So, while I draw, I will put a CD on repeat and draw until I finish my portrait, roughly 1 1/2 - 2 hours, having the CD play 3 or more times. For Nanowrimo, I would do the same thing, listening to a different CD everyday. So I plan to do the same thing this year (I would, even if i didn't plan it). I usually rotate my Eric Hutchison, Veronicas, Dollyrots, Fall Out Boy, Tokio Hotel, Killerpilze, Muse and a few other CD's I have.

Does anyone have any odd habits when it comes to music while being creative?

Just have to say - I love the Dollyrots!

Anyways. Last month I was writing a song and I had three songs with similar vibes so I put those three songs on repeat almost the entire time that I was writing the song.
And last year while I was writing a scene that I wanted to be a bit more intense I made a playlist featuring bands like Underoath, a couple of 30 Seconds To Mars songs, and a few other random ones that just made me feel that particular emotion.

Other than that I usually just make playlists and put those on shuffle and repeat.

Yeah I do the repeat thing myself. Sometimes when I'm really in the groove, I'll listen to just one song for hours. It's funny, I find it mindboggling that I can play a song for hours and yet, consciously, I might listen to the whole song just once in fragments during the entire time. :P

I'm probably going to be doing the same thing you're doing this year but I'll put together a playlist on my itunes and just play it all day.

Sounds good. :)

Oh my I'm neurotic when it comes to what I'm listening to while writing. I don't really listen to music, but I have to keep the television on, and it can't be tuned into anything intellectual. Right now while I'm doing character designs I'm watching the World Poker Tour. I either need that, or else I need it to be so quiet I can hear a pin drop - like the middle of the night, or when absolutely no one is home. If I am listening to music it cannot have words, and it cannot be a soundtrack to a movie. Otherwise I start thinking about that movie and lose my train of though. Are those weird listening habits? XD

I like fast, loud music so that it will drown out my noisy family. I blast it through the headphones until someone takes them off. Or I go to my quiet place and listen to haunting, sensual classicals.
I often close my eyes and mouth the lyrics to songs, imagining my character is singing those words in a situation that applies to them. I 'make believe' I am them. I'm fairly sure this habit stems from my days as an AMV maker...
I think that's a weird listening habit - but it really helps me with charecterization and often actual scenes.
I also have a playlist for most of my main characters. But, er... none of my Screnzy characters, yet.

Writing Status: "Exposition? What exposition?"

I really like that idea, MetallicRayes! Putting yourself in your character's shoes through songs...I just might borrow that, if you please. :)

P.S. AMVs (and AMV makers) are awesome. :P

When I have to force myself to write (I sometimes do, like when I get stuck or when I write something commissioned to me), I normally choose a CD I like and force myself to sit down at my computer (or with my AlphaSmart when I prefer to sit on the couch) and write for at least until the CD is finished (which with the average CD is noramlly roundabout an hour of writing time. Then I treat myself to a nice break (like watching an ep of my favorite TV show or the like) and repeat the process. Actually it is quite irrelevant which CD I choose, because once I get into the flow (and I normally do after five to ten minutes) I don't realize at all what kind of music is playing (it might influence me subcontiously, but I am not even sure about that, I think I just completely blank it out) and sometimes I don't even notice when the music stops and just keep writing, but the pure ritual of putting a CD in the player and promising myself that I only have to make it through that one hour helps me tremendously.

I'm glad you like it, rckrgirl (um... is there something I can call you?) I kinda see it like a music video (ha, geeky AMV habits rule.)
Sadly, I don't actually make AMVs anymore. =p

I really like the idea of having a 'ritual'. "When the CD finishes, I can have a break, when the CD finishes..." it sounds like an awesome idea (I need to get a few more habits when it comes to deadlines!)
And I know what you mean about tuning the music out... most of the time for me it's just a sound barrier.

Except, of course, when I'm using it.

Writing Status: "Exposition? What exposition?"

Yeah the ritual idea is really good. God knows I need some sort of habit to get me writing every day (procrastination is like that clingy friend who won't go away!)

