azurelunatic | Music, creativity, and my fucking attention span

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Current Music: TMBG, "Hope That I Get Old Before I Die"

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Music, creativity, and my fucking attention span

I've found that when I'm deepest in concentration, music will sometimes take up attention that I needed to use on whatever it was that I was trying to do. So from that, I tried concluding that actually music was a detriment to my productivity.

However, sometimes I found myself craving music when trying to get settled into a grove. At first I thought that it was only mood, but then I realized that it was more than that.

My brain needs the music sometimes to provide a distraction for me when I'm not settled into the deep kind of concentration that precludes any distractions at all. The music is enough distraction, and the right kind of distraction, that I can stay focused on the creative task at hand and not go haring after IRC, or that post I saw two minutes ago, or any of the other things that try to steal the bits of my attention when I'm trying to focus.

Music with a good solid structure is the best. I can't listen to unstructured music when I'm trying to sleep, and when I'm trying to concentrate, if I don't know the music or if I can't predict the structures of the song to some degree, it will distract me more than I plan to be distracted. Baroque is good. Things with the structure stretched out too far are bad. Techno is good. Techno that fuses a techno beat on a classical framework may have been made for the specific purpose of keeping my brain in one piece while concentrating. It's really lovely.

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Is there a particular song or album that comes to mind for techno on a classical framework? That sounds like something I'd really like.

Also, "clear off the kitchen table darling, for on the kitchen table I must lie!"

E Nominae, ERA, and BOND are three of the most consistently awesome that I've run into.

And TMBG are love, even though I can't always listen to them when working.

I'll check those out, thanks!

Pandora is now playing me some Neuroticfish which it says is similar to E Nomine. It's very Depeche Mode-y, which is a plus in my book!

I've only run into "The Bomb" from them, which was an instant favorite with me.

I'm not sure Pandora quite got the message about wanting classical-influenced music, but everything it's given me so far has been refreshingly europop-y. The last song (Vi Sitter I Ventrilo Och Spelar Dota by Basshunter) reminded me a lot of Eiffel 65, which I like but haven't listened to in a while, even to the gaming reference--I looked up the title and Wikipedia says it's a reference to playing Warcraft. :-)

OK, done commenting on music for a bit, but it occurred to me you might enjoy Cusco's Ancient Journeys. There are samples on the Amazon page.

Oh, Basshunter.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYQUsp-jxDQ

I wish I could find the version that's subtitled with the translation. The English version of this song is about post-breakup blues. The original Swedish version is about falling in love with an IRC bot and finding out that she's really a girl.

Edited 2009-05-05 21:04 (UTC)

I wish I could find the version that's subtitled with the translation

For a fellow Basshunter fan, your wish is my command.

Music, subtitles in English, but not the original video. It's hard to find all three at once, though there was a version on the original website before everything went over to YouTube.

That, I'm afraid, is beyond me. I did use to have one, and now it dead from baleeted.

I find psytrance v good for this, as well. DI.fm have some good radio streams.

Hmm, thanks!

I find that a bit of music helps me to concentrate sometimes. Mostly when I'm trying to write something at work -- but it has to be music I know so well that it doesn't distract during the bits when I need to concentrate lots.

Basically, something that I can listen to, but ignore at intervals, but have not listened to so much I'm bored by it. The music doesn't distract me when I need my brain, and keeps me entertained in the few seconds when I'm not thinking so hard. It'll keep me from clicking to other windows in those brief "not thinking" moments and then getting completely off track from the work.

I guess I need breaks from the writing on occasion, and music will do that for me without getting so off track I don't get anything done.

I listened to Santana's Shaman CD over and over for days when I was writing my Ph.D. thesis (did it all at work), and similarly lately when I've been trying to write a paper at work.

I have specific requirements for not-burned-out-on. Some things, I can listen to hundreds of time without burning out on, and some things it's less than five.

Partly, I wonder if the music is a mnemonic, so it attaches to what I was thinking about before, and reminds me of it when I get distracted.

Oh yeah, definitely. I'm still surprised that I can actually listen to Santana's Shaman at this point! And it does have a tendency to remind about writing my thesis - the frame of mind, the people, etc.

Should really turn it on again and write my paper! :-)

I used to get a whole sensory net's worth of memories about where I was when I first read a book, upon subsequent re-readings. I don't do it half as much now.

I get replays sometimes of where/when, etc. I was reading a book, generally fairly rarely though.

I often read while I eat, so sometimes I have a strong flash of what I was eating the last time I read a certain passage. This is sometimes not helpful, especially when it leads to craving certain food and I either don't have it in the house or am really not hungry!

I do this a lot myself, so much as creating "soundtracks" for various projects - not (usually) literally a soudtrack for the plot, but a collection of music that evokes the themes, characters, mood, and sometimes plot of whatever it is for me.

Soundtracks! Yes!

There's only the one for a book that I made, but Circle of Fire has this, when stripped of the duplicates:

WHITE REFLECTION TWO-MIX
Never Say Never Romeo Void
Because the Night 10,000 Maniacs
Good Morning Sunshine Aqua
Rhythm Emotion (TV Size) Two-Mix: Gundam Wing
Space Age Love Song A Flock of Seagulls
Calling You Aqua Aquarium
Let Me Hold It Open Cowboy Mouth
My Oh My Aqua Aquarium
Roses Are Red Aqua Aquarium
Closer Nine Inch Nails The Downward Spiral
Because the Night 10,000 Maniacs
Sleep the Clock Around Belle and Sebastian The Boy With the Arab Strap
Forever Young Alphaville
Bizarre Love Triangle New Order
Sanctified Nine Inch Nails Pretty Hate Machine
The Sexy Data Tango Voltaire Banned on Vulcan
Kiss from a Rose Seal
Total Eclipse Of The Heart Bonnie Tyler
Timewatching Divine Comedy Liberation

....judging by this, I totally want to read this book.

I will totally be squeeing all over several journal services when I have it ready to shop around to an agent.

rb is threatening to withhold fanfic of it until it's published, and that is a very powerful threat.

Synopsis: a group of college students who are learning magic get caught up in an incompetent hacker-mage's bid to build a zombie botnet.

...so making me want to read it more.

And the concept of withholding fanfic to get an author to publish is lolarious.

It is a bit silly, yes.

This is the exact reason I play solitaire on my Palm T|X to put me to sleep. I need something that is *just enough* for my mind to focus on to stop the tumble-dryer of non-thoughts that normally keeps me awake.

Speaking of which, I need to make myself my sleepy-tea and go to bed!

P.S. Got any recommendations (or links) to classical-framework techno?

E Nomine, ERA, and Bond are all excellent.

<3 Bond.

Want me to hook you up with the two Dancemania Classical Speed albums? They're along those same lines, although less moody and more upbeat. Delerium also sounds like something you could find useful, although that's not so much classical as it is ambient.

♥

Here. Free for whoever to download although if spiders pick it up it'll be renamed <_<

I've found that I cannot listen to music with words when I'm trying to concentrate. Words derail me everytime. It's different when I'm doing housework or gardening or whatnot, but for writing or study, it's silence or filmscores. Scores are fantastic mood setters without all the damned WORDS getting in my way.

Fortunately, I'm not quite as sensitive, but it can't be anything where I stop and listen to the words. Most of them are ones where I know the words off by heart in any case.

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