Nathan Bransford - The Forums

Pandora shuffle, but my favorite is Fryderyk Chopin.

This is apparently becoming popular nowadays, what with the Meyer factor and Pynchon's surprising entry into the mp3 game. So I'll push play.

I second the comment someone made about an "album" specific to the work or the story. Although if one isn't careful it can be a procrastination measure. I personally am something of an obsessive High Fidelity-type audiophile when it comes to the sound quality: things like bit rate and ID3 tags (info about the song like artist, album, year released, etc., aka "metadata"), these things matter to me. And since I don't have any money of my own to download from iTunes or have a subscription to Rhapsody, and I'm too reclusive to go to one of the brick-and-mortar stores and work with their "mix" system, I do end up using things like BitTorrent, Rapidshare, and various download managers to get the songs. Then I edit the tags myself and even add album art, both for the individual titles as well as the unofficial "album" itself. I also have a whole "Book Playlists" section on my iPod.

But before I put my top five lists on the board, with the increase in spammers and the unreliable nature of anonymous internet communication anyway, I'm wondering if I should obfuscate (hide) the text somehow, lest the info about the stories themselves, and/or the content of the playlists (which would indicate the plot, themes, etc. of the unfinished work/s), gets copypasta'ed somehow.

All I'll say for now is that there is a lot of '80s music for each of them, from Blue Oyster Cult to Cyndi Lauper to Asia and Michael Jackson, and that one of the playlists has much ado about cats (a la the wip it's referring to) and has "Stray Cat Strut" and "Eye of the Tiger" on it. Other than that I'm hesitant to reveal any of the magician's secrets.

I like complete silence, too. If I need to block out noise, a good ambient soundtrack helps. Right now I am using the Inception soundtrack. It's loud enough to block the talking, but not too distracing.

I listen to music in order to block out background noise. Music also helps me get in the mood for writing and stay on task. I usually listen to classical music (Chopin, Liszt, Debussy) or soundtracks (LOTR, Harry Potter, Pride and Prejudice, Pirates of the Caribbean, Chrono Cross), but there are some bands that are chill enough for me to concentrate to (Iron & Wine, Matt Marque, Incubus, Radiohead). The Smashing Pumpkins are my favorite.

I've recently developed this wierd thing for Gregorian chanting...

I can't start writing if there isn't music in the background. However, if I'm writing a scene where I really have to focus, the music goes off. Normally I'll listen to anything rock: metal like Three Days Grace, or soft rock like Stereophonics or Keane.