It’s always an issue with me when writing whether to have music playing or total silence. I have found that mathematical editing (grammar, spelling, punctuation) works better with silence. However, first drafts or just free writing can be helped by music. What kind of music? Death metal? Yanni? Long histrionic operas? The Bee Gees? No… I have also found it’s better to avoid short pop songs where your mind wants to sing along, or wait for the big hook chorus. Too distracting. Though you can input twenty favorite bands on Pandora and hit “shuffle”, you are guaranteed to get one head-scratching, groin-puncher of a song that will take you out of your writing so you can run to press “skip.”
For me, I’ve found that instrumental music, especially jazz works best. Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk are all great because they have long, extended songs where time expands and contracts. Your mind doesn’t focus on what’s coming up, but the music becomes a sort of beautiful aural wallpaper, spurring you on, without intruding on your thought processes. Other writer friends use classical music for the same reason. Though I would avoid “Flight of the Valkyrie” for bringing Apocalypse, Now into your mind. Or any music featured in the aptly-titled The Nutcracker. I used to own a five-disk CD player which could potentially play 400 minutes of uninterrupted music. But I sold the thing. Damn me! People who are less of a Luddite than I, (most everyone) can program their iPod to play incessantly. I would caution against earbuds though. The music should not dominate or overwhelm the brain. The idea is to go for more of a background flowing river type sound. Even a waterfall, though I’ve yet to hear of a single great writer living in close proximity to Niagara Falls. Bootleg concert instrumentals by the Grateful Dead can also stretch on for hours that seem like years, which is good, but beware their live songs with lyrics. Hearing such hoarse and shockingly ragged harmonies in concert can sabotage your writing, and briefly make you believe conservatives’ claims that nothing worthwhile came out of the 1960s.
I’m always curious to hear what music other people listen to, or tricks they use to spur on long writing jags on a weekend afternoon. Beyond the obvious alcohol, meth, chocolate, and hereditary insanity club sandwich of inspiration that we’ve all heard about from our “friends.”