Writing to music

Those who have read my blogs before will know that one of the things that interests me about writing is ambience and how authors create it.
I always write to music. Favourite artists for writing? The Irish band Clannad trigger something deep in me, as does some Mike Oldfield stuff, particularly Tubular Bells.
My current novel (proceeding slowly!) is inspired by a line in Mercy Street by Peter Gabriel, a song so haunting that it gets my mind working, in particular in this case the image of an old rowing boat on a small lake.
While researching this, I came across a blog by Indra Sena, who said: “Music just might be the perfect muse.  Music can relax or invigorate you. The lyrics often refer to timeless themes, much the way writing does. Instruments can also express a wide variety of emotional nuance. Anger, sorrow, joy and despair are all common emotions music seeks to express. You can use music to bring you into these states of feeling and infuse your writing with rich emotion.”

John Dean