# Using music in stories



## Molotov (Nov 26, 2008)

Hey there. You're probably wondering what I meant from the title you saw when you clicked to read this. I'll tell you: you ever wondered about how you could bring stories that, extra spice? The spice I'm referring to is the cinematic feeling; ahem, 'reading a movie' to put in a simpler way. Movies always have the cast, the setting, the plot and then there's the music that's set whenever a certain event unfolds, increasing the tension/adrenaline of the characters within the story.

There's always pulling up your music library, picking a random song and listening to that while you're reading, if you prefer to do that instead. What I'm saying is has anyone ever thought about placing a said song in one of their stories, to add more emphasis of the event occuring currently? I know it seems unnecessary to a great number amateur/professional writers, it is an extra to begin with. Just with me, I've always had this idea whenever I would write my short stories, to give them that cinematic feeling; put people on the egde of their seats or put them in a state of leisure, however the event is planned.

What do you think about this? Is it unnecessary? Would it help a little? I would like to hear what some, or most, of you think about this idea.


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## FurryWurry (Nov 26, 2008)

Don't forget that unless you wrote or commissioned it yourself, actually including music in your story could be a copyright violation. LInks to publicly available downloadable music files might be more appropriate.

That said, it does sound like something to consider.


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## Hydramon (Nov 26, 2008)

Sanada does this well in one chapter of his story. If you're going to have a song in the story, make it somehow relative to the characters and the plot. For example, Sanada used Shakira's "Whenever, Wherever", as it is relevant to the main couple (Shaun and Roland)'s relationship.


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## Jax (Nov 26, 2008)

Oh yes! I use music heavily when I write. As FW said, you do not have the luxury of actually putting the music in the book (copyright) but it would be interesting if you could link or even have suggested play list. It is out of the box thinking. 
Have you ever taken your character out of their environment and visualized them performing music you feel fits? I love doing that and it actually helps me visualize the facial moves, expressions, and mannerisms of the character. As I explain this..it sounds really odd But, works for me.
Now the thought...what does not work in print would work in video. I wonder how they get away with that in you tube. Some of the music over video home projects are really great. Maybe they do not take copyright heat because they actually promote the music and the video they snatched from?


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## TakeWalker (Nov 26, 2008)

What are you talking about exactly, "Placing the song in the story"? Embedding the music file in the text file so it plays while the reader reads? Using the song lyrics?

Until you respond, I'll just babble for a bit. :V I've seen music utilized many ways in writing before, and almost every time, I've not liked it. The most common version that peeves me is simply mentioning music; normally, the character listens only to the music that the author listens to, whether it fits their characterization or not. This is a highly amateurish mistake that could be avoided simply by removing the music altogether. There are other ways of giving us insight into a character; having your thuggish hitman listen to Linkin Park and whatever screamo band is popular at the moment doesn't help.

Another method is "songfic", where a story is plotted to follow the lyrics of a song, which are interspersed in the text of the story itself. I've seen at least one that was good, but I think it would have been a good story without the lyrics. The author could have simply said something like, "This story was heavily inspired by band name's song 'XYZ'," and then provided a YouTube link so that we, the reader, could listen to the song after reading the story and reflect on how the song supports the story.

A third method is to provide a 'soundtrack' for a piece. This is usually accomplished by providing the songs in some fashion, and then giving prompts for when to listen to each song. Again, this could be avoided by simply providing a list of songs to listen to, either along with the story or afterward. The problem I find with this approach is that either A) I don't think the songs fit, or B) I read much faster than the author, and so the timing is thrown way off for me, and the songs end up not fitting at all.

In general, I would suggest that usage of music be limited to inspiration, as I mentioned in the examples above. Give the reader a link so they can better understand the inspiration, but otherwise, just write a story. Of course, my own experience is that I've never really seen music well mingled with fiction; I'm sure it's possible to do. But until I see a good example of it, I'll stick to the naysaying side.


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## M. LeRenard (Nov 27, 2008)

I think I'm with Takewalker on this one.  Unless it really works, even just seeing the lyrics of a song a character in the work is singing written on the page kind of annoys me, and I usually skip over it.  If there was, like, a link in the work to a song... I'd think that would just detract from the story itself, especially if it was an immersive story to begin with.  Like you're watching a movie, and then during the height of the biggest action scene you hit pause and listen to a track on your iPod, you know?
Good fiction works because it draws you in.  I would think it would be incredibly hard to pull off a music/fiction combination effectively.

Not that it couldn't be done.  It's an interesting idea, after all.  Maybe you could be the pioneer, Molotov.


