Young Writers Society

Music can truly influence you when writing, which could be either a good thing or a bad thing. I think more so, of it as being a good thing, considering, I always find myself listening to music while writing. However, I don't want to make it a habit of always listening to music when writing because sometimes, you'll find yourself copying off of what the song writer said and not really using your own stuff...but yeah...music can help--but it can also hurt.

That's why I can't listen to lyrics. I'll pay too much attention to the words, and before I know it, my page will consist of, "Crysi followed Malkin down the hallway, singing in the rain, I'm singing in the rain! What a wonderful feeling, singing in the rain!"

The music fades into the background for me. Not distracting at all, but if it's not there .... silence .... which I notice.

Yeah, music can fade into the background for me, sometimes. Other times I sing along while writing. And, if I do that for too many songs(or just one song on repeat ), I'll get distracted.

From the moment I turn on the computer I open up WINAMP and listen to it as long as I'm seated here, sometimes when I'm not (when I'm reading, drawing, etc.) When I turn off the computer the music goes away, but sometimes I turn on the CD player and listen to Phantom of the Opera until I go to sleep.

My playlist is full of music. Alternative, rock, jazz, classical, blues, heavy metal, opera, rap... you name the genre, I probably have it on there.

Currently I cut down my playlist so it's only seven hours and nine minutes, where it was once fourteen hours. It's on Random and on Repeat, but I'm usually fine with it...

And I have about 3,000 music and 80 video files on my computer, so I'm generally... never... bored.

Music is my life.

yea, sometimes I do listen to music to get in a mood to write. When writing the horror story that I had to write for english class, for example, I listened to Black Sabbath to get me in that mood. If I'm writing something happy I'll put in some 80's hair metal (a lame style of music, but one I have a sad love for). If its something sad, usually Guns N' Roses "Don't Cry" or "November Rain" will do the trick. I'm not really that great at writing emotionaly sad stories, so the fact that those songs aren't really all that sad doesn't matter. For fantasy I like to listen to Led Zeppelin, especially songs which have tolkein elements in them (Robert Plant, lead singer for Led Zeppelin, and Jimmy Page, lead guitarist, were huge fans of Tolkein and incorporated lots of his ideas into their songs. Misty Mountain Hop, Kashmir, The Battle of Evermore are just a few examples).

As others have said, the music will just become background and you won't pay attention to it (for me at least). But that doesn't mean it doesn' affect your writting. Which room you take a test in can effect how well you do on the test. If you learned the material in one room but test in another, you might do worse than if you test in the room where you learned. This is because the envirnment will trigger memories of learning the material which will help you do well on the test. This is way different, but its sorta along the same lines. So what music you listen to probably affects the style of writing because the music will trigger images and ideas that you somehow think go along with that music. This has a lot to do with music theory which I don't know as much as I should about because Im a lazy guitar player and learn songs rather than actually progress to become better all around. Anyways, it would definately have to do with what key the musics in, if its major or minor, how fast the music is, what the vocals are about, and many other things.

hope that makes sense, i just love to begin rambles about things I know nothing of and in the end try to prove them right, lol

Yeah, the music just fades into the background for me too. Sometimes, I wake up out of a day dream and realize I have been singing to teh entire CD and am all hoarse, but I hadn't even noticed. Sad, I know.

Totaly agreeing with Perra. I don't like total silence or I get paranoid and a little freaked. I love listening to Avril Lavigne, Maroon 5, Michelle Branch, The Corrs, Evanescence, Shania Twain and Queen when I write. I'm not sure if it makes much of a difference though...

Éloeré wrote:The music fades into the background for me. Not distracting at all, but if it's not there .... silence .... which I notice.

I agree. Usually when I write, I'm so focused on my work that I completely zone out, reguardless of the music. However, I DO notice the absence of music if the cd is to come to an abrupt stop. Maybe it has a calming effect on me, who knows. *Shrug*

I ALWAYS HAVE to have music when I write. I mean I could write without it but I write better with it.
I ushually have music that matches the mood of the story/poem i'm writing, like if its a slow poem i'll listen to slow music etc.etc

I hear music in colour...which means it's terribly distracting to try and write a poem (which will ultimatly have its own colour) when listening to other colours.

I can't listen to music when I'm writing, especially if there's words on the track. I start to hum, then sing, and before I know it I'm up and dancing my way around the room with my beloved hairbrush/microphone.

I don't mind calming music without words.

~ Roxy ~

I never listen to music while I write. Lol, I never even thought about it.

Maybe I should try?

-elein

I do this anyway. Sometimes silence is best.

I tend to get distracted by music if i'm trying to write. If it's poetry, then the rhythm starts to change to the rhythm of the song. If it's a story, then the story line starts to include parts of the song. So distracting haha.