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Musical Recommendations for Writing

I thought I would offer up some ideas on music I like to write to and would recommend, in case this is useful for someone else.   Beyond the visual inspirations that work for me as regards the beach at Pacific Ocean, or being nestled in a quiet spot among some hills in the Topanga Canyon, I find these musical sources provide the necessary aural layer to enhance my writing productivity.

Thomas Bergersen's "Illusions" and his other musical team, "Two Steps From Hell," are my intial recommendations. This music is very Hans Zimmer-like, but I find the melodies to be generally much richer. This music would be categorized in the Epic genre, and also related to companies that produce trailer-soundtrack music.  What I like about "Illusions" is it takes wonderful soundtrack-oriented melodies and extends them to full-bodied, pulse-pounding arrangements, where the album feels thematically consistent within itself.   This music is a great soul-amplifier for when your emotions are on fire and ready to spill over with something wonderful that you just can't hold back from getting on the page, be it feelings that are stately, pensive, or bitter-sweet.   There is some inspiring writing-music in the Epic genre section, as a whole, and I invite you to scout that out if you haven't already.

My next recommendation is Nox Arcana (Joseph Vargo). This music sits on the other end of the emotional spectrum in more Gothic territory.  You might find some of this playing at Halloween, but it really works well year-round and particularly for writing in dark, lonely, or mysterious spaces of a story.   I find myself listening to Nox Arcana extensively while driving, as it provides a welcome change of mellow rhythms involving lonely solitude, pain-filled longing, or ominous foreboding.   However, this in part depends on the album one chooses, where each has its own self-contained cinematic or literary theme (i.e. Lovecraft, Poe, Stoker, medieval, winter music, etc.)

In between these two ends of the emotional spectrum just described sits Tangerine Dream, which is my favorite group.   Albums like Pergamon and Ricochet, Poland and Rubycon, provide long hypnotic arrangements that allow for deep, cerebral trances of contemplation.  I've never found another group that so closely resonates with my internal frequencies, and as such I have tended to be most productive and mentally on fire when writing, working, and driving to their music.   I would place them on the more pensive and cerebral part of the spectrum, somewhere in the middle, but with plenty of moments that oscillate between the two ends of Epic and Gothic, particularly in their late-70's and 80's material.

Finally, tried-and-true classical music always works for me:  Wagner, Holst, Dvorak, Sibelius, and particularly the Russians, to name just a few. Classical excels gloriously at capturing the full emotional/cerebral spectrum of mindsets, which is one reason I think this music stands the test of time.

In all cases, my common denominator is generally to write to music that is (1) cinematic, (2) long, and (3) without words.   Depending on my mood and frame-of-mind, I may have different internal dialagues to add to the mix, allowing me to revisit the same music and derive a new experience, which is why I prefer music without singing.   As regards the length, once I become dissolved into the music, I want to remain there for as long as it takes, and not have the rug pulled out from underneath my imagination.  Looking back, I would have to place "Illusions" and "Pergamon" as my favorite all-time albums, being ones getting repeated listenings without loss of inspiration.

I might also add that I often use sessions of dual-binaural beats, including light-pulsing glasses, to focus in on my internal world, and I have in fact had some of my most productive writing that way.   As such, I recommend this as a more adventurous option to try (though won't be appropriate for some, depending on medical conditions).

 

Posted on July 25, 2012 at 05:05 PM in Music | Permalink

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