Soundtracks for Books & Characters discussion

Hiya,

Not sure why the idea for this group popped up, but it did! Feel free to chatter away. I'm not a tyrant when it comes to moderated discussions.

One book comes to mind clearly - when I was reading Donna Tartt's "A Secret History," I kept listening to Boards of Canada album "Geogaddi." The sort of spooky, echoey ambient music of the album somehow perfectly accented the dark tones of the book. Now, I always hear the album in my head whenever I glance at the book again, and the other way around.

That's so odd, T, 'cause I have a strong music association with The Secret History, too: Piano Magic's album "The Troubled Sleep of Piano Magic."

Sara, that makes total sense. Piano Magic seems to go perfect with the book.

The funny thing is, I always thought either that reading was such extreme fun in itself, or a terrible chore hard to perform without total concentration, that i cannot readily think of any
intense music/text associations. Does reading libretto at the opera count? Maybe only if it is a libretto for a different opera.
In any case, I think this is a wonderful group and I expect great things from it.

So i'm reading Lynda Barry's "What it is" right now, a little each night before i go to sleep. On a recent evening the 3 CDs in the stereo were Plaid's Spokes, Portishead's new one, Third, and Massive Attack's 100th Window. So, a lot of moody, dramatic sounds to accompany my nightly journey into the free-form (yet somehow meticulous?) landscape of Lynda Barry's thoughts and wonderings. It seemed perfect; dark and stormy, but lovely and thought-provoking as well.

I constantly soundtrack books, I've been doing it since I was a kid.
For Dumbledore's funeral in Half Blood Prince, track 17 of the Braveheart soundtrack (Freedom/The Execution/Bannockburn) by James Horner is perfect. It is really sad music that I think perfectly captures the characters feelings over the loss of Dumbledore.

Roisu, welcome to the group, and thanks :)

I always think that violins, horns, good drums and kind of an epic sounds work for Harry Potter! Magical, mystical, Highlandy stuff :)

Not sure if this makes any sense, but it occurred to me last night while trying to fall asleep that if there were a theme song for the Weetzie Bat stories, it would be "The Breaking Hands" by Gun Club. For that matter, anything by Gun Club in general.

Hi all, although it comes some 10 years after this group was formed, I want to let people know that Booktrack.com has taken the idea of synchronising music, effects and ambient tracks to text and made it a worldwide phenomenon. My personal connection to this is the love of music and writing and wish to prompt more discussion on the merits of the combination. One example of my own making and still in development can be found at outinvention.wordpress.com/2017/09/06... - this will give you an idea of what I am talking about.