A lot of writers write to music, and many develop soundtracks that help center them in their work and help them get into a deep flow state. I've been guilty of that myself.
I don't know if many writers do what I do, though. I think I read about it on another writer's blog recently, so I know I'm not alone. I believe she used music to get unstuck. I like to use it to enrich my stories.
I learned to play violin in third grade, and continued until my first year in college. My father was an exquisite musician. As a family, we would sing and play together. So I guess it's no wonder that when a story begins to feel flat, I turn to music.
Good music has a storyline. I don't usually visualize characters or situations, but lots of people do. Mostly I just let the sound suggest moods and sensations, unless it has lyrics. Then I definitely hear a story there, with characters and a setting and everything. Anyway, when I'm in a scene and it feels like tab A is going into slot B, I stop and listen to something that connects to the music, and listen for the hidden layers. The music reveals things that enrich the story, whether it's involvement of a secondary character that's thus-far been standing by, motionless and mute, or a rainstorm intruding into what had otherwise been neutral, non-descript environment. Sometimes listening to music even inspires a plot twist. I love that.
Another thing I sometimes do is I put myself in a scene I've been working on, close my eyes, and imagine that the scene is a movie with the music as the soundtrack. That can really help develop micro-changes on the paragraph level that make the story more like a whitewater rafting trip than a cruise down a quiet river.
Music isn't the only thing that can help bring a story to life. It's a favorite of mine because we're old partners, music and I, but paintings, architecture, a hike, and people watching at a cafe have all worked to get me out 'office brain' and into a truly creative mode where I'm utilizing all my senses and all my brain power to sculpt something unique, special, and emotionally evocative.
Anyway, without music, I think a lot of my stories would be much more predictable and would be missing a lot of the details that bring them to life. Without exposure to other art forms and other writing, yes, I might create something amazing that's entirely my own, unpolluted by the tendency to imitate and borrow ….
But it's more likely that my writing would be the equivalent of a single-celled organism, while the mighty creatures formed of billions of tiny cells soar above me. Together, shaped by our experiences with each other and by the wide world, we create art.
Together, we are art.