# Perfect pairing of reading and listening



## The nose (Jan 14, 2014)

What would it be the perfect Book - composition pairing?
I'm reading Asimov's Foundation Cycle and I was asking to myself what would be a good "soundtrack" to that. I think I'll go whit something modernish but not too distracting. 
And what would be a good music to listen to others readings?


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## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

J.R.R. Tolkien & Howard Shore - _The Lord of the Rings _is about as perfect as it gets

And pastoral music is good for peaceful books.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

Fabulin said:


> J.R.R. Tolkien & Howard Shore - _The Lord of the Rings _is about as perfect as it gets
> 
> And pastoral music is good for peaceful books.


Of course, not _all_ of it is pastoral, unless you are making selections. (For me, Shore's music may be a little too diverting for good reading.)


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## The nose (Jan 14, 2014)

Fabulin said:


> J.R.R. Tolkien & Howard Shore - _The Lord of the Rings _is about as perfect as it gets
> 
> And pastoral music is good for peaceful books.


hahha yes well of course... Shore's LOTR works very well for long car trip


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## The nose (Jan 14, 2014)

JAS said:


> Of course, not _all_ of it is pastoral, unless you are making selections. (For me, Shore's music may be a little too diverting for good reading.)


I normally just have trouble with vocal music when I read (especially if the music and the book are in the same language)


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

Il nome della rosa and Francesco Landini


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## annaw (May 4, 2019)

Fabulin said:


> J.R.R. Tolkien & Howard Shore - _The Lord of the Rings _is about as perfect as it gets
> 
> And pastoral music is good for peaceful books.


Tolkien and Wagner's _Ring_ sound like a rather appropriate combination .

I couldn't understand/enjoy some of the 20th century composers until I started reading Jean-Paul Sartre's "The Age of Reason".


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

annaw said:


> Tolkien and Wagner's _Ring_ sound like a rather appropriate combination .


Here's another great combination:
Rowling and Chopin & Shostakovich


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

I can't read and listen to music simultaneously. It's one or the other. To really listen uses a lot of brain power, but then so does reading and the music becomes background noise.

The most obvious pairing though is the Bible. There is so much music based on it and it really can enlighten. Read Genesis then Haydn's Creation. Read some New Testament and then Liszt's Christus or Handel's Messiah. Listen to Franz Schmidt's The Book With Seven Seals after reading Revelation. Endless possibilities. You don't even have to be a believer - there's some great music.

Every few years I pull out all of the books in the Asimov Foundation series. It's hard to nail down a soundtrack; Star Wars is pretty obvious for parts, but then some electronic sounds from Subotnick for others. That weird stuff for Forbidden Planet would work.


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## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

Reading and listening take up about 95% of my free time, but I cannot do both at the same time. Can. not. do. it. Multitasking is a huge weakness for me. I can barely even browse TC or do house chores while I'm listening, because if I miss something I feel like I have to go back and find out what it was. That being said, the one that jumps out to me immediately is reading Eliot's _The Waste Land_ to Berio's _Sinfonia_.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

I have always been able to absorb music while reading, and find it almost impossible not to be reading something. As I've said, I would rather read the back of a cereal box than watch a mediocre or bad (or merely bland) television program or movie.

For me, the best combo is reading a book I want to be reading, while listening to a piece of music I want to be listening to. (And even better, with a bowl of M&Ms on the side table.)

My first recollection of this is playing my first personally owned recording (an early Capitol LP of Swan Lake excerpts) incessantly while reading the entire series of Dr. Doolittle books in Fourth Grade. I still associate Copland's El Salon Mexico with the Martian moon Phobos, because it was what I was listening to while reading a youth SF novel a few years later.


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