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## Molotov (Nov 27, 2008)

TakeWalker, well, I wouldn't say embedding an actual file into the story, that would be a little harder to do wouldn't it? This, coming form a guy who still doesn't know the proper coding, heh heh. But for certain stories that I write, I usually provide youtube links and place them in the comment box. I do my best to not reveal what the song is, I just have a link that says: 

"Click *here/this* before/after reading at (this) part."

The song would either start as soon as you begin reading, or when I say to play it at a specific part. It's in the comment box, so I would recommend looking at it first before reading, otherwise it would be a waste of the inspiration I put there. As for the music, heh heh, I'm careful to pick the right music instead of selecting something that will annoy the hell out of reader, like you said when you mentioned Linkin Park and/or a screamo band. Before I pick an appropriate song, I take a good look at their lyrics to see if they would match with the story; if it doesn't, then I pick another one and keep going through songs before I select one.

For example, take this story of mine. I'll admit, it may not be the best example, but this is what I spoke of in my first post. The song is on the bottom of the comment box, if you are wondering where it is if any of you decide to take a gander at it. If you see *(this)* at the bottom of the box, that's the link there.

I'm not the type of writer that would have their characters sing out the lyrics of a song, in a story; that's best done through flash, in my honest opinion. If there is anything else to be said, please do. Then this topic will be brought to a close or whatever should happen with it.


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## ScottyDM (Nov 28, 2008)

Storytelling is as old as language (which I feel has been around at least 70,000 years). So while storytelling has remained constant, how we deliver the storytelling experience has changed and is on the cusp of changing rapidly and radically in the near future.

One thing I've considered is reading my stories, adding music and a few other incidentals to the recording, and then publishing my stories to a site like YouTube. There are collections of free royalty-free music online. So there's no need to set yourself up for a lawsuit if you're not a composer/musician.

How to monetize that? You could upload a few sample chapters then sell the whole as a single chunk. With decent stories, decent writing, and decent recordings, hitting 100,000 YouTube subscribers shouldn't be impossible. If one is to get into manufacturing publishables at home, it's far cheaper to setup a CD/DVD production line than it is a print-on-demand production line (under $5,000 versus over $100,000). While books will be around for a long time to come, audio books have the portability of e-books with a whole lot less hassle. Plus they are 21st century! That is the "reader" can enjoy your stories without having to park his tail in one spot for hours at a time.

My 2c.

Scotty


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## Jax (Nov 29, 2008)

My characters have used music within the story, They are a bit tribal and use music as a bridge. I have my own idea of what music they would use in every scene, but keep that to myself. I reluctantly let the reader use their own idea of what would fit. If I had the skill...which I do not...I would love to do music vids using my characters. I know exactly what would occur, and that would probably work. Within the story I would have to submit to their judgment. Like it or not people see your characters differently than you, no matter how detailed your work.
The video idea is still fun and possible though.
I have seen the e-book. Set with "paper" screen and all it is quite different than pulling up a story on the net. Still like paper though...just the feel of it is better, but that is just me.


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## ScottyDM (Nov 29, 2008)

My interpretation of what Molotov wants to do is to sync music recordings to the reading of a story. So the reader gets to a particular part and a certain song starts up. At the moment there doesn't exist an easy way to do that, but that doesn't mean it can't be done.

Still, the problem remains that when the reader has a particular page of text up on their screen (either via HTML through a web browser, or one of the e-book formats through a book viewer) the machine doesn't know exactly where on the page the reader is. Eye tracking technology exists, but it's not a common peripheral. So there's the problem of when to queue the music. The other problem is when to let the music end, or how to keep it looping while the reader reads. People read at different speeds.

All of that goes away when you get a voice actor to read and deliver an audio recording rather than rich text, HTML, or e-book files. Like I said, it's something I want to try, and I even dug out my fancy recorder and audio gear, but I haven't got around to it yet.

With an audio book there are two basic approaches: A straight reading of the text by a single voice actor and possibly music at the transitions; or a dramatization with multiple actors, sound effects, music, etc.

Several years ago when Apple announced their next evolution in the iPod (they added video) I remember Jobs giving the presentation. He talked about how they came up with the next thing the little box could tackle beyond audio files. I felt they missed the mark, or at least they ignored an even bigger possibility--e-book to audio. That is, an aural e-book reader.

