The Detour Project

Overture to Peaceful and Productive Day

I was reading a book the other night and there was a paragraph where the author described how his writing process included listening to only classical music. As a person who enjoys writing this intrigued me. I listen to music constantly; it’s always a part of whatever I’m doing.

When I settle into writing something though, I’ve found that I either need to have no music on at all or listen something instrumental. For some reason I’m incredibly distracted when I’m trying to write and there’s music on with vocals.

I decided to give the classical music thing a try all day yesterday, and was really surprised at how much it elevated my mood and improved my sense of patience and overall ability to concentrate. Trying this had never occurred to me before, mainly because “I consider myself a rocker through and through”, if I may quote the great philosopher, Mr. Joe Dirt.

A quick search online will produce plenty of claims and theories that listening to classical music will improve your IQ, reduce crime, cure cancer, depression, etc. I don’t know about any of that. What I’m saying is that it noticeably elevated my mood, brought on a sense of calm and improved my concentration while working and writing.

I found a great station in iTunes (WDAV) that plays classical music all day, commercial free. If you’ve never tried listening to classical music while you’re working on something, I recommend it highly. There are plenty of (free) classical streams available on iTunes, and I’m sure that satellite radio services offer plenty of options as well.

If you’ve had positive results with this, or have additional suggestions / input, I’d love to hear about it. Please feel free to comment below. Thanks for reading!