And metallicreyes, I realize that my name is probably pretty annoying to write out...haha. Let's go for Jeni V.

-Jeni V ;P

I'm so weird I don't even have much in the way of habits.

Sometimes, I can't concentrate on writing if I have music playing because I get distracted by it. Other times I can't focus without it. When I do listen to it, I usually tune it out after a little bit or it fits the mood of what I'm writing I use it to help me write.

I spend sometimes up to an hour before I start writing perfecting my playlist of fifty plus songs. I then listen to this playlist on repeat on my computer, my iPod and through my speakers for the next few days, until whatever groove I'm in ends. Then, I make a new one.

Hmm... lets see...

Oh, I follow the music. If it goes faster, so do I, and if its slower, I slow down also.

I also choose a song according to the scene. If its a fight, I listen to something epic; if someone dies, something depressing, and so on. On silly moments I listen the Caramalldansen, for example!

I'll listen to a single track on repeat while working on a scene - so usually about 2 or 3 plays for a two page scene. I don't do it for every scene, but if a track really has the emotional core of what I'm working on. (I just used the main theme for "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence" for this not one hour ago.)

I also have a couple of tracks that really put me in the mood of what I'm currently working on (not to be mistaken for what I *will be* working on in April=)) - and if I don't listen to them I'll usually be listening to them in my head. (The track "Georgiana" from "Pride and Prejudice" or "A Postcard to Henry Purcell", also from "P&P".)

I mostly just listen to playlists in order most of the time, but when I'm getting into a new band, I'll try to completely immerse myself in them so that I can decide whether I like them or not. If I like what I can find on Youtube, I'll get a good deal on their music and listen to all of it nonstop. When I get bored of it, I go back to listening to my usual playlists. This method helps me to adjust to the new band's style. I'm thinking of listening to one master playlist on shuffle all the time, though.

To really get anything done I have to have a movie on. It has to be one that I like so that Creative Energy isn't murdered and it has to be something I've seen so many times that I don't have to pay any real attention to it. This usually most effective at three in the morning when everything else is quite and I have about ten candles lit for no real reason other than the fact that I like the smell.

When it comes to music I usually keep a few songs on constant repeat--just anything that seems appealing at the time, not anything that really has anything to do with what scene I'm writing. (In fact, I get my scenes and my songs all twisted around. I'll listen to some hardcore death metal during an emotional scene and Disney songs during grisly murder scenes.)

I have a movie thing a lot too.
Even not when writing, I have a song that I will listen to over and over and over for a few days and so my scenes end up somewhat like whatever I'm listening too.
Normally I'll have, like, a goal for each song... a certain number of words or lines or something.
I try and listen to some more classical type music (usually soundtracks from other movies... usually Lord of the Rings :P) so I don't get caught up in singing along with the lyrics, or typing the lyrics when I am trying to write a story.

I just keep repeating dead and gone on youtube. its quite annoying because i keep stop writing to hit reply.

My "odd music habit" is my muse, actually. From time to time, I'll get really into a song, and as I listen to it over and over again, I begin to picture a film trailer that would use that song. Most of the time, the lyrics and the story that begins to unfold from the bits and pieces of imagery have nothing in common, but the mood/tone is the same. The more I listen and visualize, the more the plot starts to unfold in my mind, and I start to try it with other songs that are similar to the first song. That playlist then helps me to sit down and write my story. :)

Not really odd habit, but I listen to weird music when writing scripts. For NaNo, it had to be classical music, otherwise I'd lose focus and start singing. So songs with words = banned.

But for Screnzy it's quite different. I'm listening to a band called 'Hollywood Undead', who I doubt you'll have heard of. They're sort of a rap/rock/screamo/hardcore alternative kind of thing, but they also somehow manage to be a christian band too. If it sounds odd, that's good, because it really is weird music. :) But it's good for what I'm writing, as the music is quite violent and so is the script =]

*Reserved space for future witty comment* --

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heh
I'll pick a random song that i like and want to hear at the time and play it over and over until i get tired of it. Which isn't often in a setting . . .

