Music In Writing

When I am writing, I am usually listening to something. I find it helps me drown out the noises around me, and locks me into the world I am creating. Previously, when I was writing my Primorlen novels, epic music was the genre of choice. Thomas Bergensen's Illusions album has some of the most beautiful, sweeping, epic, but not overly intense music I've ever heard. Movie soundtracks are also sometimes helpful, though if I am quite familiar with the movie the music reminds me of the scenes during which it plays, rather than whatever I'm writing at the moment. However, as I began writing The Trust Hole, I found that epic music I had been listening to didn't quite cut it when helping me focus in.
Sweeping orchestras did not fit in with the grungy, dystopian, off-kilter world I was creating. So I broadened my musical horizons, searching for soundtracks and other music that would fit. For instrumental, I rediscovered the Inception and Dark Knight soundtracks (which I already had), and found the gem of the Tron: Legacy soundtrack. These had the slightly electronic, deep and brooding but still epic feel I was looking for. For vocal music, I found Red's Until We Have Faces to have the same qualities, especially their quieter tracks. And the lyrics fit spot on... every song seemed to mirror a theme in Trust Hole. Feed the Machine, Not Alone, Who We Are, Hymn For The Missing; each spoke to one of the threads I was weaving together.
At the same time, a few nights I simply turned the music off and wrote in silence. Ten o'clock at night is usually pretty quiet, so the only sounds were the tapping of my keys. It was curiously epic in itself, just throwing the story forward on the wings of silence.

Try it sometime, turn off your carefully constructed playlist of writing music, and find a quiet place to just write. You might be surprised by the results.