Does music hinder you or help you focus while working?
polycounter lvl 9
Hey, just interested to know what do you think about listening to music while working on your art. Does it help you concentrate or does it bother you?
Personally, I'm always wondering whenever animating if having music doesn't indirectly makes my work worse that it usually.
This image speaks for itself (Milt Kahl's was one of the Disney's nine ol men, a genius of it's time and a reference for myself).
Thing is, whenever I'm listening to music while working, I do progress ''faster'', I achieve my set objectives quicker than expected and I always manage to finish my work without always being interupted with constant breaks make the whole process smoother.
Thing is; whenever I go back to it; I ALWAYS find stupid obvious rookie mistakes that I usually don't do when I'm working NOT listening to music. I then have this odd sensation that I should not be listening to music while working, even though, I always listen to calm, dreamy, relaxed, instrumentals music....
A shame though..
Am I the only one?
Personally, I'm always wondering whenever animating if having music doesn't indirectly makes my work worse that it usually.
This image speaks for itself (Milt Kahl's was one of the Disney's nine ol men, a genius of it's time and a reference for myself).
Thing is, whenever I'm listening to music while working, I do progress ''faster'', I achieve my set objectives quicker than expected and I always manage to finish my work without always being interupted with constant breaks make the whole process smoother.
Thing is; whenever I go back to it; I ALWAYS find stupid obvious rookie mistakes that I usually don't do when I'm working NOT listening to music. I then have this odd sensation that I should not be listening to music while working, even though, I always listen to calm, dreamy, relaxed, instrumentals music....
A shame though..
Am I the only one?
Replies
Works wonders, especially when played through speakers. I use it to cover the busy pedestrian city street noise below, but also sometimes in the middle of the night when things are dead silent. I can let it run for hours.
Overall, I'd say I have music on more than I don't. But I'm not an animator. I imagine you could potentially have your timing influenced by the rhythm of the music.
Maybe if you map out the scratches in my textures, and put it into an audio program, it'll play back as "Frankly Mr Shankly"
I don't really find that listening to music affects my work one way or another, but I find without it I end up a bit slower. Bigger slowdowns are definitely keeping email and chat clients open though.
Kwramm, I remember seeing a study out there that faster or more aggressive music has that tiring effect. I know it does for me, but it's hard to isolate that coupled with coffee and probably working faster. I typically go for fast and percussive music like breakbeat, jungle, hard industrial or some good fast rap.
if i can focus on doing one nontechnical thing for extended periods of time then background audio helps to get into it, i don't notice it much one i'm going though. e.g. at one job i spent about three months listening to mostly the same song on loop. and i must have seen 'inception' in a corner on the second screen about 50 times looping while working on another job, not that i noticed it all that much. but i sure do know the dialogue pretty well.
I'd recommend reading this article as it references some scientific studies as well:
https://www.helpscout.net/blog/music-productivity/
I know a wide range of music i can use to manipulate myself. I listen to particular fast music like drum n bass and i get faster with modelling for example. If the work is boring i push myself with Metal, if the work needs very high amounts of concentration i use subtle ambient meditation music.
If i need to get into the zone fast i use shamanic drums and didgeridoo, overtone singing, chants etc.
But 30% of the time there is silence and the later the evening the more intrusive music becomes.
You know how that saying goes with dosage and poison.
Also just FYI, it is "Does music hinder".
All else - including gangsta rap, nu metal, dubstep and italo disco - are fair game.
Much of my procrastinating involves being too lazy to even start music
I always used to have music or something in the background, but I had my best sessions when the playlist or whatever ended without me noticing. So now I work without any noise as often as I can.
Doesn't happen that often though, and open offices are really harmful to my focus. So I have to use music to drown out the inconsistent noise of an office or the traffic outside.
Silence > Music > People Talking!
If Milt had headphones on, even if he wasn't listening to music he probably could have avoided Richard and his annoying questions all together, ha.
Personally I think the internet is way more distracting than music ever could hope to be. Followed by people distracting other people.
I agree with Jakob, people randomizing each other with distracting chatter is a killer. Even if it's work related, it might not be relevant to other people within ear shot but they might get pulled off task or at least distracted by the noise. It can tank productivity for a lot of people.
My personal pet peeve is when people slowly trickle in at different times in the morning and they all want to have a morning convo before they settle in and get to work. Having a constant parade of people wandering around the office checking in with each other can really tank productivity. I get that this is a tight industry that spends a lot of hours together and we share a lot of interests, but having the same conversation with 5-10-15 people is annoying, distracting and killing productivity.
I also hate it when people hover and ask what you're working on and want to see it.
Yes, it's technically not hard for me to zoom out, hit play and let you watch the anim I'm working on.
Yes, its fun to show people progress and new things, even if this is the 5th time in 30 min...
Yes, I know what you think looks off. It was the thing I was working on before you came over.
Excellent you want other people to see it, well fuck whatever the hell I was working on I guess it's review time.
/grumpy old man
Rim the sky:
witcher 3:
Witcher 3 DLC (tiz good):
However, if I'm doing certain tasks like creative or technical writing, music can be too much of a distraction. Similarly, sometimes when I read I need to turn the music off - if I'm reading a tutorial or researching something complex, music can be a major distraction. If I'm doing voice-over work for a tutorial I need complete and utter silence,
But while doing art? Naa, my brain goes on auto-pilot.
I like restful non-vocal music when concentrating (eg, cinemix) and anything else when doing repetitive stuff.
When it comes to creative tasks, I actually am more productive with music. Also each time I was at a concert I had the urge to do something like drawing.
When I have to write/read something I normally blind out anything else, but I prefer having some background noise (TV or music) just in case to prevent myself from getting distracted by random changes in my surroundings.
Listen to music while you wait for the bus or in your car, or better yet when you're cleaning your house.
Although classical music can help you focus too, if you've read about this, it is absolutely on target.
This is the playlist I'm currently looping.
https://simplynoise.com/
Rain with optional thunder
https://rain.simplynoise.com/
I think the magic behind is that it is kind of entertainment without distracting work, so you are not driven to procrastinate and search for other kind of entertainment.
everything else no music...
Pior, since you've posted this, I've been pretty much using it exclusively at work and it's awesome.