Does having music on help you write?

[SapphireFox]

As it says in the title does having music on in the background help you when you write? Or for that matter when you read? Does it make it more enjoyable or more difficult?

[open_sketchbook]

Music helps me with petty much anything creative I do, helps to keep me focused.

[spaceviking]

I find music to be helpful for both as long as it is not to engrossing.

[Starglider]

I like to play trance music when I am programming. I have a hundred or so hours of it on shuffle. Moreso for the actual coding part, it's kind of distracting when doing design documents.

[Mayabird]

The Mayabird Control Program has moved this thread.
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[open_sketchbook]

Yeah, trace is the ultimate work music for writing (you can't have words while writing, it'll fuck you up) Strangely, the music of 3d modelling for me is rock or metal.

[Agent Sorchus]

Yeah, trace is the ultimate work music for writing (you can't have words while writing, it'll fuck you up) Strangely, the music of 3d modelling for me is rock or metal.

I love having metal (especially songs I wouldn't listen to otherwise) when I write. I even need almost understandable lyrics, it helps me focus on what I am doing, though I usually choose a song that is close to the tone for a piece. I am to good at filtering out music that isn't as full as metal, and I am to good at filtering songs that I have heard a dozen times before.

[The Yosemite Bear]

yes, in fact I even have a little sound track for all of my stories...

[RazorOutlaw]

When I was younger, and I had the opportunity, I would normally play a soundtrack from a game or movie as I would write. If I was writing Godzilla fanfiction, I would pop "The Best of Godzilla 1984-1995" in the CD player. If I was pounding out an ill-conceived sequel to Warcraft 2, I would play the redbook audio from the game. The music would help me visualize a particular scene that I wanted to write and very often I would think of my story as a film (not even a script!). So if I wanted a cool Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah fight scene I would listen to the few tracks I had available from that movie. If I wanted the creepy corridor crawl from Aliens I would either listen to the AvP game soundtrack of the Alien Trilogy CD I owned. The short answer is: yes, I did at one point listen to music.

Once I entered high school, however, I stopped writing as much. Because I stopped writing as much I also stopped listening to soundtracks and I noticed that the care I put into a story increased a bit. Before, I would let a particular track that I really, really liked dictate how much detail I would put in to an action scene (and all I cared about was shit getting "blown up"). Without a soundtrack to distracte me from the point of writing, I could actually concentrate and not let my lust for another action scene get in the way of important shit like characterization.

Nowadays when I write assignments, because I rarely do any other kind of writing, I do my best only if I have no distractions. Trance music would probably help me, as would a beer, but I can't even listen to classical music without my attention starting to focus on particular instruments being played. If I began writing fiction again I could probably chance listening to soundtracks again but I don't think I would necessarily need it, as I once did, to get the creative juices flowing.

[General Zod]

I find music distracting. I generally don't listen to it if I need to concentrate on something because it tends to make it easier for my thoughts to wander.

[Dahak]

I can't concentrate with music, it is distracting and I can't focus my mind properly. I am just no music person...

[Shroom Man 777]

Varied. When I was writing this story where this guy was killing shit in the jungle, I deliberately downloaded this program that'd play ambient jungle sounds in the background.

[Phantasee]

I listen to music before an exam when I'm doing the last quick review, and then the music comes back to me with the answers in the exam. Plus that bit of time between reviewing and actually getting into the exam room and sitting down and waiting for the exam to be handed out and the instructions read out and finally picking up your pencil is a lot easier to deal with if I have music keeping me focused on the material.

[Razor One]

Yes, though every writer will be different in this regard.

I've met some that need absolute silence and others that can't work without a certain amount of background noise.

When I'm going for concepts, general ideas and the like, I prefer stuff that's fairly epic. Two Steps From Hell and the like. When I get to writing, its trance music that I prefer, and when I'm doing characterisation it tends to be certain select tracks picked for tone and content that reflect back on that character.

That said my moods tend to change things up as well. Six months ago I was into heavy metal to do the writing, and six before that it was a mix of rock and symphonic power metal. The latest trend I've seen myself drifting towards has been Vocal trance and given another six months will probably switch to something else again... perhaps retro, I never can tell

Reading is a different matter entirely. I prefer a bit of background noise with no music as it tends to distract. I like to visualise the words on the page and that includes ambient sounds and smells... I've been known to get completely lost in the books I read to the point where I forget to eat or drink. Kind of scary when I think about that.

[LaCroix]

I get ideas by listening to music, tv or whatever, but once I start writing, I fond it distracting, as the scene is developing in my mind, complete with soundtrack and all.

End music with lyrics is double distracting, as I find myself occasionally writing words from the lyrics into my sentences.

So a definite no for me.

[Malagar]

Do I find it enjoyable?
Yes

Does it help me write?
Not really.
Does it distract me?
That depends on what I’m writing, and how much I need to focus on the task, for everyday writing it’s not a problem.

[Twoyboy]

I'm one of those typical males who can only do one thing at a time. If I listen to music, then I listen to music only. If I have music on I end up listening to it and not writing.

[Zixinus]

I am not sure. Sometimes I like music playing but sometimes I just stop it so I can allow my imagination to gain fuller force as I write a story.

[Solauren]

It depends on what I am writing.

if I am attempting to write say, Star wars, toss on the soundtracks.

However, for something like say, Batman, nope, bad idea.

[J]

I like to have some music when I'm writing reports for my work, it helps make time go by at the right speed. If I'm writing in silence it either feels like time is dragging on forever or flying by like nothing, music keeps me grounded so my mind doesn't play weird tricks on me, this I think makes my writing better.

[Whiplash]

I honestly never really thought about it before, but at this moment I'm typing a paper up in the library while listening to my MP3 while its charging. Since I've heard all of these songs over and over again, they're not really distracting me. Genre doesn't matter.

[Edi]

For me, it helps. The type of music I need varies with who and what I'm writing, but I prefer to have something on in the background.

I do sometimes write in silence, but more rarely.

[Ghost Rider]

Silence actually annoys me. It doesn't improve my concentration, just makes me want something to make a noise, even if it's my cat making purring noises.

So yes, music usually helps me write whatever insanity it may be.

[Rye]

I want to say there's a pattern of some sort to it, but there doesn't appear to be. Sometimes I listen to music, other times I can't bear it and work in silence. Sometimes the music I'll listen to is chosen to reflect the subject matter (sad, cyber, lovecraftian, warlike, etc), other times I'll just leave it on random to set a writing tempo of its own accord. Sometimes I'll stop and listen for inspiration, sometimes I stop and shut myself off from all sensory information.

I suspect that it's mostly down to my brain getting bored of one approach and requiring some sort of confounding dissonance to jolt the unconscious mind back into activity once it hits a block and has gotten used to the essay/story/script.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Varied. When I was writing this story where this guy was killing shit in the jungle, I deliberately downloaded this program that'd play ambient jungle sounds in the background.

As opposed to accidently downloading it?

Joke aside, is it free/cheap, is it still available/works on Windows 7 64-bit?

Because "killing shit in the jungle" is at least 20-30% of any good Avatar story, and "doing other stuff in the jungle" is another good 50%.




As to the question, yes, constantly. I almost never can stand not to have background music to my life. I listened to Sister Golden-Hair Surprise for what I later reckoned was three and a half hours today.

The stuff I'm listening to sometimes finds it's way into my stories, too.