If I'm reading, or writing an essay, going to sleep, or trying to plan my timetable, or pack my bag for a day out somewhere, or even writing a shopping list, I find it impossible to have music on, whereas my boyfriend, a non-musician will listen to music in all of those circumstances and it usually maximises his concentration. I just think it's quite interesting.

For me, there are a few albums I can listen to as I'm going to sleep. Most of them though, capture my attention too much and keep me awake. The same with other activities where background music may be on: it generally distracts me and I have to turn it off. I wonder if that's because I am a trained musician and very passionate about music: I hear every little detail* in each piece, and it usually effects me emotionally in a big way.

What do people on here think about this?





* Well, of course not EVERY, but you get the idea....

I don't think I even qualify as a "musician" yet, but over the past year or so, I've found background music increasingly distracting as I tend to try to analyse/think about it too much.

It's welcome, however, at the dentist's as it gives me something else to concentrate on!

If I put music on for background, I find it very quickly intrudes into the foreground! I find it very difficult to ignore music, and whilst it's good to do practical tasks to (ironing, dusting, driving, etc), I couldn't concentrate on reading or writing while it's on.

We've recently changed from an ordinary alarm to a radio alarm, which I've tuned to Classic FM, and it's so good at waking me up! Whereas with the ordinary one I'd quite often turn it off and go back to sleep, now I find myself concentrating on the music. It was Britten's "Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra" this morning.

I can't do anything that involves concentrating properly with background music on. I can read a magazine or newspaper but not a book, I find it much more difficult to work. I do like playing music while I'm cooking or doing somethng fairly mindless like ironing. I could pack a bag listening to music.

The one exception is that I work in an open plan office and occasionally it gets quite noisy. I sometimes find the noise of people's conversations / phone calls too obtrusive and then I might listen to something fairly innocuous on my iPod as the lesser distraction. I also used to find that if upstairs were being noisy while I was trying to sleep then putting the radio on helped. I worked this out on the basis I have no problems at all falling back to sleep while the radio's on first thing in the morning, so maybe it would be OK in the evening!

I don't like background music. Music is fine - if it is something I want to listen to. But like others have said, it tends to capture my attention - that's fine, if it 's something I don't want to hear I'll turn it off.

Would that I could do the same with other extraneous noise which I can't shut out either - and which often threatens to drive me round the twist...

Radio 3 wakes me in the morning and that's usually fine - it can even be an absolutely sublime way to wake up - depending on what 's being played of course.

Interesting... And yes, like a couple of you, I don't mind music on while I'm cooking, tidying up or doing housework. Also, I do find my driving isn't quite so good if there's music that I really like on the stereo.

Anyone know anyone who's NOT like this and, like my boyfriend, wants music on all the time?

I think it has much to do with whether you tend to "hear" music or "listen" to it. Many people these days just "hear" it, especially with the explosion of iPods etc, and they can do other things and not get distracted. Others, who "listen" to music, quite often listen to the exclusion of everything else. I even find if I'm watching a documentary with background music that I listen to the music and miss big chunks of the spoken word - and then wonder what the documentary was about.

Yep. I'm like that too, sometimes to the annoyance of whoever's watching with me. If I like a piece of music I'll start a conversation 'who's this?'. Same with adverts as well.

I'm also in the no background music camp.

What about when you are shopping and it's even in the toilets!!!

Hmmm... I really like it for some things, and really dislike it for other things.

Generally things which require you to think and follow your thought track i.e. homework, tidying up, sorting out etc don't work at all when I have music on in the background.

But things which my mind wanders and I get a bit bored doing it can really help! Like I LOVE listening to music while I'm painting/drawing/doing some kind of artwork, or when I'm exercising, or walking to school. It can just change your mood and attitude towards whatever you're doing.

It's the same in my house. My husband (who is not a musician) has it on all the time. I never have it on when I am working, nor do I like it on if we are having a conversation (either we listen to the music or we talk).

That said I have a few select CDs which I put on when I am marking exam papers. I have several hundred to mark in a very short space of time and I find my mind starts to wander. A carefully chosen CD can provide enough stimulus to keep my mind alert without making me become totally invovled with the music.

We always have something pleasant on in the background when we're entertaining at home. Apart from the sheer pleasure of the music, it can mask any gaps in conversation.

I absolutely hate any form of background music. I am completely paralysed by it and feel stressed if I am in an environment where I have no control over it. I refuse to go into any shops where it is on and always ask for it to be turned off in restaurants. As far as I am concerned it is a form of pollution and is the aural equivalent of breathing in , for example, other people's cigarette smoke.

I think it should be banned from shops, pubs, restaurants etc and do recall an organisation called "Pipedown"(?) which produced a list of pollution-free zones. Of course many professional musicians were members. Does anyone know whether it still exists?

I like it on when I'm cooking tea, washing up, sometimes over a meal etc... My kids are getting familaiar with some of the clarinet repertoire on my CDs - Must be good for their aural skills and early music appreciation I admit though that if its's a piece I am new to learning and have the music in front of me too I like to follow it and then it ceases to be background music and tea can be delayed etc...

Personally, I practically always have music on when I'm working, but it has to be music I know really well, so I'm not 'figuring it out', as it were, as I'm going along, but I find having something on that I know well is really useful and gives me some momentum.

I have two points to make regarding background music...

Firstly, I discovered, some years ago, that if background music is playing while I'm engaged in - how can I put this politiely - 'extracurricular activities' (ahem.... ), I am totally distracted by the music, and I can't concentrate on what I'm doing, and instead find myself humming along, mind wandering ........ Barry White, or Mozart, it makes no difference. So unlike most people I've spoken to, that is one occasion when background music is definitely NOT welcome for me....

