Musical coincidences & the Magic U soundtrack

I often listen to music while I write (and do other kinds of work). I feel it keeps my brain stimulated in some way that silence doesn’t. In the olden days I used to put 6 CDs of varying genres into my CD changer and hit “random” and picking 6 CDs that went well together, yet weren’t too similar to each other, was a kind of art form.

More recently I’ve gotten lazy and have been using XM Radio or Last.fm instead. (I tried Pandora but the ads killed me.) As I’ve gotten older, I’ve discovered I don’t write as well to music with lyrics in English, so I mostly listen to instrumental, “new age,” soundtracks, classical, and “world music.”

The fun thing about XM Radio (mostly the “Spa” channel 72) and Last.fm is I discover new things I didn’t know about. And sometimes they hit upon a song that fits a mood or scene perfectly.

When I was writing the tragic scene on the staircase in The Tower and the Tears (Magic U book 2), a heartbreaking song was playing, but I wasn’t able to note down what it was. (The XM unit is on the first floor, my office is on the third floor, and I wasn’t about to interrupt writing a crucial scene just to go down and find out what the song was.) It was such a searing, haunting song, though, that it’s been playing in my head ever since.

Today I finally found out what it was!

Read the rest of this entry »

Mirrored from blog.ceciliatan.com.

Musical coincidences & the Magic U soundtrack

I often listen to music while I write (and do other kinds of work). I feel it keeps my brain stimulated in some way that silence doesn’t. In the olden days I used to put 6 CDs of varying genres into my CD changer and hit “random” and picking 6 CDs that went well together, yet weren’t too similar to each other, was a kind of art form.

More recently I’ve gotten lazy and have been using XM Radio or Last.fm instead. (I tried Pandora but the ads killed me.) As I’ve gotten older, I’ve discovered I don’t write as well to music with lyrics in English, so I mostly listen to instrumental, “new age,” soundtracks, classical, and “world music.”

The fun thing about XM Radio (mostly the “Spa” channel 72) and Last.fm is I discover new things I didn’t know about. And sometimes they hit upon a song that fits a mood or scene perfectly.

When I was writing the tragic scene on the staircase in The Tower and the Tears (Magic U book 2), a heartbreaking song was playing, but I wasn’t able to note down what it was. (The XM unit is on the first floor, my office is on the third floor, and I wasn’t about to interrupt writing a crucial scene just to go down and find out what the song was.) It was such a searing, haunting song, though, that it’s been playing in my head ever since.

Today I finally found out what it was!

Read the rest of this entry »

Mirrored from blog.ceciliatan.com.