E-books are a blend of the advantages and disadvantages of both paper and ink and an electronic device. You're both stuck with needing a source of electrical power, and you still have to set there and stare at the thing. Someone needs to invent an e-book to audio reader. It could be the size of an iPod, even an iPod Nano, rather than a typical bulky e-book reader. Plus it doesn't have to have a screen, so gone is the expense of a screen meaning it could be the cost of an iPod Nano. The only trick is the text to speech conversion, which isn't all that hard.

It would be possible to extend at least one of the e-book formats to include the hooks and handles to be able to insert synchronized audio.

Scotty


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## Jax (Nov 29, 2008)

Quite right! Under duress I've been working on narration for my project. The original intent was simply part of the edit process...errors show up better when read aloud. But I used to narrate for Interactive Video Disk training (boring I must say) and several friends want me to accomplish this with Chronicles of Jax. As you suggested, that would give you the control over timing...but who can afford the music unless it is all yours. 
The dramatization can work very well if the characters are limited enough so you don't have to hire a cast of thousands 
But the technology could sneak up on us in no time. I think Molotov's concept is great.


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## Hyenaworks (Nov 29, 2008)

Readers will come up with their own music in their heads when they read.  It's appropriate though if the music has something to do with the story.


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## Molotov (Nov 30, 2008)

Hyenaworks said:


> Readers will come up with their own music in their heads when they read.  It's appropriate though if the music has something to do with the story.



I understand this fully, but if they come up with a song that doesn't fit with the story, then I get paranoid of it; mainly, I wouldn't even know who is reading a story of mine (or of another) and what song they are listening to when there is a suggested song already on there in the first place. I just get paranoid over that, like if a certain few ruin the mood of the story based on a song they chose to listen to while reading. Well, it's a story and no more; I only added the music for emphasis in the mood(s) set within.

There's also the reader's speed that I failed to mention, what with my one-track mind and whatnot. The song will keep on playing if the story is finished, but there's always the option to turning it off afterwards, unless they would like to keep listening to it; depends on their taste in music really.

Like I said, I would think that an animation would benefit fully from this, seeing as how the majority of visual arts do. Since I do not have the necessary skills to do so, I write and places links to videos from wherever, mainly Youtube. You know, there are good ideas out there for Writers here to get noticed; just have to know who to listen to, and read from their works, in order to get the right inspiration, otherwise you're going to end up with something you'll regret later on. How I think about the matter.


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## ScottyDM (Nov 30, 2008)

Jax said:


> but who can afford the music unless it is all yours.


Try Googling: *"royalty free music" "free download"* (use the two sets of quotes). That means you don't have to pay for it to begin with, and you can legally use it without paying a per use fee. But watch the licenses, some is restricted to educational use only, or the less restrictive non-commercial use only. Another phrase to replace "royalty free music" would be: *"creative commons" music "free download"*.
Scotty


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## Shouden (Dec 1, 2008)

Yeah, I've done the soundtrack thing, but it's usually just a collection of songs that I think of when I'm writing/reading the story. I have had my characters listening to music in the past, but I've gotten into the habit of not mentioning particular songs or artists. If I do, it's to add to the character's personality. (yay! Character development tools). But, one could easily do an Podcast of their story or something. This simply requires an audio recording program (for you Mac users, GarageBand works great for this.) and a Mic (again, Mac users, you have a built in mic. Although, it's not the greatest for things like this, as it's very sensitive to background noise.)  After recording your narrative it wouldn't be too hard to simply add the desire music tracks in the background. and, I do believe copyrights only apply to items you're earning money off of, and since you could easily have a free podcast, you would get around that little thing. Anyways, good topic!


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## ScottyDM (Dec 1, 2008)

Shouden said:


> I do believe copyrights only apply to items you're earning money off of, and since you could easily have a free podcast, you would get around that little thing. Anyways, good topic!


I'm not a lawyer, but I'm about 99% sure this isn't true. While there are criminal penalties built into U.S. copyright law, the vast majority of enforcement effort is done under civil law: a lawsuit.

It gets complicated. Congress writes the laws, the copyright office interprets the laws and rewrites them into its code (published in "circulars"), and then the civil courts interpret both and make a determination. After awhile you get a body of determinations called case law and those get thrown into the mix when the court makes a determination. So if the defendant is a nonprofit corporation and they used 10% of some copyrighted work to create their materials, will the plaintiff (the copyright holder) prevail and win the lawsuit? Well, that depends in part on both sides digging up past relevant case law. Note there are no specific "okay" percentages listed in the code.

The relevant circular you want is Circular 92. The whole thing is sort of interesting, but pay particular attention to chapter 1. Also take a quick peek at paragraph 107 on page 19.

