Music to Write By

If you talk with authors, you’ll find that many of them have quite the extensive music collection. Music is, for many, if not a muse, than a sort of lubricating agent for smooth thought processes. Many a book has been written while the author plugged away in front of a CD player, record set, or for the more modern among us, MP3 or streaming service. I’m writing this article to music right now, as we speak.

But what kind of music? While might seem simple to just answer with “any kind” in truth things aren’t quite that simple. They are pretty straightforward, but there does happen to be a limit. If you ask writers, especially ones that publish, what they listen to while working, you’ll find a single common thread around all their answers. Most every single one of them will list music that is instrumental in nature.

In other words, no lyrics. There’s a legitimate reason for this: Our brains are hardwired from birth to speak and utilize language. Hence, when we listen to music with lyrics, parts of our brain that can identify the lyrics activate. We listen to those words—whether consciously or subconsciously—and devote a part of our brainpower to processing them.

Thus, doing that while attempting to write something becomes a bit like the old “pat your head and rub your belly at the same time” trick. Combined with occasional change-ups asking you to switch the directions of the rotation or the speed of the patting. Not impossible, but certainly difficult.

Writing while listening to anything with lyrics is like that. Not impossible, but certainly difficult, and most authors learn quite quickly that their performance suffers while listening to music with lyrics as their mind tries to focus itself away from writing words on paper, and onto the words being sung into their ears. Even if they are able to still technically write while listening to lyrics, many authors have found that the moment the lyrics go away, their writing speed increases dramatically, like a cloud lifting from over their mind.

It really is a cloud. Music containing lyrics pulls our focus away, splitting our attention, whether we want to admit it or not. Even if we’re not writing the lyrics, we’re putting additional strain on our minds as our brain is forced to hear the lyrics, interpret them, and then disconnect those words from the words we’re pulling out to craft our story with.

It’s just not a good mix. And yes, I know that there are those that will say “But I can write listening to music with lyrics …” because I’ve met them. Trust me and forgo it. I didn’t say it was impossible to do. I just said it hurt. I can write while listening to music with lyrics plays in the background too … but I’ve noticed that my output sinks to about a quarter of what it would normally be, and quite often the writing itself still suffers—especially with dialogue.

So you can do it. But you shouldn’t. Better to go without, really, than force your brain to try and juggle all those inputs.

But look, outside of that, there’s really not much of a limit to what you can listen to. As long as there aren’t lyrics pulling your brain’s attention away, you can really get away with just about anything. Granted, you might find that one genre or another of music really works for you, as some authors do. Some recommend very atmospheric music with a light touch, the sort of music that’s there but only “intrudes” if you think about it. Others go classic and swear by classic pieces. Some even have a selection of albums or music that “fits” certain emotions, moods, or events that they then select based on the emotion, mood, or event that they’re writing.

Others—like myself—range all over the place, listening to just about anything as long as there aren’t lyrics. Sometimes I want music that matches the mood of the scene, or sometimes that matches my mood. It’s all over the place.

Really the only large rule that’s established is “no lyrics.” Which I know may be distressing to some of you, but you can at least give it a shot for a few days and see what the difference is. After all, if it’s effectively a rule-of-thumb across authors, it might be worth listening to, right?

Of course, some of you might really be wondering what you’re supposed to listen to instead, if you aren’t going to listen to something without lyrics. Some of you might even be shocked to discover that there exists music without lyrics.

Well, there’s a lot of it. Some of it is even legally free. And well, since we’re having a bit of fun, here’s a collection of albums and groups that both I myself and a bunch of other authors I know have spoken about writing some of your favorite books to.