.

1) Gave it all Away – Red
2) Americano – Lady Gaga
3) Set Fire to the Rain – Adele
4) The is War – 30 Seconds to Mars
5) Crazy Crazy – Guinevere (recently added, thanks to ChobiChibi)

(Those are the five songs that really don’t link up)

Another good one I find for the odd scene is Thunder by Nuttin but Stringz.

I could admittedly; just hit shuffle on my iPhone, but sometimes it doesn’t work. I need to find that certain; in particular song that always seems to evade me when I need it. It takes me sometimes an hour to find the one song that will push me forward and out of a rut… On that note, video game music doesn’t tend to inspire me at all; actually it tends to stop me from writing. I have no idea why, but it does nothing for me. I try to avoid it when writing because I’ll no doubt end up in a strange, very annoying block induced by gaming music.

[classy_cat18]

I love "This is War"! I got it on my iPod!

Yeah, I listen to music while writing all the time. That's one of the reasons why my iPod is full of different kinds of music. I usually listen to anime music or Video Games Live tracks to get the creative juices flowing. The most effective pieces are music from Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni and Fullmetal Alchemist, and pretty much anything from Kalafina.

[Mikachu Yukitatsu]

Evil Necromancer Mikachu from the Cold Land in the North...

After the silence ends in my apartment 7 o'clock Finland time, I start listening to my CDs and Youtube stuff. I do everything while listening to music, also write at TPM. And if I have a Fanfic going on, that's also OK. I never listen to radio, but I do pick the music sometimes more at random, while some other times I choose the genre or band more precisely.

I'm happy to boast I have a broad musical taste, some of my most favourite pieces:






Well broad and broad, every single one of them has something to do with fantasy...

...save Final Fantasy

(others might want to add)