Music and productivity

[mtbc]

When I am learning something new or figuring out something difficult then I need silence. However, for much work, like practicing existing skills, it can help to put some easy lively music on, anything from Jean-Michel Jarre to the Pet Shop Boys to Lily Allen works just fine. Or, for simple household chores, I might put Absolute Radio on in the background. It then becomes easy to get productively lost in the work rather than bored or distracted.

I find it interesting how much difference the right music can make. It keeps me focused and alert like some effective psychopharmaceutical. This is significant enough that I wonder what is already known about it scientifically; perhaps the effect has a name. I also wonder why music has this effect, what relationship it has to the environment in which we evolved; perhaps social chants are quite ancient.

Comments

[gerald_duck]

Hmm. If you're finding any Jarre apart from Waiting for Cousteau (the piece, not the album) "easy", we clearly listen to it in different ways!

Then again, almost any music I actually like (and much music I don't) is a significant distraction for me from thinking deeply. Usually, I think in comparative silence. In the unlikely event I feel a serious urge for background music which won't distract me, that's very different from the stuff I'll listen to actively.