What Sounds Do You Write To?

It’s been raining incessantly. I’m love to write as I listen to the rain filtering through the trees outside my window. I love the sound of rain – it helps me be more creative. Which makes me ask: what sounds do you write to?

What sounds do you write to?

Have you noticed that we often get our best ideas when we’re in the shower, brushing our teeth or washing the dishes? It seems as if when we’re doing things that don’t take much attention, we come up with creative ideas! Perhaps, this explains why.

“A moderate level of noise enhances creativity compared to both low and high levels of noise. Moderate background noise induces distraction which encourages individuals to think at a higher, abstract level, and consequently exhibit higher creativity.”

– Source: Exploring the Effects of Ambient Noise on Creative Cognition

Maybe that’s why people like sitting at coffee shops when they’re being creative – the clatter of the cups and the chatter of other guests is just the kind of noise to get your creative juices flowing.

Talking about coffee shops, here’s a great website that provides you with the sound of a coffee shop while you write! Try out Coffitivity to hear that.

You can listen to the sound of rain too as you write via Rainy Cafe.

Some research, not taken seriously any more, pushed several people towards making their children (even in the womb) listen to classical music to improve intelligence. Called the Mozart Effect, loads of people bought into the idea that ‘listening to Mozart makes you smart’.

I love Mozart – I guess that’s because I heard a lot of his music growing up. He was my grandfather’s favourite composer, and that my grandfather was one of the most intelligent and well-read people I’ve had the pleasure to know. He went blind in his sixties, but he could tell you on which page of which book you could find a particular piece of information!  An engineer, a musician, an informal historian, a Latin scholar! Was it the Mozart effect? Who knows? But I’m sharing this lengthy piece of music that you, like me, might like to work to.

What sounds do you write to?