Secondly, a friend of mine at universty did an experiment as part of her Psychology degree, investigating the effects (if any) which music exerts over our abillity to memorise. She found that there are two types of situations where music is a factor. Firstly, if music is playing in the background when attempting to memorise something, it generally serves as a distraction, and recall is impacted negatively. But if the same piece of music is playing when attempting to recall the information memorised, it actually aids the process, and recall is greater. If a different piece of music is heard when attemtping to recall memorised information, this effect was not observed. Interesting, I thought....

denmark

Depends what I'm doing...anything that involves lots of concentration, I'll avoid having music on. What I don't like though, as others have said, is having music in shops played loudly. We can't be far off from having Christmas hits piped through our shopping centres...

I don't mind music on for housework but if I am writing an essay then it just distracts me. I also hate too much music on EVERYWHERE. My local swimming pool has just started using music to listen to while you are swimming (and it is really annoying "clubby" music). It was so much nicer when you could just hear the sounds of the swimming pool! I complained but they said "everyone else likes it".

The staff in my local music shop have in the past year started having a small tinny-sounding radio playing - not nice.

It's interesting to read all the different responses!

When doing OU work, I always used to have some music on, but nothing with words! The Bach cello suites were a favourite. When we moved house, the plug sockets didn't work so well, so I ended up doing OU work without music - I dont' know if I could go back to it now, if I did it certainly would still have to have no words, and almost certainly not have recorders in it, or I would be paying far too much attention

If I'm on the train, I'll either be listening to music, OR I'll be reading. It's definitely one or the other not both. In shops, etc, I don't generally hear it.

Argh - really???

A couple of weeks ago I was staying at a hotel in Barnsley (I know, I lead an exciting life ) as I was running a course there. I went for dinner in the restaurant and they were playing these ghastly pan pipes versions of Love Changes Everything (and so on...and on...and on...). I gritted my teeth and managed to get through it - came down for breakfast, a bit bleary-eyed, about 6.45am - and they were playing the pan pipes version of Love Changes Everything...GAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The latest technology will ensure that it will be either Handel's Water Music or Tchaikovsky's 1812 with real cannons!



Steve







PS In reality I HATE background music in shops or anywhere.

I can't stand music played down the phone at me while I am a captive on hold waiting for something. The phone line to get authority scripts approved has a tinny guitar version of the Prelude from Bach's first cello suite - my patients all laugh at me as I hold the phone away from my ear with a pained expression on my face. The worst was a version of Handel's Water Music (can't remember where this was) which sounded as if it was being played underwater.......

Also in the camp of those who find music too distracting when I am trying to concentrate - I like it on for housework but am very choosy about what music goes with what type of housework. And I could never go to sleep listening to music - even hearing a loud party down the road keeps me awake as I can't help counting the beat .

Wolfnotes

I always have music on When I'm writing an essay I have to have music in the bacground (music of MY choice, selfish as it sounds), because otherwise I tend to go in a daydream. Music keeps me concentrated It does have to be something light though, like Chopin's Nocturnes or Chris de Burgh... I don't think that Muse would conduce an essay-writing atmosphere!

Yes it does.

When I was doing battle with Virgin Media recently ( ) and was already nearly apoplectic at the number of push-button options before I actually got to speak to a Real Live Person, I nearly fell off my chair when, after being told that I was in a queue, I was given yet more push-button options - as to the type of music that I would like to listen to whilst being charged 25p a minute .

The choices were, I think, hip-hop, indie, garage..something I can't remember...and then the disembodied voice said, 'But if classical's more your scene, press 5'. I pressed 5 - and got some pap that sounded like a bad imitation of Einaudi .

ARGH ARGH ARGH.

I REALLY hate that! How can I browse or choose sheet music when there is something different playing in the background? I usually end up not bothering unless there is something specific that I need to buy...

W

At least a radio is easier to switch off than a ruddy sound system. One December my local Tesco Metro was playing Christmas hits (Slade, Wizzard, Shakin' Stevens et al ad nauseam), which I traced to a CD player in the corner of the store, and promptly activated the "off" button - and noted with relish how slow the staff were to switch it on again. Had I been challenged I would have pointed out that Tesco is Britain's biggest retailer and they do fine 10-11 months of the year without piped music. Except perhaps that might encourage them to play music all year round...

I would have said I never have background music - it stops me concentrating in a way that talking doesn't. I can only really work with radio 4 on...however I have recently found that music is the only thing which makes ironing attractive.
N

I work in a noisy open plan office and use classical piano music to drown out the endless chatter of impromptu meetings, phones ringing and clunking photocopiers. The reason that piano music works well as background music for me is that I don't engage with it at all. Sorry if I have offended the pianists, but that is how I feel about it.

We shop in Aldi discount - no frills, no music - cheap and wonderfully silent. You can hear yourself think.
We also shop in our local Intermarché - horrid backgound music plus ding-dong voiced adverts. We went there this week and they are being completely refitted and the sound system was off. Real bliss.

We also suffer from background music in films and on television - so loud you can't hear the dialogue and totally unnecessary. I sit with the remote control in my hand. Background music can enhance the drama, yes, but when served up continually it has quite the reverse effect.

The only background music I really like is when I am driving - either the radio if there is something on worth listening to or a CD. If I put on a CD while I am working at home I find in the end I either haven't listened to it or haven't done the work.