When I'm using music as an accompaniment to something I'm doing - in this case writing an essay - I don't want it to get "too" interesting all of a sudden.  The idea of taking a theme and slowly working it, gently twisting and developing it into new shapes and sounds makes a lot of sense to me.  It's different enough to allow the brain to notice the change, but not too different that it has to devote extra resource to processing it.

Creative Flow

The title reflects the optimism I was feeling at the time of composition and resonates with how I feel about creating.  I'm a huge fan of the Elizabeth Gilbert TED talk, if you haven't seen it it's well worth 20 minutes of your time.    I think the act of creation is kind of like a partnership - a partnership between the self and some other "thing" that  shows up when you're on a roll.

I'm fascinated by the idea of flow - by the state you get into when you lose track of time and everything is just coming out of your pen easily with what seems like little or no input from your conscious mind.  Elizabeth Gilbert would call that the Genius in the room - I don't know what I'd call it but when it happens, I'm very glad to be back together with it.

Music to Write Playlist

The idea of having music on when you are doing something - in order to create a conducive environment - has been around a long time.  With the arrival of YouTube in the early aughts - where people had access to free streaming music - it really took off.  Early music2work2 tracks like Frustration did very well and more recently this track, Getting Back Together seems to have struck a chord with the writing crowd.

We have created a playlist of similar tracks on a "Music to Write an Essay to" playlist over on Musicto.com.  You should check it out.

Image Commissioned from: Jody Bateman Johnston

Music to make you more productive