Music to Write By

In discussions with other writers, this question often comes up: what do you listen to while you write?
It’s entirely possible, of course, to write without music playing, and I do that sometimes. But I live in a house with five other people and a dog, so there are many distractions. Putting on a set of headphones and blocking out everything else is often very helpful.
Some types of music are more conducive to writing than others. Personally, I prefer instrumental music for this purpose. Words are another distraction and might work themselves into what I’m writing, if I’m not careful.
I’ve experimented with numerous choices, browsing Soundcloud and YouTube. I’ve found a few obscure artists that I like and use from time to time. Here’s one example: Denny Schneidemesser. Check him out.
There are three movie soundtracks I kept coming back to while writing my novel in November and December. I enjoy a lot of soundtracks, but these three just clicked with me for some reason. All three of these are on YouTube in full.
The first is How To Train Your Dragon by John Powell. While I love the Lord of the Rings soundtracks, they’ve become far too iconic in my head. I can’t listen to them without specifically thinking of the movies. With How To Train Your Dragon, however, the music is not locked into specific things in my head (though occasionally, I can’t help but think of riding a dragon through the clouds…). I like the movie, but the music is beautiful and sweeping on its own. It’s also varied enough to move me through different moods.
The second is Oblivion (the movie, not the video game) by M83, Anthony Gonzalez, and Joseph Trapanese. It comes from a 2013 Tom Cruise sci-fi movie which wasn’t extremely popular. However, the soundtrack is excellent. It’s engaging enough through both quiet and action scenes, and it slowly builds to an impressive climax. There’s a melancholy woven throughout this whole soundtrack, and that can play strongly into quieter writing scenes. While I don’t find myself thinking much about the actual movie, if I catch a glimpse of the track titles, it does bring something to mind: the iconic Thomas Macauley quote that is used as a theme throughout Oblivion. That’s not a bad thing; it’s a theme that can play into what I’m writing from time to time.
The third and most recent soundtrack that I find myself listening to is Hacksaw Ridge by Rupert Gregson-Williams. I don’t listen to the entire soundtrack on this one, but the second half, which is pretty much all battle scenes, is tense and exciting. There are many, many “battle scene” music choices, but this one just really works for me, for some reason. It’s hard to nail down the exact reason.
And that’s the way it is for most people, I’ve found. Music enjoyment is subjective (not unlike literary agents and queries). Everyone has different tastes and different favorites. These are some of mine. What are yours?