What are your favorite songs for writing?

[stormiel]

I'm bored, so here comes another random post.

There are two songs I've been listening two nonstop while writing lately, Break Your Knees by Flyleaf and Breathe by Alexi Murdoch. Both of these songs are perfect for different parts of the story.

How about you? What songs do you love to listen to while you write?

[Joel P.]

I like to listen mostly to instrumental stuff while writing (Two Steps from Hell and Howard Shore), but right now I'm stuck on Anberlin's 'Dark is the Way, Light is a Place'. It's not as good as 'Cities', but it's still a pretty good album.

[Bethany J.]

Silence. Blissful, beautiful silence. (Except for the manic tapping of my fingers on the keyboard!) I find when I listen to music I can't hear myself think to write!

[fluke]

Depends on what I'm writing. If I'm writing fantasy, I want to hear something like the soundtrack from Lord of the Rings. If I'm working on my current WIP, Marty Robbins and George Strait.

[rjj7]

I listen to music in one of two ways when writing.

- In complete silence
- When there are other competing noises in the room

In the former case, I have only the writing to concentrate on. In the latter case, with the writing, the music, the tv, and voices from downstairs, concentrating on any one thing becomes so difficult that all I can do is pound the keyboard and hope it comes out all right (an exceptional way to boost the wordcount, if anyone's interested in trying it out ).

[Bought In Blood]

It greatly depends on what I’m writing. I find that when I listen to the appropriate music, words will come to mind that best describe the feelings that the music stimulates. Example, for scary, tense sections of my WIP, I like to listen to eerie, spine tingling music. For action scenes, bombastic brass and high tempo drums (perhaps some choir thrown in as well) make it easier for me to focus on violent geometry and what makes an action scene describable.

I rarely listen to anything with vocals (unless it is in a language I don’t understand) because I noticed that my mind likes to repeat the lyrics in my head and therefore likes to come out in my writing. I prefer to have my words come from my own imagination rather than someone else’s. However, that’s not always a bad thing. For the more emotional sections I’ll listen to many different worship songs that deal with brokenness and surrender.

[stormiel]

I like to have a beat to type to and a cup of coffee otherwise my mind likes to wander off to a million other things. I like the emotions that music brings to mind, sometimes lyrics spark ideas for scenes.

[beckyminor]

I'm currently hanging out a lot in the Avengers and Captain America soundtracks, as well as The Hobbit. I also can't listen to anything with English vocals, unless it's choral music you have to work pretty hard to pick out the words. I typically run a playlist of about 500 movie soundtrack songs on Grooveshark, which helps me avoid too much repetition.

[This Baron of Mora]

Silence (which really means background noise, esp. the roar of the wind battering the house in 80mph gusts).

[stormiel]

Do you like the wind or is it just that its there and less distracting than other noise?


Personally I don't like windy days. I grew up on the backside of a mountain with our nearest neighbor being nearly a mile away. When I was a kid those quiet days when all you could hear was the wind nearly drove me insane. I like living where it is quiet but that kind of silence where all you can hear is the wind makes me want to wonder around outside and make sure there Im not the only one still here lol.

[Christian Soldier]

Metal. Hard, fast metal. And I only listen to Christian Metal, which is growing fast, so lots of variety. The fast beat keeps me on track and the growl/screaming keeps me from paying too much attention to lyrics (I scope them out later when interested). SO far, my favorite bands are:

Demon Hunter
Becoming the Archetype (Seriously, listen to How Great Thou Art . This song was made for metal)
Disciple (More hard rockish than anything, but their lyrics are perfect)
August Burns Red
Under0ath
More to follow.

As for wind, I love it. My home was destroyed by a tornado with me in 2000. Oddly enough, I never fear wind anymore.

God Bless!
CS

[firestorm78583]

I listen to a lot of instrumental music and movie soundtracks. I find lyrics put thoughts in your head that may distract from where you wanted to go with the story. Some may make that same case for movie scores, saying that it makes you think of the movie and not your story, but it hadn't really affected me that way.
Over the years I have developed a playlist full of what i call my traveling music. 99% of the music has something to do with traveling. I listen to it when I'm driving, but I also use it when I'm writing.
What's so special about the playlist? While I was compiling it, I began arranging the tracks and found that I had arranged them in such a way where they told a story, with an opening battle sequences, love theme, and end credits. Now I am working on writing the story that the music has revealed.

If anyone is interested, I can post the playlist.
Happy writing,

Will

[Kessie]

I'm really into instrumental stuff, like Desert Vision by David Lanz and Paul Speer (unfortunately classified as New Age). I can only listen to things with vocals if they're things I've listened to for years, like DC Talk, the older Switchfoot albums, and oddball artists like Out of the Gray or Chris Rice. A lot of my music I've already chewed through a million times and used as theme songs for characters and other stories, so my brain considers them "used" and doesn't pay attention to them while writing.

Spotify has opened a whole new world of music to me. I can even find hilarious indie music, like Just Glue Some Gears on it and Call it Steampunk, or In Search of Diamonds (a Minecraft song), or anything by Oxhorn. Or Jonathan Coulton, but only a selection of his older stuff. Like most comedians, his humor gets depressing after a while. And when he wants to get depressing, he REALLY gets depressing (like his song Now I'm an Arsonist, which as best as I can tell, is about burning up in the shuttle Challenger.)

[Bethany J.]

You know, I just realized that it depends on the book. No soundtrack really matches my main WIP, so I write in silence for that one. But this week I've been working on another WIP and I've really enjoyed having instrumental music or soft hymn music in the background. Huh. It's a little more "down to earth" in tone than my main WIP - ironic, since it takes place in space.

Kessie - Spotify is great! I love Pandora, for discovering artists, but once I find new ones I like I look them up on Spotify.

[MattB]

I listen to any Christian Metal or Hard Rock (though some believe there is no such thing). Something about the double bass drum that gets my fingers moving and juices flowing.

Other times though, its Bach. Depending on my mood...Rock or Bach.