Tag Archives: music

I am writing

I am writing-four

Good music might move you; inspire, encourage and motivate. Just look at the Chariots of Fire music. Vangelis and Conquest of Paradise is an epic piece of work. Music has meaning and can shape, create so many facets of the human condition.

Most, but not all, of my books have a playlist. Songs that are inspiring, might be a theme tune for a character or evoke something that needs to be titrated into a story. I listen a range of music, and sometimes it hits on something that stirs writing.

Even the Devan Coultrie movie had what felt like an epic soundtrack, Was really useful actually to help the film. Devan has a theme tune, but my favourite is most definitely the sounds in the Gunmaker’s Arms scenes. I only have to hear the theme tune and I am thrown back to memories of filming, of standing next to the real Devan Coultrie. I did have the writing playlist, but in a fit of pique, sadly it was deleted. I tried to recreate it, even had a paper version somewhere.

I think we all feel good music when we watch a show or a film. Just think of the theme tunes that have become iconic over the years. To think that two chords, make us think of a dangerous fish. You know the one! Or the guitar riff for a Spy on Her Majesty’s service.

The image above is an anthology, a work in progress that has been paused for some time. You’ll note that there’s a fair bit of Bollywood on there. There were a lot of movies in my childhood that left deep impressions and have found themselves somehow woven into my stories.

That said, The Beyond Kangana Series has Hallelujah and The Carol of the Bells in it. As does Padmi’s Christmas Carol, I think. One day, perhaps I should pop the songs onto the online song provider outlet thing for readers to enjoy.

Adventures, Books, writing

Writing and the music

No idea who the Kronos Quartet are, but they sound amazing.

Thing is, they’ve always been a part of my upbring. Especially when it comes to the old-school Bollywood Movies that my family enjoyed as I was growing up.

Whilst adventuring and writing, some of these songs were ear worms. Figured I could listen to them, sate The Muse and see what I ended up writing. Dum Maro Dum, is an iconic song. To me, it is more rock and roll, than it is Bollywood. To be fair, I’ve also been listening to Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours as well. The two do overlap a great deal and the Kronos Quartet certainly feel very rock and roll.

Not sure if I’ve shared before. But many of the books are written with their own play lists. I had a Devan one, but in a pique, having written Peace Betrayed, I pressed delete. I know, daft idea, but I’d thought I’d finished with him at that point. Nothing could have been further from the truth.

Anyway, yes, most books have their own playlist. Gorbind, Koby have one. There’s a Hades one, I think, as well as one for Chandni. I don’t always write with music on. I do like to work in silence. Yet there are instances where it’s okay to have a gentle soundtrack playing to help capture the mood, tone or ambience of the writing.

Writing the most recent Koby book, I had Mozart, with Lacrimosa as well as Zadok The Priest. Big, bold pieces of music that helped it all coalesce. With Chandni Rises and Chandni Chirag, there were four different versions of Carol of the bells.

As to whether anyone can hear these when they read, well, who knows?