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Awesome Songs for Writing with Focus and Concentration

Engage Music to Increase Relaxation, Energy and Focus at Work

Em Robbins
Get your writer's block moving with the right songs to ease your mind and focus your attention on your writing tasks. For a writer, focusing on the process and act of writing can prove difficult, and the right kind of music can be an effective aid in gaining that concentration and focus. Here are some awesome songs to help you focus your ears and mind while you work.

Björk - Jóga

Hailing from Iceland comes an artist who offers a great deal of meditative and focus-inducing sound in her body of work. Jóga from Björk's album Homogenic is a quietly powerful song that is good for building energy for starting a project. It features strings and Björk's vocals accompanied by a light digital beat. The strings build energy in swells with Björk's voice as the slowly developing beat drives the energy of this open but energetic piece.

U2 - Numb

"Numb" is a track from U2's album Zooropa, which was released in 1993. An easy-on-the-ears, steady beat complements driving music plus keyboard accents supplied by ambient guru Brian Eno.

Droning, mantra-like lyrics on top of the heartbeat-like nature of the beat of the song make "Numb" a good song choice when focusing on your work. The random noise art in the song's background can also help drown out construction noises or other distracting sounds in your work environment.

Explosions in the Sky - Glittering Blackness

Featuring a fast, marching band snare-based beat and a combination of clean and distorted electric guitar tones, "Glittering Blackness" is a fantastic instrumental song for focused writing. that increase ever so slowly in intensity and retreat over and over as "Glittering Blackness" goes on. In general, Explosions in the Sky make music that is effective for focusing on your work, but sometimes their work gets a little sleepy for continued focus. "Glittering Blackness" stands out because it helps to build calm mental energy to help power through focus interruptions.

Explosions in the Sky is a band from Austin, Texas that formed around 1999. The song "Glittering Blackness" is on the album "How Strange, Innocence" by Explosions in the Sky, which also features "Time Stops," another moving piece that goes from slow calmness to driving energy, making it a great song to complement high-concentration work like writing.

Fergie - Glamorous

A singer from the super-famous musical act The Black Eyed Peas, Fergie released a solo album that had some powerful hits that featured Fergie on her very own. "Glamorous" is a sweet, simple pop song with some nice, nearly whispered vocals that makes it a non-distracting, mildly energetic song to listen to while writing.

The vocals repeat several times and are produced at an even volume with the rest of the sounds on the single, making them blend well into the music. When Ludacris breaks in for a verse of rap, it helps restore the energy and keep the song moving forward. The vocals also talk about money and the things you can buy with it, so song could prove lyrically motivational if you are writing for money.

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With environmental noises like traffic and children distracting you from your daily craft, the only respite from the noise can be a good work playlist to help keep you focused on your task. Sometimes, it can help to put just short list of songs you know help you write on repeat for the ultimate focus playlist.

Published by Em Robbins

West Coast composer and entertainment writer with a focus on arts, music and media scenes. Contact me at EmRobbinsWrites@gmail.com.  View profile

1 Comments

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  • Jeanne Baney1/18/2011

    Interesting theory! I tend to listen to The Devil Wears Prada while writing.

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