Music and The Writing Process: A Match Made in Heaven
Melodies. Perfect words. Beautiful voices. Music is like a stream of inspiration directly into our ears. All you need to do is find the right song to go with the right genre of story. Music is a great way to bring out what may be buried underneath all those thoughts flying around in our heads. It is a way to conduct that stream down into our hands to write or type them out.
Music can be the catalyst to a great story. Studies say that music can help concentration and is great while doing math. Now I know we are not doing math, but words can be just as difficult to work out, especially when you sit down to a blank page.
This post contains a few of my adventures with writing and music. I use it daily from driving to work, to going to sleep at night. There really isn’t a trick, it is more of finding what music inspires the visions within your mind to manifest into words.
Strange Places
Let me first say that I love to play video games. You may think, what does this have to do with music? Surprisingly the background music to certain video games are amazing, as they should be when you are traversing unknown lands. One such soundtrack came from the video game Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit. Since the music would repeat, I would wait for a song to come on and see who it was by. The song turned out to be “Ordinary” by The Buzzhorn. I quickly went away from the game and found the album to see if the rest of the songs matched the greatness of “Ordinary”. Some did and some not so much.
But paired with a great driving game, this was the makings of some great daydream sessions to help me with a story I was brewing. Mind you the story that I had in mind had nothing to do with drifting or evading the police in an exotic car. That is my point, no matter where you can have a stroke of luck with a scenario that can go so well with a story you are working on.
Lyrical Sensations
Every now and again I come across a song that has such perfect words, it can’t help itself but be inspirational. Two such songs are “Ordinary Word” by Duran Duran and “Patterns” by Simon and Garfunkel. I am by no means telling you what to listen to. Music is situational as well as relative to the listener. While those two songs may not be your cup of tea, it wouldn’t hurt to give them a listen.
These songs are well written and describe life as either a pattern to follow or a world to just sit back and accept. They help view a story in the eyes of someone with these same sentiments. It puts you in the mood to write about the human condition and why we all need to escape occasionally.
Raving Through the Night
EDM and trance music are not for the faint of heart. Some of the beats can just burst through my ear drums and give me a splitting headache rather than inspiration. But hear me out on this one. There are sub sections within the EDM genre. I find instrumentals to be excellent help while writing. As an example, “Eclipse” by Subfocus is a great instrumental with some voices in the background. It has a great beat with not too much deep bass that can just be headache inducing.
As I had mentioned before, I love video games, and have been gaming since I was old enough to pick up an Atari joystick. So, it will not come as a shock that another song I recommend is called “New Game” by Nitro Fun. It has a bit of nostalgia mixed in with great beats to get that story moving.
Never Ending Choices
While this post could go on and on, the point was not to list songs that I recommend, but to showcase the effectiveness of music paired with the creative process. Music is subjective to the audience. What I like may not be what you like. But the idea is there. The inspiration is there. It is a pool just waiting to be waded in and I encourage you to take what you can from it. Bring on the inspiration!
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