Hatrack River Writers Workshop: Music

This is topic Music in forum Open Discussions About Writing at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

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Posted by cvgurau (Member # 1345) on :

Can anyone recommend some good instrumental music to listen to while writing? To, as someone here once put it "entertain the stupid part of my brain"? I listen to vocals now, and it's good, but distracting as I try to focus on their words and my own words as I type.

Thanks,
Cristian V

[This message has been edited by cvgurau (edited October 16, 2003).]

Posted by Balthasar (Member # 5399) on :

Mozart.
Bach.
Or, the music of God ... Silence.

Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :

We've had this topic a couple of times before, actually (in this case meaning we've had it twice before, thus actually a couple rather than colloquially a couple).

Both Inspired Writers, Inspirational Music and Listen to music while writing? discussed music, and though they didn't restrict the subject to instrumental, they both did touch on how music with recognizable words wasn't conducive to writing.

Posted by Lord Darkstorm (Member # 1610) on :

I have tried to write while listening to music, but it doesn't work for me. But I do have a few places to look. Windham hill has quite a few instrumental cd's that range to different tastes. I happen to like Manhiem steamroller. But there are more good ones too.

Some of the newer piano soloists are good also, Liz Story, Jim Bickman (although a bit trendy), and Kitaro is always a good one. Some of Kitaro's cd's have people singing on some of the tracks,but most of it is instrumental. Of course there are tons more.

Posted by Phanto (Member # 1619) on :

As he said, God's music: silence.

Actually, amend that. I like to listen to natural sounds: water flowing; birds chirping. The music should be very soft so I don't notice it much.

I also like Bach and Mueler.

Survivor: Where do you pull these topics up from?

[This message has been edited by Phanto (edited October 16, 2003).]

Posted by Mind Surfer (Member # 1686) on :

Since we are on the topic of music here, Apple has just released iTunes for Windows. For anyone who doesn't know what I'm talking about you can check it out.

http://www.apple.com/itunes/

I am a huge fan of listening to music while I write. I agree with most that instrumental is better than vocal.

Posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (Member # 59) on :

If I'm going to listen to music while writing, one of the things I like to do is find a soundtrack from a movie that has similar themes to what I'm working on.

I'm working on a YA fantasy novel set in the Mayan culture, so I may have some trouble finding a movie soundtrack. Perhaps I'll just see if I can find some Mayan music on CD.

Posted by Avatar300 (Member # 1655) on :

I think Bach, Handel, Vivaldi, and Strauss Jr. are good choices.

But I usually listen to rock music as loud as the other members of my family are willing to put up with.

Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :

Phanto, you could probably just do a search on key words in the opening post of any topic and find related topics and pretty well imitate me

Of course, I actually have been here for a really long time (with a hiatus or two), so I usually know when a topic has been discussed before. If I recall having replied to it, then I search for my own posts touching the subject. If not (as in this case) I'm in the same boat as anyone else, except that I know the topic is there somewhere (though sometimes it isn't some of the important early threads have been deleted).

Posted by Thieftess (Member # 1683) on :

I know exactly what you mean -- I have the same problem.

Soundtracks are faboo -- Elfman, Horner, Williams & Shore are great, great men.

New age music and remixes are fun -- there are words, but they're not usually in standard verse. Enigma is a good example (the new CD "Voyageur" is fantastic) and Paul Oakenfold is another of my favorites.

The other option is music in a different language. The danger there, though, is getting something in a language you learned in school well enough so that the words you don't know bug you. (ie: Shakira) The other danger is listening to it so much you learn it phoenetically and sing it anyway (ie: Peter Gabriel's "While the Earth Sleeps" from the Strange Days soundtrack).

Don't discount popular music altogether, though. More than one author has been inspired by that darned Evanescence album -- myself and John Ringo included!

That's my two cents--

Alethea

Posted by WatersOfMimir (Member # 1785) on :

Even though it's not instrumental, I find Enya to be quite effective think-music.

Posted by Falken224 on :

Personally, I listen to music to get inspired, but if I listen while I write . . . vocals or not . . . I get distracted. So, for non-distracting music, I can't help. BUT . . . here's some good inspirational music.

Loreena McKennitt - anything

Linkin Park - anything (great lyrics . . . lots to work with there.)

Evanescence - Working on a story even now inspired by a couple of their songs.

Dvorak - Symphony 9 (New World Symphony)

Enya - Anything, but especially the "Memory of Trees" album.

Nickel Creek - mainly their self-titled album. "This Side" is okay, but more "poppy". I'm writing a straight sci-fi story inspired by several of their songs.

Chopin - Pretty much anything he wrote.

Thomas Newman - As far as I know, he's only done movie soundtracks, but both Erin Brockevich (sp?) and American Beauty were STUNNING. They're usually clips of less than a minute, but boy do they capture various moods. Put all his stuff on 'shuffle' on your CD (or MP3) player and let the story kind of assemble itself. It's a very cool phenomenon. Oh, and he title the title theme for Boston Public. GREAT piece of work there. The dude's a genius.

Voce - not sure if that's just the name of the album, or the group. GREAT choral music. Very evocative. But I've only ever found the album on Amazon.
Oh, and of course, you can't put alist like this together without . . .

The Crystal Method - Vegas - SWEET album. Ton of ideas from that.

Anyway . . . that's my two cents' worth.

-Nate

[This message has been edited by Falken224 (edited November 07, 2003).]

Posted by AndrewR (Member # 1563) on :

A old college friend of mine does some wonderful acoustic guitar music that might be suitable. (Shameless plug.

)

Posted by MaryRobinette (Member # 1680) on :

Listening to Mozart is supposed to make you smarter, or at least improve spatial skills which are useful when visualizing scenes.

"The second experiment, presented at the meeting by Dr. Rauscher and Dr. Shaw, expanded on their widely-reported study published by Nature in October 1993, which found that listening to 10 minutes of Mozart's Piano Sonata K 448 increased spatial IQ scores in college students, relative to silence or relaxation instructions. The new findings replicated the effect, and found no increase in spatial skills after subjects listened to 10 minutes of either a composition by Philip Glass or a highly rhythmic dance piece, suggesting that hypnotic musical structures will not enhance spatial skills."