Of Beats and Boredom

Every so often we get a revelation about ourselves and the special way our brain works. It can be like finding out where that elusive piece to the puzzle actually goes. You know the one with a speck of green plant overlaying stonework from somewhere in front of a 15^th century Irish castle. You didn’t want to do the damn puzzle anyway but thought it would be therapeutic because it forced you to put down your phone and turn of the tv. After flipping the jagged piece upside down, clockwise and counterclockwise hoping for a connection to the larger picture you finally figured it out. The rest of the puzzle came together much easier once the tricky piece found a home. For me the ‘piece’ was music. Music helps me write or at least get into the writing mood. When it is time to write, it is time for headphones. I don’t understand how music plays into writing but for me it does.

I enjoy the slow tempo, beat inspired, non-vocal electronica. It’s a little jazzy but with a consistent beat over the course of the track and has a looping element that feeds and inspires the rest of the song, something the song comes back to like a chorus but without vocals. Electronica works best for this type of sampling because the artist can use a sound clip like the famous ‘I have dream’ speech or a computer voice that repeats a common phrase and splice it into the track while slowing down or speeding up the background sounds.  I don’t know if the type of music matters but I can imagine anything too busy or chaotic would cause me to stop writing, stop thinking altogether. I love organization and order. Why would I not like my music to express order and grace, rhythm and consistency? Is there something about the structure of a piece of music that inspires orderly thought?

Music as a ‘help aid’ may be nothing more than an established pattern of behavior that tells the creative portion of my brain to start releasing…uh…well… creative stuff. The music in this case is nothing more than a placebo, a conditioned response to eclectic beats and slow paced drums keeping time. In college I would go to the library with my laptop and open a Pandora tab and a Word document and begin typing the upcoming assignment. My University library was a bit noisy and I needed to close out the surrounding confusion, so much for libraries being a place where everyone whispers. Naturally I selected relatively peaceful music with an emphasis on modern downtempo beats and as little singing as possible; singers are somehow distracting to my thinking brain. The music did something for me that music had never done before. It helped me focus. In high school I was distracted easily by tv noise, music in another room, brothers wrestling on the floor or electronic video game shooting sounds. I needed silence from everything. I am not sure when the puzzle came together for me and I realized that I needed to have a rhythmic tune in my ear in order to put thoughts together before typing them up. Like many things in life the piece was there all the time. I just needed to recognize it.  

I’ve studiously avoided listing artists and bands that I like because mostly I just let Pandora do the selecting. Here are some of my favorites though: