Yes! Precisely why I can’t/don’t listen to anything while working, save for the occasional time I’m doing something light enough. Even then I tend to not.
I have many more on my list too, but just wanted to give the highlights. Never played with an orchestra, though. I HAD to take piano and music theory as a young child; now I’m very glad I did, of course. Took violin for a while, play the guitar. Nothing even close to orchestra-ready!
But my grandmother and my father both studied piano and music well enough to qualify. Thus the forced piano/music lessons! Plus that entire side of my family is musical. We used to all get together and have ‘hootenanies,’ where we all had to sing and play instruments. Great fun. Add to that, my sister plays acoustic and jazz guitar and was a performer for many years and my brother is a composer with his doctorate in fine arts.
So music is very much a part of my make up. Maybe it’s all this background that makes music so distracting when I’m writing! It’s impossible for me to NOT listen.
One thing I like about Glass is that he rewards thought without requiring it. You can let the music wash around you without thinking or --if you prefer – choose to notice a pattern that’s intriguing. It has a lovely surface simplicity that belies its structure; which is often what one is aiming for in the writing too. So it’s excellent lubricant. I’m listening to the Hours sundtrack today – which is great that way. Now if I could only get rid of the haunting image of Ed Harris casually falling out the window.
I also love Coltrane’s “Favourite Things”, it constantly reminds you to give the audience something they can hang on to and then run with it. Another good rule for writing creatively.
Oddly enough, it’s when it gets hard that I most need the music. If I’m trying make dialogue work too hard - cramming in layer upon layer of meaning while attempting keep the surface bright and easy - I can get confused and anxious to the point where even a good idea will have me backing away nervously from the desk. Listening to music, like taking a walk or a shower, engages the body just enough to free the mind to do it’s thing without turning on itself.
I have a 90 minute train journey a couple of times a week, and the combination of iPod, laptop, and no internet connection does wonders for my productivity. I get a little irritated when people are bit too obvious about reading over my shoulder though…
I have a playlist of stuff that’s pretty upbeat, familiar, and has high-ish production to help block out background noise. Apart from that though, it’s varied. Anything from Arvo Part to the Clash….
I tried a CD of the sea (a sea-dy?)once. It was soothing rather than energising though.
Thea Gilmore, Dar Williams, Nanci Griffith, Eric Taylor, Steve Earle, John Hiatt, Elvis Costello, Clive Gregson, Amy Studt (yes, honestly), Kirsty MacColl, Shane MacGowan, Paul Heaton… there’s more….
I prefer Brownian noise, or “red” noise as it is sometimes called. It doesn’t quite have the same blocking power that pink or white noise has, but it is still quite good, and it has much less of the hissing. When I was sleeping in 20 minute naps every four hours (and nothing else), I put a 20 minute red noise loop on my iPod that had a loud song in the next position of the playlist. Worked fantastic. I couldn’t hear a thing around me, which is good because every four hours you are usually in some place other than your cozy bed.
This is pretty far off topic, but I have a quick itunes question for anyone who might care to answer.
I’m in the library today on my Powerbook, using airport to connect to the net via the library’s server. I opened Itunes a while ago and found that under “Shared” there is
a quite large and good itunes library that is fully accessible and apparently being shared by someone nearby called “Zoe”. No lag excellent sound quality.
a library/link that says "Download OurTunes to download music over network
All this is quite surprising to my apparently luddite self. Guess I’m showing my age.
My question: Is all this fairly benign, normal etc or should I be worrying about security?
It strikes me as weird that someone would be publicly sharing like this off a laptop (I presume). I feel like I’m rifling through someone’s closet. One of her playlists is called “Cutting Vegetables (and valuing myself)” which strikes me as both sweet and incredibly sad.
You have to specifically turn that feature on in iTunes, it does not ship with sharing turned on by default. If you go into iTunes preferences, there is a Sharing tab. You can choose to share everything in your library, or only selected playlists. You can also assign a password if you just want to share with your friends.
So chances are this Zoe meant to be sharing her music.
I guess it’s no big deal, then. I knew that sharing existed in Itunes, I was just surprised to see it work so easily and well in a public setting over airport. No worries.
I am guessing they just re-used their QuickTime streaming server, and put a nice face on it. It probably wasn’t that hard to make, but it does work really nice. We have a lot of Macs where I work, and we all share our tunes. It is nice when you want a little variety. Unfortunately, most of my co-workers have horrible taste in music!
Music always strikes me as a far too easy virtual emotion generator and I mistrust its “reality”. So I’ve never quite understood the sense of identity people get from their music.
Nonetheless, It was nice to peek into someone’s musical soul from accross the room (or wherever she was). Her taste wasn’t horrible (to me at any rate) just a tad slityourwristy- lots of Jeff Buckley.
