Music and Visual Artists

What’s Your Choice of Background Noise?

Music and visual artists seem to go hand in hand. Nearly every artist I know has music playing while they work. I’ll admit that I do too…usually.

My iTunes library has well over 20,000 tracks. It consists of a wide array of musical genres…pop, classic rock, metal, country, alternative, hip hop, electronic, classical, trance, dub step, R&B, New Age, Spanish, Hawaiian, Japanese, K pop, and yes…even TV and movie soundtracks. Depending on my mood, one of these will become the background noise for my art. Lately, I’ve been leaning more towards music without lyrics as it seems to be less distracting. My favorite lately has been the 10,000 Steps album by Biomusique, which falls under the New Age/World music genres. It’s kind of ethereal, mystical, and calming. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but I find myself just putting the album on loop and letting it go.

10,000 Steps by Biomusique

There are some instances when I’m not in the mood for any music, so I might put on a video instead. Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not talking about movies. That would be far too distracting for me. If I do put on a video, it’s going to be a documentary, something from NatGeo, History channel, or PBS. Even YouTube has some pretty amazing channels that I subscribe to that deal with art. I also have a few Gnomon Workshop how-to videos. Those are all things that serve as background noise without being overly distracting. Mostly though, I find them highly inspirational.

Sometimes the right kind of video can be great for background noise.

And then there are days that nothing suits my mood. Imagine? Even with this vast library at my fingertips, I would venture to guess that about half the time, I work in complete silence for hours at a time. Silence has never bothered me. I find solace in silence. The world is in my opinion, far too noisy. I’m often drawn to silence. It’s comforting. I don’t mind hearing myself think. And the silence certainly doesn’t make me feel uncomfortable.

How about you? Do you work in silence or do you have some type of background music or videos going? What’s your go-to when you want to crank out some work? Comment below and let us know!