Music you CAN'T listen to durring NaNo

Music affects my writing too much to listen to just anything. One year, I could ONLY listen to Blue October while writing. Their music had the right vibe for the novel. Now, I can't listen to Blue October while writing, unless I'm working on THAT story.

This year, however, only one character has a soundtrack, and there are a couple problems with that. The first problem is, his soundtrack conflicts too much with the other characters. I can only listen to it while writing that ONE character. The other problem is, I can only stomach that music for so long. His soundtrack includes 3OH!3, Kesha, and similar music that I can only stand in small doses.

My favorite band is My Chemical Romance, but their newest CD is too post-apocalyptic to listen to while writing this year's nano. It would give the whole thing a weird vibe.

Anyone else have a favorite band they can't write to this year?

Oh, definitely! Making playlists is one of my favorite parts of writing. Finding those songs that are just oh-so right for that story is the best feeling. But that also means I ban a lot of music during this month of the same sentiment. 'You're killing and corrupting my muse, stop it.'

Neutral Milk Hotel's Avery Island, which is sadly one of my favorite albums ever, is my most prominent ban during November though. Two years (and a brief re-try last year), I based most of the characters off songs from the album and they're forever linked in my head to it. I've banned myself from NHM totally in hopes I won't be tempted to sneak listens in this month. ): Oh well. It's only a month.

Oh, MCR's new one is actually quite fitting to my half-formed idea. Thanks for reminding me!

I love listening to musicals, but I can't do it when I'm writing. Because a lot of it is a part of storytelling, it's too distracting.
I can't listen to songs that I know really well, because I'll start singing to them. :p

It's best for me to listen to songs that I'm not really all that familiar with or that are just good "background" music. Anything without vocals is usually fine, but I have to be careful what I listen to when there are vocals!

That being said, I certainly don't completely remove that music during November. I just don't listen to it when I'm writing.

While writing I can't listen to anything with lyrics. Any instrumental goes.

I can never listen to Skillet anymore. I only did it once to write a novel in April, and although the novel was a huge success, I can't seem to capture that again, especially not with that guy's voice. Yech. I also don't think I could listen to anything by Linkin Park unless I really tried or even remembered.

I really love both bands, but I just can't write to them anymore. xD

~Cloud

Much like when I'm falling asleep, I have to listen to music that either has no lyrics (or instrumentals where I know lyrics should be), or I have to know the song backwards and forwards, or they'll throw me off. Which means that I can write to musicals! But only if I know them really well, like with RENT. I listen to that soundtrack while I write all the time. There are a few songs I can't read or write too, though, because they remind me too deeply of a different characters. XP

Music only influences my writing subtly, but I still have to be kind of careful. For example, if I start listening to Alesana while I'm writing (specifically their album The Emptiness) I'll end up killing off all my MCs. That would be bad.

And anyway, it's actually not the words of the music that affect my music. It's the sound of the music itself. If I'm listening to a sad song, but the instrumentals are happy-sounding, I'll get a happy vibe from it and everyone in my book will be extremely happy.

So, I'm probably best off listening to things like The Fray, Coldplay, P!nk, and stuff like that. I pick bands based on what I'm writing and I have a different playlist for pretty much every band I like.

Also, I can't listen to music that I really, really, REALLY like, 'cause then I'll start singing along and what I'm typing will end up being the lyrics of the song and...yeah. So my music has to be something I sort-of know, but not all that well and that's not like, oh-my-gods-I-have-to-sing-along-to-this.

I can't listen to songs that I know I will sing a long to. Not necessarily any song with lyrics, or even songs with lyrics I know. I know all the words to most Epica songs, but I couldn't hit those notes if it'd save my life, so I can toss them in a playlist. Anything else is fine. The music I'm listening to rarely, if ever, depends heavily on the tone of the story. I can be listening to heavy metal during a romance scene or J-Pop during a scene in which the MC's father dies; it doesn't really bother me.

I can't write to songs that I have related to specific characters/stories in my head, because then I start relating the character/story I'm writing to the character/story the song reminds me of, and then my writing gets totally derailed. >:( And since I pretty much listen for relationships to my stories (or books/movies/TV shows/comics I like) in all the music I listen to, this can get annoying. I pretty much have to build a playlist of songs that only relate to whatever I'm working on at the moment, and only listen to that.

Also, if I listen to music that makes me feel really incredibly awesome (like I can climb mountains, leap off, and fly safely home), I can't write because I'm too busy belting out the song and sometimes dancing around. So. I can listen to it before writing, which always gets me good and pumped to write, but I can't listen to it while writing.

Bah, I can't really listen to Light's new album, and only one of her songs sorta captures my novel but not really. I just really wanted her on my novel playlist but I might have to take it off, it's just not it. :/

Oh, and I can't listen to any of the music that I already have in set playlists for other novels. No, no, no, cannot repeat.

I can't really listen to any "newer" songs, like ones I don't really know yet because then I want to listen to the lyrics. "Older" songs I can tune out and just enjoy the music.

Generally depends on what I'm writing, but usually when I'm doing NaNo I absolutely cannot have rap or country in the background. Classical and oldies depend on what point in the story I'm at.

Lyrics that I can understand are an absolute no for my writing. I would listen to French or Japanese music, but the only French or Japanese songs that I have are once that I've been listening to for years, and thus know many of the words to. I tend to stick to instrumentals - soundtracks and such. However, there are many instrumental pieces that I get too into. Basically, I guess, anything that doesn't distract me (in fact, I find listening to 'white noise' or 'steady rain' pretty helpful).

I can't listen to my favorite Abney Park playlist - I played it all the way through August's novel writing, but if I listen to it in November I'll end up writing more of that instead of the new one I have planned!

Most of the stuff I normally listen to. The music draws too much attention to itself - lyrics being one of the worst offenders. Normally, I listen to various genres of metal, industrial styles of electronica (EBM, Darkwave, Futurepop, Synthpop, etc...), and the like. I also like other forms of electronica that I'd have a hard time listening to, including even stuff like psytrance, which you'd think would fade into the background...

So, hence you get the genres listed in my profile. Ambient, chillout, classical, and such. That's all stuff I like, but it gives me enough background noise without drawing much attention to itself.

I was plotting while listening to Eban Brooks's "Hey There Cthulhu." It helped.

I have two timelines in mine, so I think Im gonna be listening to Abney Park's 'The End of Days' a lot for the later one, and probably swing or smooth jazz for the earlier one.

Instrumental-only here. Lyrics distract me no end.

I can listen to songs with lyrics...just not in languages I can understand. Therefore songs in English will be a no-no, or I'll get distracted by the words and I'll end up writing song lyrics in my work...think I almost did that once in one of my essays.

I can't do new songs. It has to be songs I've heard mulitple times and can sing along to.

So far, really the only thing I can't listen to when writing is the song "Accidentally in Love" because when ever I listen to it random characters fall in love...it's quite annoying.