Do You Work Better WITH Music/Noise?

I'd have to agree with you, Dr. Griffin. I seem to be able to concentrate much better when in silence.

 

I work better with background noise...but not like a TV or friends. Mostly with instrumental music. If I use music with lyrics...I start writing the lyrics.

 

I have always worked with music in the backdrop. As I am reading the Baptistboard, I am currently listening to Handel's Messiah as presented by the Royal Choral Society and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra with Sir Malcolm Sargeant. Now, maybe that is why I make so many typographical mistakes, and I thought it was my errant fingers.

There are times when I enjoy absolute quiet, especially in the wee hours of the morning. In one church where I pastored, I was found in the church at two in the morning playing the organ with all the stops out. One night, the pa system was left on and it was piped into the house next door. An older woman lived there. She was the widow of one of the founders and was housebound. She forgot to turn off her speakers. She told me later that she thought the trumpet had sounded and she was being called home. I don't think the reference was to my heavenly music either.

Cheers,

Jim

 

I'd have to say that silence or instrumental music does it best for me. With lyrics, i start singing along...which is distracting.

Matt

 

If I have to use think mode, I need quietness.

Otherwise, if it is a no brainer or half brainer, give me noise.

 

Actually, if it's a no-brainer, I don't need noise to do it. Strangely enough, I need noise when it's something I'm thinking heavily about. I need something to keep the back of my mind engaged and busy, otherwise I start thinking too much about too many different things and can't concentrate. I know it must sound strange to hear that I can't concentrate if I don't keep part of my mind occupied, but them's the breaks.

I did scare my mother one time when I pointed to a stack of CDs and told her I could "play" all of them in my head and keep track to what I was listening to. She was kinda freaked.

So, when I really need to concentrate, give me music to sing along with or something like that. Nothing too engaging (I can't talk on the phone and do anything at the same time - if I'm expected to engage with it, I can't do anything else), but something to keep the wandering part of my mind from wandering away.

 

Yes, I need noise. When things are quiet around here I'm distracted and wondering what's wrong because it's never quiet unless the kids are at school, then if there's no background noise I have to play a CD or something to keep me from missing their noise.
I usually don't like complete silence anyhow, it hurts my ears. Seriously. Silence DOES have a noise! It's a rushing sound, and it makes my ears feel full of pressure.
Gina

 

Or thinking, breathing, cleaning...you name it... I work better when it's quiet. And I'm nicer too.

One of my kids works much better in secluded quiet...he's my oldest and noises effect him the way they do me...He gets flustered and agitated...he can't think...and he's 10.

My middle daughter is 8 (12/31) and she can do her homework in front of the T.V. without it even effecting her pace or her attitude.

So...I don't think it's necessarily an age thing...but maybe more of a peronality thing...Just my guess.

 

I love noise. I get very distracted when working in absolute silence. I have a 1 and 3 year old, so that is not a situation I deal with regularly, but it has happened.

I am of the same generation as Dr. Bob's Kids, as a matter of fact, roomed with one in college, so I can tell you that our study habits, aka not studying, are the same.

I will have the tv on, watching football, while working on my computer, or reading, I get very uncomfortable in the silence.

Now, take me out to the wide open spaces of Wyoming and put me on a rock in the middle of a mountain stream reading my Bible and praying, and the silence is great!

 

When there is some kind of sound, I find I can concentrate with more intensity. I work best with Bach, fingerstyle guitar, or folk music. Also some talk radio, but not the Christian stuff. I get torn between what I'm doing and the message I'm hearing.

There is some rock I can listen to, but not too much as it tends to distract also. The same for jazz or some of the heavier, late Classical to Romantic periods.

I also work well listening to some of the more atonal 20th century stuff. The more mathematical it is, the better.

Silence? The mind wanders, the "voices" start, and I'm somewhere else quickly. ALso, more than one thing going on in the background is very distracting rather than ading to the blanket of noise.

Brett

 

I'm so glad I'm not the only one! Sometimes I feel very weird because I start to wander if I have too much silence. It's so easy to get distracted in silence.

Amazingly, though, I don't get distracted in a silent meeting for worship.

 

I have my radio on in my office right now. What does that tell you? It's playing classic rock.

 

The interesting thing about is that I'm of an age where all my life, I can remember a tv being on. And as one born in the latter end of the baby boom, I wonder how much my life was shaped by that constant background noise.

My sister (3 1/2 yrs younger) has been able to minimize tv in her life (simply because she is too busy to watch). She's gotten used to silence (she was always distracted by having music or tv on when she was trying to think).

When there, I try to adopt that lifestyle as well. I can do it for a time, but I eventually get antsy.

Brett

 

I don't watch much TV but the radio is almost always on, especially if I'm studying or working.

There is a time for silence, too, and it's really refreshing to be able to go sit out by the river and listen to the geese.

 

Dr. Bob,

I am 47 and have never thought much about it until your post, but I do tend to read better when I am surrounded by noise/music--to a point. In silence, I am too quick to get bored and find a diversion. However, if studying, such that I am going back and forth between various books/references I find I do better in quiet, I guess the various books being distractions among themselves, keeping me from getting bored with one book.

 

Well, I have enough trouble thinking when I have perfect quiet! I listen to hymns and southern gospel, and I'll play it when I'm on the computer, but I have a habbit of singing with it. I have almost every song on every CD memorized, and I'll go around singing it. {at the top of my lungs in my break glass high soprano! tee hee hee }
To do write, or talk, I need quiet around me. I have bad nerves, and if I hear a lot of noise when I'm trying to concentrate, i get flustered, and confused. {Well, Abby aren't you always confused?! } Yeap!
~Abby