Music that inspires you

An overall theme song for life in general: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEhAzq4LBEM - "Amazing" by Kanye West

:D

Depending on the scene, rock and alternative suit me fine. Throw in some techno and classical music and I'm all set up to write whatever.

I haven't set up a playlist for myself yet but typically I find a whole bunch of songs thematic to the book I'm writing.

Mainly chill rock, Tool (lateralus), Radiohead (the bends, in rainbows), Metric (fantasies), Portishead (Dummy) etc

As it says in my profile: any and all instrumental music gets me in the mood for writing. Anything with words and I start singing along!

I posted in another thread earlier, but I highly recommend JT Bruce and Cloudkicker. Both are great instrumental artists, and their music is available online for free. JT Bruce is very melodic prog rock with some experimental aspects, and Cloudkicker is wall-of-sound post metal with complex time signatures and riffs. Look both of them up! Also recommended for free music is Farzad Golpayegani, an Iranian artist that combines traditional Iranian music with metal.

If you feel like spending money, try Liquid Tension Experiment, a great combination of jazz fusion and prog metal. Buckethead is also an amazing instrumental guitarist, and his widely experimental albums can bring your writing places you never imagined.

Also, classical music is a great genre. Mahler's third symphony and De Meij's first are both favourites of mine.

I find inspiration in lots of music (This year's novel was inspired by a song by the Pixies), but I have an impossible time writing with music playing, at least if it's music I know and like. I end up humming or singing along, and my brain is following the music instead of following the word flow.
Even instrumental stuff doesn't help, if it's something I'm very familiar with. I guess I'm just not good at shutting out background noise.

Lol! It's hard not to sing along to music you love. I can write with music in the background but usually I'm just ignoring it. I'm inspired by certain songs but I can't write while they're playing. I need silence so I can think without interruption.

Haha well I was listening to Carl Orff's 'O Fortuna' from his Carmina Burana cantata and was (mentally) singing along because it's in Latin and I'm currently learning that. It's also a lot less creepy when you understand the words (although still pretty creepy, though it was Haloween so still apropriate). Also fits my novel in some way, though it was before I actually started :P

I've been listening to the Mad Men soundtrack lately and to this germane gypsy guy who sings in English with an accent called 'Shantel' his lates 'Planet Paprika' album :) and of course everything else out there (Streaming off SwissGroove now)

Anything, really, but today I heard a song that really motivated me, Do What You Want by OK Go : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUE-4FbM_XI

Also, the Nataly Dawn cover is good for more mellow moments : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oF-GCZQ0QpM

Sometimes I need silence, but usually I will have some sort of noise in the background, TV is good. But When I am sitting in bed writing I put on Josh Groban or Linda Eder.

I have been writing to the same artist the entire time. Otep. I have her discography on repeat and I can go eight or so hours at a crack just listening to her.

Montreal, I was in yer fair city this May, and I have never seen so many wonderful LOCAL bands play! (N I live in San Francisco)...

The whole city is thriving with artists! Poets, Writers, Musicians, Painters.. Hell, even yer grafitti was beautiful!

So THANK YOU Montreal for being a center of inspiration and freedom!

Here are some of the local bands (some of which are listed in my list of music i listen to while writing)

Check Out:

http://www.myspace.com/merlesgitarband

http://www.myspace.com/wehavedevileyes

also from there i know you can find Ashtray heart and Desert Owls and the Lemurs... and several others.

I found so much inspiration through Montreal's live music scene!!!
THANK YOU MONTREAL!

If ya dun git whar ya goin... go sum'ere's else!

Reviving an older thread. I've been experimenting this NaNo with music, and I've found that if I listen to the right kind of music, then I can write with it and I'm less distracted.
I have over 500 CDs, some of which I know backwards, and some of which I like but listen to very rarely. I've found that rediscovering those barely-listened-to albums gives me exactly what I need.

So there you have it: I lied. I CAN write with music playing, it just has to be music I like but that I don't know very well...

Man, I've been meaning to reply to this thread since it was started!

I find personally, that the absolute best music for writing is Steve Reich. He has written these long (some are close to an hour) compositions that are basically a simple musical pattern repeated over and over again with very little variation, but played on multiple instruments, so the pattern changes slightly as the instruments play slightly out of sync. It creates a very interesting sound, like a layering effect, where the layers (all basically the same) shift slightly and change the sound in subtle but fascinating ways. I find it absolutely mesmerizing. It's hypnotic, and for the most part fairly emotionally neutral, so it fits with what I'm writing no matter the genre. Because it's repetitive without being "catchy," it's like it drowns out distractions and hypnotizes me into writing. I find I concentrate much better with his music playing in the background. Of course, there's a distinct possibility it might also drive you nuts.

Some examples: (I wish the sound quality was better, but that's YouTube for ya!)

Six Marimbas

Piano Phase

Music for 18 Musicians

Happy writing, everyone!

Victorian author with a slovenly muse.

I almost exclusively listened to Tom Waits' "Bone Machine" while plunking away this one.

I'm typically a food blogger! Visit www.afoodyear.com to read about how I ate a different dinner every day for a year in 2006, or just peruse several hundred recipes and Montreal area restaurant reviews.

Bon Jovi, it's my life.

"Aye. The plains that bear no life, the fields of bone, they do exist," Theron acknowledged. "But that was several thousand years ago. Those family lines should be so well spread that not even Athanasius should be able to eliminate them all."