Music to Paint By

If you're like me, you often have music playing while you work. A novelist friend of mine told me once that she always played music while writing, even when laboring on difficult passages or struggling to write a single word. It made the creative process easier, somehow. As a writer of historical fiction, she also played music from the era in her current fiction--chamber music from the early 19th century as she wrote about the English Regency for example. She claimed it smoothed her brain's alpha waves, making the writing smoother too. Maybe so. On the other hand, there are plenty of people who demand utter silence when they paint or can't write or do sums unless the room is still. 

"Willie," digital drawing

I like music when I work, whether it's digital or actual paint. During long ago studio sessions we almost always had music, chosen by the instructor,  usually classical or smooth jazz. Nothing challenging, nothing to capture attention. Never hard rock, or for that matter country or even top 40 pop. No, mostly it was jazz, commonly piano or saxophone ballads. My taste runs to the same general direction but traditional  rock or honky-tonk country music can be a tasty alternative.