Songfics and musicals. How would you handle them?

[Glitchipedia]

As an amateur musician and a fan of both stage and film musicals, music plays an important part in my creative process. As such, I often find myself tempted to use the music that inspires me in my work. My question is, how would you handle this? Simply intersperse the lyrics between paragraphs? Have the characters sing the songs? In the latter case, would you mention the background music? Give it a source? Would the song simply be performed, or might you try to create a psychedelic picture to go with it?

On a related note, would you use songs by just one artist/band? Do it Moulin Rouge-style and take songs from many different sources? Or try your hand at writing your own songs?

 

[LightningTopaz]

I do this a lot--sometimes, I'll link to a song that sounds similar to the one being sung/played. I at least describe more or less the instrument being played (or the character's voice), how the audience reacts, and so on

As to where I get my songs, I use everything from songs from the Pokeverse itself, to songs I've created from a fantasy song generator I often use, depending on the story

 

[Instrutilus]

If I were to try my hand at it, I'd get someone I know to be excellent at writing music to do so. I dislike taking music from various other places for my own things.

 

[Caitlin]

Whenever I include a song within writing, I generally have either one of the characters singing the lyrics or the lyrics being sung out on the radio. I can't think of any other way to do it really.

 

[Drakon]

I've only written one songfic and I had the characters singing the lyrics. The lyrics also liked to a Youtube video of the song in question too (if it exists).

 

[Alaskapigeon]

I actually wrote a whole musical on this site for URPG (with my friend) that seemed to go over pretty well. We did a combination of 'lyrics inbetween paragraphs of description' which were sung by characters, as well as describing the actual music.