What inspires your writing? Is it the lyrics of a popular song? A specific tune? Do you need music playing the background while you write? Or do you require complete silence that sends you into the deepest depths of a great scene?

As a retired music teacher, music seeps into my writing all the time, but that doesn’t mean I need music playing in the background to write a specific scene. However, it doesn’t hurt either.

My first novels were aligned quite significantly with the music and poetry of Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons and other Baroque composers like Pachelbel:

Slowly, Hope drew her bow across the strings, solemnly playing the eight long, opening notes of Pachelbel’s ‘Canon in D major’. The notes cascaded across the rivers. It serenaded the totem poles. It rose in great splendor to the mountain peaks. Hope finished the opening notes and started to add her own counterpoint, using double stops to maintain the opening eight-note theme. The birds joined in, adding their own counterpoint to the music. Pachelbel’s ‘Canon’ never before sounded so good, she thought as she played and the birds sang. (Summer, Book 2 of The Four Seasons 2009).

Needless to say, while I wrote the four novels of The Four Seasons, as well as the two that followed (yet to be published), I had the music from each novel playing in the background. You have to realize, that some of the greatest works of literature were inspired by music. Did you know that Walt Whitman listened to opera while writing his famous Leaves of Grass? Even J.K. Rowling wrote to music, seeking her inspiration from Tchaikovsky’s violin concerto.

There is a power to music that opens up pathways to creative thinking and sharpens our powers of observation while we weave together tangible plots from disparate thoughts. And, since music is a reflection of society, its culture, and history, it connects vividly to various styles of writing.

Although I love my music, I can’t say that it always works well to advance my writing creativity. There are times when all I want (and need) is absolute silence. But, when I need the musical inspiration, I find that it’s best to choose music without words, what might be called ambient noise (though I shudder at calling any type of music, noise). Why wordless music? Well, listening to words, even when sung, is like listening to someone talking to you. It’s distracting, it hinders concentration and it slows productivity. That is unless you have a powerful mind that can mute everything around you whenever you’re in the ‘writing zone’ frame of mind.

The other thing I discovered about listening to music while writing is that I don’t want it too loud. The volume of the background music did affect my creativity.

Many of us like to have music around us all the time. It boosts our ability to function, to do those tedious tasks like cleaning the house. It makes us feel good about doing something mundane. But, does it help us write? Does it increase creative productivity?

For me, there are times when music works, and times when it doesn’t. Living in the country, I prefer to have my windows open to the sounds of nature while I’m writing. I find it soothing and impresses my creative moods to improve productivity. However, in the colder months, this isn’t an option. So, music makes a viable alternative.

Intensive studies have been done in reference to listening to music while invoking the creative muse of writing. However, even though the overall consensus is that music is beneficial to our productivity, creativity, and pleasure, the studies are inconclusive. Why? Because it depends on the individual and the individual’s mood at the time when writing calls. Music’s influence on concentration, emotions, and creative output differs from one person to the next. Music might be considered one of the greatest inventions of the human race, indeed it’s been around as long as humans walked the earth, and it does influence us all in vastly different ways. But music has its place in our lives and that doesn’t always include our writing space.

So, here’s the dilemma: write with music? Or without music? Well, if you the type that wants to experiment, give music a try. Here are some tips to make the best out of the music inspired writing experience:

1. Choose music that makes you feel good, preferably music without words.

2. Make your selection of music as part of the novel or story or poem that you’re working on as I did with Vivaldi’s music in my The Four Seasons series.

3. As you listen, describe the music. In your own words, tell the reader how it makes you feel, what you like or dislike about it.

4. Try something new in the music selection, something you don’t normally listen to. Be brave and experiment.

Music is an important part of my life, but it isn’t the only thing that inspires me. And I don’t always need (or want) music as a backdrop to whatever I’m doing, creative or otherwise. I love the sounds of nature. I love the sound of silence. Yes, pure silence is music in itself, a novelty in this age of high tech and unrelenting noise.