Scotty


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## Jax (Dec 2, 2008)

Scotty...are you sure you are not a lawyer I sense someone who knows far more than me...but that could be almost anyone. Scotty is right...lost of suits over music just downloaded let alone distributed. 
How do they get around all that on you tube though?


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## dietrc70 (Dec 3, 2008)

Molotov said:


> TakeWalker, well, I wouldn't say embedding an actual file into the story, that would be a little harder to do wouldn't it? This, coming form a guy who still doesn't know the proper coding, heh heh. But for certain stories that I write, I usually provide youtube links and place them in the comment box. I do my best to not reveal what the song is, I just have a link that says:
> 
> "Click *here/this* before/after reading at (this) part."
> 
> ...



Now this is really interesting!

I often listen to music when I write.  It is usually video game (ie.  Final Fantasy) or movie music that doesn't require concentration to listen to (like Bach would).

I have often wished that I could let the reader hear the songs that I felt perfectly fit with certain particularly cinematic scenes.  (What I really would like is a high-budget hand-drawn anime movie with an original soundtrack by, say, Philip Glass.)

Unfortunately there's a copyright problem unless you write and perform the music yourself.

FYI, Adobe Acrobat lets you insert embedded multimedia links in a document, so you actually can have recordings inside the document that will play when certain chapters are selected.


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## Shouden (Dec 3, 2008)

Jax said:


> Scotty...are you sure you are not a lawyer I sense someone who knows far more than me...but that could be almost anyone. Scotty is right...lost of suits over music just downloaded let alone distributed.
> How do they get around all that on you tube though?



yeah, good point, although like 90% of the people who downloaded the music for free also bought the albums they wanted. It's like listening to the music to see if you like it before you buy it.

And it also should be noted, that the bands who whined about it were either loosing money or just like to whine about EVERYTHING.

but enough about stupidity and whining. Like I said, I usually just keep the soundtracks to myself. Helps the ideas flow sometimes.


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## Hyenaworks (Dec 3, 2008)

Molotov said:


> I understand this fully, but if they come up with a song that doesn't fit with the story, then I get paranoid of it; mainly, I wouldn't even know who is reading a story of mine (or of another) and what song they are listening to when there is a suggested song already on there in the first place. I just get paranoid over that, like if a certain few ruin the mood of the story based on a song they chose to listen to while reading. Well, it's a story and no more; I only added the music for emphasis in the mood(s) set within.
> 
> There's also the reader's speed that I failed to mention, what with my one-track mind and whatnot. The song will keep on playing if the story is finished, but there's always the option to turning it off afterwards, unless they would like to keep listening to it; depends on their taste in music really.
> 
> Like I said, I would think that an animation would benefit fully from this, seeing as how the majority of visual arts do. Since I do not have the necessary skills to do so, I write and places links to videos from wherever, mainly Youtube. You know, there are good ideas out there for Writers here to get noticed; just have to know who to listen to, and read from their works, in order to get the right inspiration, otherwise you're going to end up with something you'll regret later on. How I think about the matter.



Well, depending on what literary theory you agree with, they say that once you've produced the work and released it to your readers, it's much like letting go of a child.  You have to let it go and develop on its own and let others interpret what it is or come up with their own ideas with your imagery.

I found, particularly in anthro stories, that getting hung up on such details like themes in your mind while creating, or in my case species, is much easier when you lay out what you see in your head and let your reader attach their own labels and visuals... or auditory..to the text.


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## ScottyDM (Dec 3, 2008)

Jax said:


> How do they get around all that on you tube though?


People just do stuff and when they get caught YouTube deletes their vids and sometimes deletes their account. Then the little pirate will setup a new account and do it again.

Six months ago I watched the whole of the 2005 movie _Pride and Prejudice_, with Keira Knightley as Elizabeth, on YouTube. That and the 1995 version, with Jennifer Ehle, are my favorites by a long shot. Well, the movie is gone now, a victim of getting caught. I'd love to get the 2005 movie on Blu-Ray, but Universal has distribution and they've been staunch HD DVD supporters and are slow to release anything to Blu-Ray.




dietrc70 said:


> Unfortunately there's a copyright problem unless you write and perform the music yourself.


There are royalty free music collections available. Most of them you need to buy, but there are a few _free_ royalty free music collections on the net. Typically an amateur musician with a synthesizer will either put something together out of older compositions (copyright expired) or they will compose their own. Typical payment is giving credit on your project.

Google is your friend.  




Shouden said:


> And it also should be noted, that the bands who whined about it were either loosing money or just like to whine about EVERYTHING.


