Thoughts & Things

Five Types of Music to Play While Writing

Like many others here at WDC, I find that I don't do my best writing in silence, but I do my best writing without distraction. The trick is to find music that you enjoy, that accompanies your work smoothly, but doesn't distract you from the words on your screen or page. While coming up with a soundtrack to what you're writing can be a lot of fun, and quite helpful, it's incredibly useful to have a set of fallback music to toss on regardless of what it is that you're writing. I find the same music tends to work well for reading as well, as it can help focus my mind without distracting me.

Post-Rock
Because most post-rock tends to be instrumental, there are no lyrics to distract from what you're writing. Post-rock can range from soft and sad to explosive and angry, so I definitely like to find different songs and bands to work for different scenes. I like to find a few post-rock albums I'm fond of, create a playlist of albums, and just hear several albums back to back while I'm writing. I don't even have to think about it, I just have to bob my head along while I'm writing.

Jazz
There is jazz for every mood and occasion. I find that for writing, you either need to find something specific to what you're writing, or find a set of albums or songs that won't distract you. I find that a lot of the jazz classics work really well for this, although certain smooth jazz is excellent to write to. That said, do not write to free jazz. I repeat, do NOT write to free jazz. I like free jazz, but it is incredibly distracting. Jazz works best when you know which subgenre is least likely to distract you.

Instrumental Hip-Hop
There are few things that make better background music than a really good, chill hip-hop beat. When you find some really excellent instrumental stuff, you've really hit the jackpot. There are no clever or emotional lyrics to distract you from what you need to write, just a beat to write with. Spotify has some excellent playlists to write to in this vein, my personal favourite being Mellow Beats. It has a few tracks with lyrics, but it's mostly 4+ hours of chill beats to write to.

Classical
Classical can describe so many subsets of things that all happen to work exceptionally well as writing music. Whether your preference is the well known stuff like Beethoven or Mozart, medieval choir music, or contemporary classic piano, you can probably find something that suits your preferences for writing. There are endless compilations and playlists based on those preferences, so it's just a matter of finding out what works best for you. I personally enjoy it all, but I do have a preference for anything piano or clarinet based.

Foreign Language
While lyrics in music can be incredibly distracting for some of us (I know I'm prone to sing along to my favourites rather than writing), lyrics become significantly less distracting when you don't understand a word of what's being said. Find a language you don't know singing a genre you know you enjoy, and you've found your own personal sweet spot. I personally tend to go for more music in French or Lithuanian, but anything other than English works for me. Hope onto youtube or spotify, and you can easily find a foreign language music playlist that works for you.

(I have committed to blogging daily with Give It 100. This is Day Thirty-Six. Five days of leave taken total.)