I believe that they can use Beethoven’s piano concertos for the theme music when they make the movie of my life: joyful flights, gentle lows, great crashing highs. That will suit me. It won’t work for every story I tell however.
I put on music when it is time to write. It is my signal to get out of social media, close out distractions, and talk to the girls in the basement about the characters. For it to work well, however, the music has to suit the mood. I find Pandora helpful. I can set up a channel for the type of story I’m writing. I wrote an entire middle grade novel to bluegrass music. When DANGEROUS SECRETS was in process, I listened to music from Captain Corelli’s Mandolin and “Traditional Italian,” which turned out to include a lot of Andrea Bocelli.
Romantic Dinner Standards helps when the a scene is sweet and tender, but I have to be careful because it can ratchet down the mood. James Horner Radio (which helped THE RENEGADE WIFE) or general Movie Soundtracks move the action along better in most cases. FOR DANGEROUS WEAKNESS I used How the West Was Won and related soundtracks.
Editing is an entirely different case. I have to keep my chin up and the tempo moving. Sometimes I do Glenn Miller and sometimes Jersey Boys, Jim Croce, or some old time Rock and Roll.
Like many things in my life, when it comes to music, it depends.
I was raised with a mother who loved the Beatles, Elton John, Neil Diamond, and Elvis, and a father who preferred Wagner, Mozart, and Beethoven:) I have a healthy love of all genres, except hard core gangsta rap:)
I don’t know if you’ve visited the other posts yet, but I’m loving them and finding out that though we all have our own author voices and music choices, and the wheres and whens we listen to it, one thing remains constant: music is part of our writing lives.
We usually have music in our books. In fact our new book, Can’t Stop the Music, released Wednesday is about music, magic, and love. The music is from Woodstock mainly.
Music is important to life.
This week has been a fun topic. It’s great to see how we all handle music and writing during the process.