Coaxing Creativity with Music

Guest post by Vincent Tan of Polymath Programmer.

Creativity is like a breeze: fleeting, invisible and just as hard to catch. Some people relax and let it come to them. Some people work hard to bring it to bear. I’m going to tell you how you can do something enjoyable and effortlessly infuse yourself with creativity.

Listen to music.

First, let me give a bit of background about myself for some relevancy. I am a programmer by profession. I write code for most of my day. Programmers rank in the same category as artists, musicians and poets in terms of creative output. Programmers need to be creative to find ingenious solutions to business requirements and technical issues.

At work, I put on my earphones and listen to music while I crank out code. And it’s not just any particular kind of music. It’s every kind of music. I’ve got new age, instrumental and pop. I’ve got Japanese, Spanish and French vocals. I’ve got music from video games and anime that I’ve played and watched before.

How does this work? By bringing your mind to a “high” place so you can “see” more of everything (part of Getting Things Done). Genius and creative imagination are of high frequencies of vibration (“The mystery of sex transmutation” in Think and Grow Rich). You can think of listening to music to increase your thought frequency, bringing you ever higher to the place where creativity runs freely.

That’s the philosophical and perhaps even spiritual explanation. On the physical side, music charges you up by waking the mind and energising your body. Ever tapped your feet to the beat of a favourite song? Fast paced music gets your heart pumping and every single cell in your body ready to get creative.

Simply relaxing is too passive. Trying hard to force creativity doesn’t work well. Listening to music allows you to actively pursue creativity yet keep a fairly light chase. Once your creativity muse deems you worthy, she’ll come to you.

So what’s the key to selecting music? Variety. You need to have fast paced and slow soothing and everything in between. If you only have fast paced pop/rock songs, your mind will shut down from exhaustion. Intersperse that rapid flow of music with a graceful waltz or relaxing cello solo to give your mind a jig. This prevents your mind from getting stuck into a rut and also provides continuous stimulation. The shuffle function of your favourite music player is your friend here.

You’re encouraged to try incorporating music that evokes strong emotions. I’ve got a few songs which greatly cause sadness, intense lightheartedness, lulling calmness or have touching, awe-inspiring lyrics. I get tears sometimes (and discreetly holding them back of course). I smile uncontrollably sometimes. I believe experiencing the many facets of human emotions is part of coaxing creativity, of tapping creativity.

Another key to music selection is familiarity. You should be familiar with most of the songs such that you can hum the tune and still be able to function (like writing code in my case). It’s of lesser importance than variety, since new songs can act as a source of stimuli too. I don’t know many of the lyrics of my songs, but the tune becomes familiar. It might even be better if you don’t know the lyrics, since the words might clutter your mind, particularly if you’re trying to write.

My personal experience is that usually after about 2 or 3 songs, I get into the mood for action. After about maybe 15 minutes, I get into what some people call The Zone. This is where I rapidly process lots of ideas, thinking up graphical user interface designs, producing working algorithms and fingers flying over the keyboard typing out code. The Zone is where you tune out everything and your muse is talking directly to you. If you’ve ever tapped creativity, you’ll know when you’re in The Zone. Everything just flows naturally.

Ok, disclaimer time; It doesn’t always work. Sometimes, I’m just not in the mood to do anything. Sometimes, a favourite song comes up, and I stop everything to just listen and mouth the words (discreetly of course. I’m still in the office). Sometimes, I don’t even want to listen to any music. It’s ok. I take it as a sign to go do some other stuff, like organising my desk or go wash my face. I’ve never found it effective to force creativity. I’ve enjoyed a high rate of success with this method though.

Listening to a variety of music with differing tempo and evokes emotions can help you coax creativity. Sometimes you need a little help. So why not consciously guide an enjoyable activity like listening to music to get creative?

One of the steady recommendations at Tapping Creativity is to try new things. Visit Polymath Programmer and learn something new today.