My heuristic for flow-state inducing music

Despite having often been too lazy to sit down and write, I think it must be something I enjoy as it is one of the only activities in which I can achieve the fabled 'flow state' of focus.

When I'm 'in-the-zone', I can feel thirsty and even have a water bottle withing reach yet not remove my fingers from the keyboard to grab it. I think this is a good sign.

I've begun learning about flow states thanks to an excellent blog and Youtube channel I have found called The Bioneer. This has actually been the most direct inspiration for me to start writing about my interests here.

In this post, I just want to share a quick heuristic I have found that solved a problem I'd had for some time: working to background music.

Of course, I can work and write when I absolutely have to, but when trying to write for pleasure or something non-essential, I am easily distracted by background noise.

If I try to work at home, I have to deal with my other half taking phone calls and the constant bumps, bangs and clashes that come with having four cats in the house.

In the rare cafes that don't play terrible music (more on that later), the conversations of others can be distracting too. 

Even living in another country where I understand only a little of the language, any reasonably animated conversation still draws attention. 

I'm reluctant to use noise cancelling headphones, so that leaves finding some music to work with. I think music certainly can effect our psychology in all manner of ways, so I'm also just more interested in its potential compared to working in silence.

Some cafes try to provide music for me, usually in the form of a repetitive playlist of lethargic bossa-nova pop song covers or dreary heartbroken-teenager acoustic Thai pop that seems to be all the rage right now.

For most people, these styles probably do just sink into the background and go unnoticed. As a musician, my ears seek out the music in whatever environment I'm in and if it's something I dislike it can make it almost impossible to work.

Even when picking my own music, being a musician has made it a challenge. It can't be too complex, nor can it be too repetitive. It certainly can't have words and definitely should have little dynamic range.

At a previous job for a bank I excelled despite listening to music on my phone without these rules. However, I do not attribute that success to attaining a flow state. 

In that situation, I had to work, and the work was so very tedious that pairing the tasks with music I enjoyed was pretty much the only way to stay motivated to do them.

So what music fits my stringent requirements. Well, I found it in a place that in retrospect seems quite obvious. The heuristic I now use is:

Movies about geniuses have music that makes you feel like one.

The Imitation Game. The Theory of Everything. A Beautiful Mind. All of these and more have excellent soundtracks to work to.

For one, film music is written to not be too distracting. It is certainly meant to add to movies, but not distract you from the happenings on screen.

Genius-movie melodies tend to be nicely flowing, but simple and easy on the ear. There's no harmonic complexity to contend with. Just repetitive, gently rolling sequences of triads usually plaid on lush lower strings and warm woodwing. 

What's more is these are usually underpinned by some kind of ticking or chugging ostinato played by the violins or  a piano, which is terrific for setting a rhythm to work to. 

And being movies about real-life geniuses, the blaring horns of action sequences are absent. At most the music becomes a little more tense, but only so much as to create nice peaks and troughs to work to.

The formula seems pretty stable across the troubled-genius genre. My playlist currently includes: The Imitation Game, The Theory of Everything, A Beautiful Mind, The Man Who Knew Infinity, and Sherlock (the BBC series).

The latter is admittedly a little more upbeat and exciting than the rest, but not offputtingly so. 

I have found comparable music in another genre of movie and television too, and that is high drama. I've found the scores for The King's Speech, Darkest Hour, Downton Abbey, The Crown, Atonement and Brideshead Revisited to be well-suited to writing.

I now use my playlist to help me almost everyday with blocking out unwelcome background noise and getting me into the state of mind to work. 

Although it is the same playlist each day, there is over ten hours of music on it so far and I'll be looking for more to add, so as not to let it become too repetitive.

And there it is, my heuristic for flow-state inducing music. I'll be writing more about what helps my productivity as I learn.