Do you listen to music while you write?

[FieryCold]

Do you listen to music while you write? What kind of music do you listen to? Share them here!


I listen to EDM, mostly, and let my imagination wander. Anything that doesn't have lyrics in them helps.

Here's a track from Uppermost, one of my personal favorites:

 

[Tempest]

I love to listen to music... Or even have a movie in the background. Any sorta like "white noise" for me. I often tend to have some sorta gothic rock playing, but a friend shared this before and I loved it...

 

[Greenie]

I definitely listen to music when I write. It really depends on what I'm writing however. I match the mood in the story/role-play with what I'm listening to.

Here's something I often listen to. Note... I have never played LoL or plan to :P

Oh and this. I need to find an hour loop or something.

 

[Icy]

It goes in cycles for me. For the most part I can listen to lyrical music without it fucking up my brain waves, but when I can't, I listen to mostly ambient post-rock/chill stuff.

Also, while I hardly use it myself, I recommend this for all you immersion freaks: Tabletop Audio

Some Snippets

I have never played LoL or plan to

It'd corrupt the General Chat Queen.

 

[Greenie]

It'd corrupt the General Chat Queen.

I'll keep that in mind ;)

 

[Killjoy]

If I'm writing something medieval fantasy-related, I'll throw this on.

It's also one of the only videos on the internet where I encourage people to read the comments afterwards, lmao.

Edit: adding some evidence

 

[Kagayours]

I thought this was a thread about making music until I got bored enough to click on it. @_@

I don't usually listen to music when I write. Most of it is just too... distracting. Focus is elusive enough for me on its own, and music often harms more than helps. Anything with lyrics is definitely a no-go -- my brain just cannot concentrate on reading or writing when there is any other sort of language going through my head. @_@

As for instrumental stuff -- it doesn't present quite the same problem, but, whatever mood it inspires in me, it probably isn't going to help me write. If anything, my brain will just get swept up in the music and start thinking about something else that it reminds me of and then, yeah, I've already stopped thinking about writing.

I need silence to focus on writing -- I'm too distracted otherwise.

Funnily enough, music does help me focus on other tasks. Chores around the house and anything art-related is helped greatly by having music to listen to. Gets me into this work jam that stops me from just zoning out like I'm prone to doing -- and it really helps me be productive! But, anything involving reading or writing is just a completely different beast. @_@ Maybe because it requires more mental effort? I dunno, that's just how it is.

 

[Abnormalize]

All the time. I can write without it but prefer not to. For example if a character is in a battle I need the epic type of music to write the scene out. I get all excited to do so because of the music.

 

[Dervish]

Yes and no. If I do have music on, shit's on random without rhyme or reason. Nothing like writing a sappy romantic scene while Amon Amarth is growling about starving to death in a besieged city, or writing out an intense combat scene while the Red Hot Chili Peppers are recounting the horrors of drug addiction, or a character talking about their demons and lamenting loss when Alestorm is telling a tale about sawing a midget in half.

 

[Brovo]

Just a sound will do. A nice series of sounds. Music that's too intense is usually inappropriate, it will emotionally move me into writing over the top scenes 24/7, which would create wacky zany shit like this instead of something contemplative. Give me something that lets me think clearly and serves as background noise to mute out the world. If where I am is silent as the dead, then I don't need any music at all, I'll just read the stuff I've written out loud instead.

 

[Touch of Insanity]

I used to listen 100% of the time to music when I wrote but now it's more like 70% of the time. I used to make playlists for characters and play them in the background as I wrote. Now it's more what song fits the rp and the mood. So I don't really have a set song or songs that I listen to anymore when I write. :)

 

[Fluffy]

I sometimes do. Since I can easily do more singing than writing, I try to listen to songs I don't know the words to, or songs that just don't have any lyrics.

 

[Tarieles]

This video is the source of my muse. It is my absolute favorite writing video, and I have become a little dependent on it and others of its kind.

 

[Kitti]

For me, it seems really nifty that people can listen to music while they write. It's not something that I find easy. Listening to music draws a little bit of focus from me, even just instrumental songs. When I write, I like to be at full focus. I like to sit and envision my character saying the words that I write, acting out the motions and how it would look, all that kind of stuff. Music adds an extra layer of distraction to that for me.

 

[The Mood is Write]

I have several playlists, but lately mine has only three songs, and I run it on repeat. Each song brings to mind a character of mine named Rare, and even though she's not in all of my RPs, she's quite good at getting my mind turning with ideas...

Mostly cuz I like tormenting her!

 

[Kestrel]

I used to. Now it just distracts me and words from lyrics will involuntarily find their way into my writing. Therefore, not anymore.

 

[Jorick]

Most of the time, yeah. It used to be all the time a year ago. I'm pretty easily distracted from writing, but funnily enough music doesn't pull my attention away even if it has a bunch of crazy lyrical shit going on.

My default writing music is instrumental music with a sort of epic quality to it (like this song, or Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones soundtrack music).

I also frequently make playlists for individual characters that capture the right mood for them, so that's what I listen to when I have them, and they can range wildly in genre and tone and such. For example, my reigning favorite character to roleplay was an archer dude who was a huge slut and also aspired to be a hero who would be remembered in tales for ages. His playlist includes songs like this to capture the manwhoring side, and this one got added to the list to encapsulate his heroic aspirations after someone in the roleplay linked it saying it should be his theme song. Anything that feels like it does a good job of representing some part of the character, whether it be by lyrics or just the overall sound of it, gets thrown onto the playlist and each song only gets listened to when I'm writing a scene that it fits.

However, I now do a lot of my writing at work on my laptop, and I can't have music there, so I've gotten used to writing without music in that specific situation.

 

[ᴛᴏᴄᴋᴀ]

I usually do, but my daughter stole my ear buds and my husband hates my music, so unless he's not home I can't listen to anything. :( It sucks too, because it keeps my mind clear and usually gets me in the mood I need to be in.

 

[Cosmic Fey]

I listen to music all the time when I'm writing (or all the time in general really). I get distracted easily, or my thoughts wander too easily when it's quiet, so I rely on music to act as white noise to help keep me focused. I've tried the same method with movies and stuff playing in the background at low volume, but I can't focus when there's talking (singing is fine, but talking in itself is too attention grabbing) so I've stuck to music. I usually go for EDM or something that has a faster beat

 

[Winter]

I tent to sometimes use music to emphasize a scene, especially if it's a flashback to an early time in the character timeline. Usually the music I'll listen to will be the intended piece that'd inspire more of what I'm writing.