I often use music to block out distractions as I write, but it has to be the kind of music that won’t itself be a distraction. That means that it can’t have any words. When writing Morning Pages and blog posts, I usually listen to classical music, such as Debussy’s La Mer. When writing for my novel, I favor spacey electronic music. The Interstellar soundtrack is just about perfect.
I tend to stick with what works, so La Mer and Interstellar are what I’ve been listening to for weeks. I don’t mind hearing the same music over and over, as long as it’s good music. The more I listen to it, the less distracting it is.
The only problem is that it tends to get lodged in my brain. Now, no matter what I’m doing, the music is playing in my head. So La Mer and Interstellar have become the soundtrack to my life. I’m always either adrift on the sea or floating into outer space.
The best way to combat that is, of course, to have music playing in all the other spaces of your life. I swear, growing up you’d just drift along from one song to another as you moved through the house and yard. If you’re going to do that, though, you might pick something more grounded. 😉
I like the idea of different music playing in different areas. It sounds like a lot of fun, and also like a lot of noise. But good noise 🙂