by Audrey Levine

Created on: November 19, 2009

I hate the sound of silence.

There is something about that dense sense of nothing, a lack of noise where you can still hear every creak of the floor, tick of the house, all the sounds you can ignore when the television is on or the music is playing.

And for that reason, I am a big proponent of playing music while writing.

Many people say that listening to music while writing is a distraction because you will start to concentrate on the words of the song instead of the words you are putting down on the page. And maybe they're right, but, for me, listening to music while I write gets my creative juices flowing, so to speak, and actually helps me work better. Frankly, I find the silence to be more distracting.

Take, for example, my job as a journalist. I particularly enjoy writing my articles with my headphones on, listening to musical soundtracks, pop tracks, whatever song happens to come up or that I haven't decided to skip. I don't know how to explain it necessarily, but I frankly think I do my best work with the music on because I feel like I am paying more attention to the material and am completely focused on the words I am writing, rather than allowing my mind to wander when I am trying to concentrate on the latest lawsuit or township ordinance.

Right now, in fact, I am listening to my iTunes library while typing this story, and I am finding that my fingers are flying over the keys because it is just sound that is filling my ears while the rest of me is left to concentrate on the task at hand.

And for this reason, I especially believe that my choice to listen to music while I write stems from a desire to not have to listen to silence. The music itself drowns out all extraneous sounds and allows me to focus my full attention on my writing. And I find that, if you have listened to a song enough times, you can eventually block out the lyrics themselves and pay attention mainly to the instrumentals, which are not a distraction to trying to come up with words to write on the page.

I, myself, would not recommend watching television while writing because, not only do you have the possible sound distraction, but television is about the visual. If you are staring at a television screen, you are certainly not staring at the computer screen or page while you write, and if you are not watching the television, you may miss some important look or action that does not come through in the dialogue.

For those who wish to do their best writing with complete silence, by all means have at it. But for those who like that little bit of noise in the background, listening to music while writing is the only way to go.

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