Happy New Year everybody!
I got some fantastic Christmas presents this year, and amongst them were some awesome movie soundtracks. I’ve been listening to soundtracks a great deal recently, mainly ones by the legendary Hans Zimmer. I will often play the Dark Knight soundtrack on my headphones when I’m walking somewhere (it makes me walk exactly 52.36 per cent faster than if I was listening to anything else), or have the Inception music on when I’m driving. It’s like having a soundtrack to your own life, which is brilliant (albeit a little dangerous because you do occasionally forget you’re in the real world and try to scale a building with your bare hands or wrestle a horse to the ground or attempt to outrun a police car on the motorway).
My favourite time to listen to soundtracks, though, is when I’m writing. I try to write as cinematically as possible – I want to watch my story unravelling the same way I watch a film at the cinema. And having an adrenaline-fuelled soundtrack on in the background really helps bring the action to life. It often feels like the music is actually pulling the story along, helping to shape a scene in a way that might never have occurred to me if I was writing in silence. It makes me feel like I’m right there alongside my characters, in the heat of the moment, with the bullets flying and the monsters howling. And if I’m struggling to write a certain scene, listening to a soundtrack will fill my head with ideas. It’s like the music is carving the story out for me. I always love writing, but writing an action scene with a soundtrack playing in the background is, for me, one of the best things EVER!
Here are some of my all-time favourite tracks to write to. Check them out by clicking on the links, and remember to turn up the volume!!
For the all-out action scene, something from The Dark Knight (Hans Zimmer):
For a scene with some really bad monsters emerging, the Tron soundtrack (Daft Punk):
And for the big emotional scene, this amazing track from The Thin Red Line (Hans Zimmer) which takes a while to get going but which is mind-blowing:
Remember, if you like them then buy the albums! Does anybody else write to music, and if so what kinds of things?
05/01/2011 at 7:13 pm Permalink
I know exactly what you mean, I also write to soundtracks too. While writing Tarzan I had a full playlist of movie soundtracks: Congo (Jerry Goldsmith), Avatar (James Horner), Might Joe Young (James Horner), King Kong (James Newton Howard), Jurassic Park 2 (John Williams), Jurassic Park 3 (Don Davis) and selected tracks from Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull (John Williams), Casino Royale (David Arnold) and The 13th Warrior (Graeme Ravell’s unused score).
At the moment I’m writing a movie for the SyFy channel and finding John Williams’ “War of the Worlds” and Ennio Morricone’s superb score from “The Thing” to be perfectly atmospheric.
05/01/2011 at 7:57 pm Permalink
This is a great subject! I always write to music. It used to be wall-to-wall Oscar Peterson, but these days it’s more eclectic…
I’m a huge fan of soundtracks. The John Powell scores for the Bourne films are excellent but there’s one I really want to recommend, especially to write to: Dave Grusin’s score for The Firm.
It’s very different to the others you’ve mentioned, so you might not like it, but give it a go. Incredible writing, great to write to. If you search itunes for ‘Grusin Firm’ you’ll find it.
Also, can I recommend one album that’s not in itself a soundtrack (though it does contain a couple of movie title themes), but the arrangements are all by Lalo Schifrin, possibly my favourite soundtrack composer. It’s a Jimmy Smith album called The Cat. Again, it’s brilliant to write to.
Oh, and Carter Burwell is usually worth a listen to…
…and now I’ll stop.
05/01/2011 at 7:59 pm Permalink
(Should have mentioned that Lalo Schifrin’s score for Bullitt is great – a bit dated in places, but cracking stuff.)
05/01/2011 at 10:43 pm Permalink
The “Bulitt” score is fantastic (as is anything by John Powell). I have several hundred film scores so, for me, I select whatever puts me in the mood for the piece I’m writing. The one thing I can’t do is write whilst listening to songs, the lyrics always put me off.
06/01/2011 at 12:22 am Permalink
I’m a soundtracker too. You mention Thin Red Line, which is a fantastic background for tense/emotional scenes. Check out Zimmer’s sublime Inception soundtrack too.
Like Andy I can’t have words messing with my brainwaves, so I’ve taken to ambient electronica by the likes of the fabulous Jon Hopkins or Helios. Also more “out there” stuff by Gaslamp Killer or Flying Lotus etc.
One exception to the “no lyrics” rule is Sigur Ros – I’ve no idea what they’re on about so the gobbledegook doesn’t interfere with the words in my head.
I love wiriting to music – truly one of the joys of the “job”.
06/01/2011 at 3:12 am Permalink
For ages I was like you guys – couldn’t write to anything that had words. But I had a sudden change – almost overnight! Now I write to loads of music that has words and I have no idea why it doesn’t bother me any more. Very odd.
06/01/2011 at 7:18 am Permalink
I wish I could write to any kind of music, but I can’t. It has to be silence, so I can hear what’s going on in my head.
I can plot to music, yes. Write, no. For plotting, it’s Murray Gold’s soundtracks to series 3 or 4 of Doctor Who, A Series of Unfortunate Events by Thomas Newman or Angels and Demons by Hans Zimmer.
The brilliant artist and illustrator, PJ Lynch, once told me he listens to Radio 4 all day while painting. I’d LOVE that – but, again, too many words. Oh, and I can’t paint for toffee.
Having said that, I’m going to check out some of the soundtracks mentioned above and give it another go – especially as I’m now working on a new series of books. Maybe it will be different, this time…
09/01/2011 at 11:51 am Permalink
Hi guys – really interesting subject. I’m on the Tommy-side of things – I love music so much, and am so emotionally affected by it, that I find it artificially impacts on my writing, so it doesn’t help. Weirdly, I’ve just been asked about this in an interview for Dave Cousins’ (a great new YA writer whose brilliantly titled book ‘Fifteen Days without a Head’ comes out next year) blog: http://davecousins.blogspot.com/ The second part of the interview containing the music question comes out next week : )
09/05/2011 at 9:58 am Permalink
Hi guys
Some great suggestions here – apologies for the late reply in this, but one CD I try to sell to everyone who writes to music is Two Steps From Hell’s Invincible CD. Great sweeping epic sounds with some choral type words here and there. It makes you want to tool up your characters and go bash the bad guys. Or the good guys, depending on your POV.