I know a lot of people listen to music when writing but what other kinds of background noise do you guys prefer? Here's a couple that I use from time to time: Coffitivity - mimics the sounds of sitting in a coffee shop. RainyMood - awesome endless rainstorm! Listen to Wikipedia - music derived from information being added/deleted/edited on Wikipedia. Very occasionally, I actually manage to leave my house and listen to real background noise like a park or something, haha. (argh, I just realized I probably should have put this in General Writing >.< sorry)
I like to have the TV on. Music is distracting to me, but TV generally is not. Silence is far too noisy for me.
No way, there's a way just to listen to coffee shop sounds ^^ I normally build a playlist that has all the music in my library that helps me think of ideas for whatever I'm writing (so if its something light-heart then the music matches, dark, serious etc...) Really helps, and if I get stuck I listen to Immediate Music to get me back on track
Sometimes I'll listen to music that fits the mood of the particular scene I'm writing. I don't like music I can sing along to or hum, though, which is why jazz is usually a safe bet for me to listen to. Thanks for the links, by the way! If I can't sing them=score!
For writing, I like music that doesn't have lyrics. Most recently, a lot of the big bang stuff. Artie Shaw, in particular. Also Harry James, Tommy Dorsey, and so on. Some of the songs have words, but most do not.
Me too. I usually turn everything off. I love listening to rain while I write, though - I have to move back to Canada! We don't get enough rain here in SoCal. If I can't have silence or rain, I see if there's a golf tournament on TV. Golf tournaments have low voices saying random things, the occasional polite round of applause (golf clap), and the rest is pretty backgroundish. Just as good as nature sounds.
I have about 2 hours of various field recordings I made for an (as yet uncompleted) audio essay on the Tokyo underground. Sometimes, I fire up a loop I've made from the recording of the interior of a subway car or another one of people walking past the entrance to a station. But I'm really enjoying RainyMood now!!! Thanks for that!
Playlists customized for each story FTW. Nothing puts me in the mood to write sci-fi than Kraid's theme played by The Minibosses or Merzbow's Promotion Man. For fantasy, I listen to a lot of Arkona and actual medieval/renaissance music like John Dowland, Luis de Narváez etc. Oh, and thunder storms are awesome for any writing project. I couldn't listen to Frank Zappa's Thing Fish because of the nature of the music: it tells a story, the lyrics are there, yapping at you, so while it's great stuff to listen to by itself, it messes with my focus when writing.
I like instrumental music of various kinds, depending on my mood. I don't actually mind background noise as long as it's not going to involve me—or there aren't any words in it to distract me and it's a fairly regular noise (washing machine is fine, motorcycle revving up outside the window is not.) Muffled conversations are fine too, but once they're close enough for me to hear what's being said, they become distracting. What I really can't stand is interruptions, or potential interruptions, where I have to respond. Phone ringing, doorbell ringing, etc. I've also had to negotiate writing time with my husband, so he knows enough not to come barging into my office to yak at me about potato blight or the latest football score or whatever. I have to know that when he goes past the door he's NOT going to come in unless it's an emergency!
Hey, Coffitivity is what a hallucination sounds like! *coughs* Anyhoo, I listen to mixes of songs that suit the overall mood of the chapter I'm writing. Music is my air, which is why I prefer it to rain, though I do love rain.
My favourite is an album called 'Rain' and especially the track of the ocean waves hitting the beach with crickets in the background. It's the sound of my island in the Adriatic, and sends me into a meditative state immediately.
A few nights ago, around one in the morning, I was writing with my living room windows open and the rain hammering down outside. I found it very relaxing and surprisingly productive!
