Roleplay music...

...go, see if you can tell if the new one was written while I listening to the new Cradle of Filth album...;)

Anybody else have music they are more creative to?

Depends on what I am writing and where the bit is set. If I need to get Shand in his dark moods then a bit of heavy classical goes on. Wagner (no, not the X Factor guy) or the 1812 overture.

However, I find it harder to write if I have music on with lyrics in it. I get caught up listening to them and it distracts me.

I would have thought the X-Factor Wagner would have made for a REALLY angry roleplay...I know he maks most people like that!

I partly ask because I've just read some online journal entries by a fave author of mine, Justina Robson. She was talking about her writing and mentioned something similar to what you have just said about the lyrics getting in the way. I don't tend to find that a problem when writing although I do when reading (if I listen to something when doing the latter it's usually dance music or classical).

But sometimes something heavy and pounding just has to be stuck on!

I don't tend to have music on when I am reading. If I am really into a book I like to concentrate fully on that and the only sounds I want are the ticking of the clock.

However, if its casual reading/skimming then I don't mind having a bit of blues on in the background.

But yes, I do find that lyrics can get in the way, particularly if its a song I actually know the words to as Iget tempted to mouth the words of sing along with it to myself, and when I am trying to write dialogue for a role-play, that doesn't work so well. In fact, when I do write dialogue, I often have the conversation aloud to myself first, without writing anything down, and go back and try to recall what I have just said!

The reading thing is for just that reason. I like to concentrate on the book and I find that music with little or no lyrics help me do that.

I do tend to listen to music to get ideas, and let them roll around in my head, and let them soak in, and conceptualize and think of the various bits, pieces and ideas that will eventually form the roleplay, or the story, or even my other projects like scripts and short stories and ideas for episodes of things.

When it comes to the actual part when i'm done with the ideas and the thinking, then when I sit down to write, I demand absoute silence.

And that even includes the furnace kicking in. When I get to the actual writing, or the actual work portion, even something like that grates on my concentration.

So, yeah. Maybe music beforehand, while thinking about it. But not during my projects.

I usually have music on, sometimes it's background, sometimes it's what I may use as inspiration. Though not so much any more, I tend to get ideas and build on them before I write. I occasionally will factor the music I'm listening to into thr RP if it becomes appropriate.

Music without lyrics. Ozric Tentacles are pretty good roleplay music. Never get bored of Erpland

However, music has been useful in inspiring bits for roleplays before now. I once had to write a roleplay of a meeting between Shand and Fox and had no idea why or where they would me meeting. Then I listened to a song which had the lyrics

"She's seen her share of devils in this angels town"

(Bonus point if anyone can name the song)

And even though its not what the song was about, it sparked this whole image in my head of this sad girl who had come to LA with dreams and ended up working in a diner.

Hey presto I had my setting for the roleplay, and a character for them both to observe and from there start their conversation.

I like to listen to something heavy, and sometimes something shouty and angry when I'm typing trash talk.