Right now I've been listening to the Caramelldansen :D

Well, I feel naked if I don't have headphones on when I'm at the computer. Even if they're not plugged in, or the music is stopped, I still need headphones. They help me think and get inside my own head, for some reason.

I usually listen to everything I have on randomize when I'm working on something I'm more "familiar" with (like a novel I've been on for a while), but when I start something new, I have to listen to music I already know, to make me feel more comfortable or somesuch, if that makes sense. As a result, I've listened to the dentist-dies song from Little Shop (the song title escapes me) during first kiss scenes that have waited an entire novel, and I've often had Disney music (Aladdin or Mulan, more often than not, or Tarzan) playing during hostage situations, grand heists, and murders.

Oh, and when I write or draw in my bedroom, I almost always have the Wicked soundtrack on. It doesn't matter what hour it is, I put it on softly at night and play it while I work. My mood chooses the song: if I feel like writing romance, I put on As Long As You're Mine, or for action, March of the Witch Hunters or No Good Deed, and for confrontations, Defying Gravity, and I get in my character's heads and put one as Elphaba, one as Glinda. Got one of my best short stories like that, too. xD

In my house we have such eclectic musical tastes that I can listen to most anything. I am currently enamoured with the epic and folk metal coming out of europe and russian pop music.

My quirk for writing is that I have to have the music that captures the scene or feel of the movie. I have one script in planning that I can't seem to focus on unless the music makes me weep in despair.

My weird listening habit, and this holds true outside of screnzy, is that there are usually 3-4 songs I really want to listen to, and nothing common between them. But I don't want to listen to songs that are similar.

And when I'm in the car, I click through shuffle constantly until I hit something I feel like listening to. That's actually how I wrote a short script for a movie set to music.

I listen to 'The song that never ends' on Youtube, while doing ten-minute word wars. As it's 9:51, it fits in almost perfectly. Plus it allows me to concentrate on what I'm writing, since the words tend to fade into the background after about three minutes :) while still having music. I work better with music. I get twitchy without it.

Strangely enough, I've been listening to the Twilight soundtrack over and over again as I write this script. For some reason, it just helps me get into writing it--I write more listening to the CD and writing in my notebook than I do typing away on my Mom's computer, listening to whatever music happens to catch my interest on YouTube.

What makes it even more strange is that when I first bought the CD, I didn't like it at all. I liked maybe three songs on the entire CD. But I honestly think it has saved my Script Frenzy project.

I tend to listen to just one song as I write, over and over again. I can listen for days to the same song and not get bored with it.

I suppose my habit might be considered odd in that I spend hours setting up a playlist with relevant music, work on it constantly throughout the month and then never listen to it when I'm writing. As soon as I finish I suddenly realise I never actually pressed 'Play' on Winamp.

In the end, I end up listening to my carefully constructed playlist while I'm playing a mundane game of Solitaire to take my mind of the script.

"I often close my eyes and mouth the lyrics to songs, imagining my character is singing those words in a situation that applies to them. I 'make believe' I am them. I'm fairly sure this habit stems from my days as an AMV maker..."

That's exactly what I do! Sometimes I find songs that have nothing to do with a character, but it strikes me as a sort of "crack-vid" song for that character, so it ends up on my playlist. My characters get abused sometimes :)

Case in point: Love Etc. by Pet Shop Boys is currently on heavy rotation for a baseball drama.

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I have the same problem. Made up a playlist for this past month, and I think I listened to it... once. And not all the way through. Might've been about a third of it. That 258 song playlist? Was completely for naught. xP

I've definitely got a similar habit, though it's even more confined than that. I generally chose a song which has the mood I am going for in the scene I'm writing, and play that song on repeat until the scene is done, then I move on to a new song.

I generally compile a soundtrack, per se, for my current project, which is a lot easier than having to go back and forth constantly. I did the same thing for NaNoWriMo.

Though, for the last 60 pages of my script, I was listening to the trailer for the movie Moon in the background. The music is by the same composer as just about everything else I put together for this script, but yeah, had the talking in the background.

I don't know why, but the Chicago soundtrack always gets me writing like a fiend. Particularly All That Jazz and I Move On.