Music for me goes way beyond the pleasure of pure enjoyment. That is big part of it, but music is also one of my most widely producing and reliable tools. I rarely use it “to have something going in the background.” Since I live with Traumatic Brain Injury and other sensory overstimulation issues, silence is very important to me.
The Magic of Silence is a topic unto itself, and it is the counterbalance to all this Sound Magic we’re covering here.
Air…and the lack thereof.
Inhale…exhale.
Yang…yin.
Sound…silence.
I also don’t use music solely as inspiration for dance.
Previously, I shared with you the Elements Playlists that I made specifically for invoking the movements, moods, and sensations of the 5 elements in my Elemental Alchemy System. But when I work with the tools of this System for purposes other than dance, music remains one of the integral components.
Since my Spotify channel is an obsessive monstrosity of playlists that nobody could ever possibly navigate except me, since even I have to sometimes do a freakin’ search for what I want, and since some of you love my playlists, here is a navigation chart you can bookmark for ease in finding the mood you want.
Let’s play!
🌿 EARTH 🌸
⛰️ Music for Grounding: Sometimes I match my music to my mood. Other times, when I would prefer to change the mood I'm in, I use music to change the channel of my emotional landscape like changing channels on the radio.
🎶 My Self-Lurvy Playlist - Made for changing the channel when I’m in The Bad Place
🎶 Shake It Off - music for bioenergetic shaking1
☁️ AIR/SPACE 🌝
💨 MUSIC FOR BREATH:
🌗 MUSIC FOR BALANCE:
🎶 Auri - delicate little moonfae
🔥 FIRE 🔥
❤️🔥 FIRE: DOMAIN OF THE HEART; REALM OF PASSION & EMOTION
🎶 Mushy
🎶 Naughty & Nice - passion with some heat & spice
🎶 Feyre In Love - the love-tunes from my ACOTAR obsession
🎶 Rainbow Girl & the Beast - the love-tunes from Fever
💥 RAWR:
🎶 69 Dude! - for when I just need to bang my head (wut? it just happened to be the 69th playlist i made. yes. it’s ridiculous around here.)
🎶 Deadley Harpool - 55 shades RAWRier - when I bring out my inner Harley Quinn…or gods save you, my inner Deadpool
*The rest of the ferocious music is down in METAL: Martial Movement & Mindsets
💧 WATER 🌊
🎶 The Dance of Sorrow - one of Water’s primary emotions is grief
🎶 Pirates & Sirens & Yar, Ahoy! - self-explanatory
WATER: REALM OF STORY
💦 If you’ve been around here for awhile, you may be aware that I make a lot of Storytelling playlists. There are many reasons. We cover way more of this in the Hyperfixator’s Haven Section of this publication2 — for which you can totally silence notifications at any time.
💦 Sometimes the playlists are created when I’m inspired to dance by other people’s stories. If you’re as obsessed with these novels as I am, you’ll have to visit my actual Spotify channel to find the numerous playlists dedicated to the separate books in a series, to specific characters, or to varied arcs.3
Here’s where each one starts:
🎶 Patrick Rothfuss’ Kingkiller Chronicle (Name of the Wind)
🎶 Karen Marie Moning’s Fever Series
🎶 Sarah J. Maas’ A Court of Thorns & Roses - Book 1.1: Spring Court
💦 Other times, these playlists are the inspirational soundtracks I use while writing my own novels. (And yes, I have started to share my fiction here on Substack.)4
Here’s my mood music:
🎶 The Wreck Room - Coming of age in the 80s
Bonus: 🎶 My 80s Adolescence
**To find the distilled heavy metal tunage from this monstrosity, it’s not down in METAL. It’s up in Fiyaaaaah!!!!
🎶 Gladiator Mode - for the first fantasy novel series I ever wrote
🎶 Persephone & Haides - for the novel series I’m sharing here on Substack
Bonus: 🎶 Dancing with Deities & Demigods
🎶 Blossoms - Memoirs of a Geisha meets Mists of Avalon in Brigadoon
🎶 Triad - for my evil scientist dystopian ‘verse that sometimes likes to pretend it’s an erotica novel. (like they do around here)
Bonus: 🎶 The distilled dance tracks. (because.)
⚒️ METAL 🔑
⚔️ METAL: REALM OF MARTIAL MOVEMENTS & MINDSET:
🎶 I Love Kung Fuuuuuuu - martial moving meditation music
🎶 Kick Arse - music for punching the bag
🎶 Ademre - mercenary martial training beyond the Stormwal
🎶 Xena - Warrior Princess
🎶 Lexa - My rawer (RAWR) martial side
🎶 Feyre: Fight! - a ferocious, fighty Fae named Feyre
🎶 Suckalicious - the art of NO.
*For heavy metal music, please go back up to FIRE 🤘
*Lots more good fighty tunes in WATER: Gladiator Mode
⚜️ In the Dance of Elemental Alchemy, Metal isn’t purely martial movement. It also includes intricate precision-moves like drum solo:
🎶 Wooed by Drums - all pure percussion
🌈 ALCHEMY ✨
🌈 MUSIC THAT INTENTIONALLY SPANS ALL 5 ELEMENTS:
🎶 Liloo - Fifth Element mood
🎶 I Am Neo - my meditational healing & transformation power-playlist
🎶 Fae - AllTheMagic, AllTheElements
🌈 North Forest Lights5 - music, lights & nature dancing in tandem. I use the music of this video series for meditational movement, or for straight up meditation, whether I’m watching the light shows or purely listening.
✨ Alchemical Combinations:
🎶 Fire, Air, Earth: Firelight & Moonbeams
🎶 Similar flavor w/more Air & Water: Snake Charmer
🎶 Earth Meets Fire: High on Craic & Festy Friends
🎶 Fire Meets Metal with some steam: Dangerous Woman
© 2024 Hartebeast
Hyperfixator’s Haven - the deep, deep rabbit hole of some of my most all-consuming artistic obsessions.
When I’m inspired to dance by other people’s stories:
How that first playlist morphed into a ginormous dance project
The Spotify channel where you can find all these playlists if you’re obsessed with any of these stories as I am
Where you can find my fiction on Substack. Be forewarned my stuff is NSFW:
My entire Fantasy Fiction publication which will eventually house all the different fantastical worlds in which I write:
Persephone & Haides tales, if you’re into Greek Mythology.
The general Fiction section of my memoir blog, which also has some of my creative process as a novelist and how I got started writing.
A taste of my novels about coming of age in the 80s.
The memoir adventures themselves, also NSFW:
North Forest Lights - My favorite art exhibit EVER. I wrote about each installation of this magical wonderland in addition to making the videos.