Working with music
Just what the title says. I’m simply training myself to be able to work while music plays, which I’ve never before been able to do.
For always, I’ve been one of those fidgety fuckers who requires total silence, even from the dog, in order to concentrate to where I can get any meaningful work done, and then just for long enough stretches between getting up to see if there’s any new cake in the fridge. Maybe a banana nut. That’s a good muffin.
Here’s how I account for my shortcoming: I am naturally a musical person. (Most of us are, of course. I’m not saying I’m special.) Which means I hear music in most of what’s around me. To my detriment, I can’t really hear music, even bad stuff, without unconsciously twitching to it. In public, it usually happens in my sphincter, if you’re looking for it next time we hang out.
There’s rhythm in what I write and what I say, as well there should be. Good writing has music in it. Plus I spend a great deal of time editing video, which absolutely requires musicality, by definition. So attempting to combat this natural rhythmic flow with external music makes producing anything extremely, extremely difficult. Poor me.
But this justification simply will not do. This requirement of an aural vacuum in which to do work, it just doesn’t scale. I have work to do, and lots of it, and I have music to listen to, lots of it. Work is good for me. And music is even better.
So they must coexist.
As I wrote this, Randy Crawford’s “Street Life”. Then a glass of water. Then “Start Choppin’” by Dinosaur Jr. and then a piece of toast and Bill Evans’ “Funkallero”. That’s a good muffin.