There's a really great story about Beatallica. In brief, scroll down to the "legal problems" section. In my mind, Beatallica was clearly a parody band, but Sony has the bucks and often a plaintiff can steamroll a defendant given enough money and lawyers, even when in the wrong. Metallica came to their rescue peace has been restored. It seems Metallica only gets pissy when it's their _original_ recordings or songs that are being pirated. They understand the concept of parody and are cool with it.

This is an example of "fair use" under U.S. copyright law, in action.




Molotov said:


> I understand this fully, but if they come up with a song that doesn't fit with the story, then I get paranoid of it; mainly, I wouldn't even know who is reading a story of mine (or of another) and what song they are listening to when there is a suggested song already on there in the first place. I just get paranoid over that, like if a certain few ruin the mood of the story based on a song they chose to listen to while reading. Well, it's a story and no more; I only added the music for emphasis in the mood(s) set within.


If you really feel you need full control of the story-consumer's experience, you shouldn't be a author, but a movie producer. Serious dude!

I've seen some really fantastic original short movies done by amateurs. Sometimes all it takes is two actors, one set, a handful of props, and some stock music and sound effects. It's the story that makes or breaks a movie.


Scotty


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## Jax (Dec 3, 2008)

I suppose we could add that if the writing is good...your reader will probably never be too far off with music they would match with your writing. Yes, I want them to see my characters as I do, feel the same as I do, but it is up to me to write with enough depth to fill in my character so they see at least roughly what I see. I suspect though, instead of us being paranoid...we would be surprised at what the readers match to our words. We would probably not be disappointed. 
I do love the ideas that float in this thread!


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## Shouden (Dec 3, 2008)

ScottyDM said:


> Sony has the bucks and often a plaintiff can steamroll a defendant given enough money and lawyers, even when in the wrong.



Not all the times. Sony has lost at least 2 lawsuits that I know of. One of them cost them $81 million dollars. Luckily, they were able to patch things up with Immerson and released the Dualshock 3 controller. I forget what the other lawsuit that they lost was about.


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## Year_of_the_Fox (Dec 4, 2008)

the only music I've ever really tied in with a piece of fanfiction... I've done it twice in a Cowboy Bebop fanfic referencing American Money (the Big Shot! theme) and... Mushroom Samba (from the episode of the same name)

otherwise, most of the time I use music to put my mind in the right setting to write a certain scene. for fanfics, I try to find music from the series in which I'm writing the fanfic of. would it place teh setting? possibly


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## ScottyDM (Dec 14, 2008)

Shouden said:


> Not all the times. Sony has lost at least 2 lawsuits that I know of. One of them cost them $81 million dollars. Luckily, they were able to patch things up with Immerson and released the Dualshock 3 controller. I forget what the other lawsuit that they lost was about.


Hmmm, sounds like a patent suit. But the real difference is in the size of the defendant. In the case I cited Beatallica is four guys who felt they couldn't charge for tickets or sell music as a potential legal defense against charges of copyright infringement, so they had no real money. If Metallica hadn't come to their rescue, and even offered the use of their lawyer, Betallica would have been sunk. Part of the negotiated settlement was that Sony signed Betallica as a recording act.


I've found music to be an inspiration, and a couple of my stories have been directly inspired by a particular song. I've also found songs that I though would be perfect for a particular scene. In one case I've imagined the last scene in my series where the hero walks away from the heroine. He's outgrown her and it's over, but he still loves her. Greg Lake's "It Hurts" seemed so appropriate.

I found that MP3 inside a virtual world (where it's safe from Google and the MPAA search spider) and fell in love with it. I wanted to share this song, but not post my copy somewhere on line. YouTube has Greg Lake, but not that song. Then I thought maybe a 30 second sample on Amazon might be okay. Problem is Amazon has very few of Lake's songs available as a sample or in their MP3 store. In fact the CDs the song is found on are either out of print or an expensive import (try $30, $37, and even $50). The song's on Apple iTunes either. I finally found not just this one song, but the whole album on a site called Music Pirates (how appropriate). See where it says "download code"? Cut and paste that into a fresh tab on your web browser. Or if that's too much like work, clicky (99.0 MB). Anyway, RapidShare is one of those annoying services who you need to pay to not be so annoying. But even the free is okay if you have patience. It's a rar file so you'll need a rar decompressor. :roll: Tracks are coded at 320 kbps.

Seemed appropriate for a thread that includes a discussion about piracy and copyright violation. Actually, I think Music Pirates and RapidShare would get in a whole lot more trouble than the down-loader.

Scotty


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