What Music Do You Listen to When Creating Worlds

[Polycarp]

Well, okay.

[ic=Writin' Music]Niyaz - The Hunt
Niyaz - Beni Beni
Altan Urag - Ijii Mongol
Altan Urag - Mirage of Faraway
Europa Barbarorum Soundtrack - Nomadic Theme
Kazakh Folk Song
John Adams (HBO) - Intro Theme
Sigur Ros - Sæglópur
Dvorak - Symphony From the New World[/ic]
I also have some game tracks that I didn't see on youtube - NWN, some HOMM2 opera (hell yeah opera), and a few dozen Knytt Stories environmental tracks.

This list is not wholly representative of what I listen to on a daily basis.  I listen to a lot of music with lyrics, but music with lyrics that I can understand tends to distract me whenever I'm trying to write something.  It's like someone talking about something completely unrelated right in your ear while you're trying to concentrate on something else.  Anything that's instrumental or simply in a foreign language is acceptable.

[Xathan]

It really depends on which setting and what part of which setting I'm working on - tone, theme, etc. I tend to, like Polycarp, go for music with either foreign language lyrics or no lyrics for the same reason. However, if I get stuck, the best way to get myself unstuck is pop on "Requiem for a Tower" or "Requiem for a Dream" (the former if I'm working on military/monsters/battles, the latter if I'm working on courts/countries/personas) and imagine scenes from my world taking place to the music. Other than that, it's kind of all over the place.

[SDragon]

interestingly enough, worldbuilding might be the only creative activity that I don't do when listening to music. I think part of it is that I don't have as many worlds as I have, say, guitar riffs, poems, or drawings, and part of it might be that... well, there's a bit of a difference in scale between a poem and an entire world.

That said, the cyberpunk project I started definitely did have some pretty heavy musical influences, which I listed in that thread.

[Weave]

I listen to tons of music when I write! Of course, none of them really contain any lyrics; I find that if I listen to music while I write, I often end up unable to divide my attention between the lyrics of the song at hand and the words I'm trying to type out/write. Thus, I usually listen to soundtracks, or, more recently, nothing at all. Sometimes, the white noise of a fan is all I need.

I'm one of those people who paces a lot and thinks. I'm a fairly social guy, but when I want to be alone, I want to be alone. During that time, if I'm not writing, I'm usually pacing around a room with my headphones on, listening to music and speculating about what I want to write.

However, if there's one song I always listen to before I write, it's this one: Comfort in the Orchestration by the Reign of Kindo. I feel it very accurately describes my experiences with creating a setting and launching my players into it :).

[SA]

I completely forgot the song LC wrote for my Dystopia setting back in... 2007 or something (shit, was it that long ago?). That tune was a massive influence, writing in the wee hours of a frosty winter morning.

[Lmns Crn]

Hahaha, I completely forgot that, too.

Of all the orchestral flotsam and jetsam I wrote down, I'm glad that's the one piece that got read by an actual ensemble of human beings (and cellists)

edit: cellists you know I love you, please don't hunt me down

[SA]

My Uncle is a drug-addled transvestite rock cellist. He thinks he's from outer space.

(I think he's from Washington D.C.)

[LordVreeg]

My Uncle is a drug-addled transvestite rock cellist. He thinks he's from outer space.

(I think he's from Washington D.C.)

I need a 'like' button for this.

[LD]

Knight Writer- forgot to welcome you to the site I think in my post- Welcome and thank you for your input (!)

[LordVreeg]

Still Waters--VNV Nation