How loud should your music be when writing?

01 May, 2025

Finding Your Writing Rhythm: Why Music Volume is Make-or-Break for Focus

Ever tried having a serious conversation while someone’s blasting music next to you? It’s impossible, right?

Your brain just can’t process both things effectively. It’s a similar deal when you’re trying to write.

Music can be a great tool, but like any tool, you’ve got to use it right. Get the volume wrong, and instead of helping you focus, it just becomes noise that scrambles your thoughts.

I’ve spent countless hours figuring out my own ideal writing environment, and tweaking the sound is a huge part of that. You're a ghostwriter, juggling complex ideas and trying to craft clear, compelling blog posts.

That takes serious concentration. So, let's cut through the noise about music and focus on what actually works, based on what the science says and what I've found personally gets the job done.

The Volume Knob: Your Most Important Control

If there's one takeaway here, it's this: keep the volume low to moderate. Seriously.

Think background hum, not front-row concert.

• Why it Matters: Loud music, no matter the genre, basically bullies your brain. It ramps up your cognitive load (meaning your brain is working overtime just to process the sound), tanks your concentration, and makes it harder to actually understand and piece together the information you're writing about.

  The goal is for music to gently mask distractions, not become one itself. If you find yourself tapping your foot or humming along, chances are it's too loud or too engaging.

• My Rule of Thumb: If I'm consciously noticing the music, it's probably interfering. It should fade into the background, like the quiet hum of an air conditioner you only notice when it stops.

Ditch the Lyrics When You Draft

This one’s a biggie. When you’re deep in the writing process – drafting sentences, structuring paragraphs, finding the right words – music with lyrics is fighting for the same brain space.

• The Brain Battle: Your brain’s language processing centers are already working hard to translate thoughts into text. Lyrics barge in and create interference, like trying to listen to two conversations at once.
• Recommendation: Stick to instrumental tracks during focused writing and editing. Think classical (Baroque is often good), ambient soundscapes, lo-fi beats, certain types of electronic music, or even nature sounds. Save the singalongs for breaks or less demanding tasks.

Finding Your Flow: Tempo, Familiarity, and Simplicity

Beyond volume and lyrics, other factors play a role:

• Tempo: Aim for slow-to-moderate tempos, roughly in the 50-80 beats per minute (BPM) range. Think calming, steady rhythms. While faster (but still quiet!) instrumental music might give you a small energy boost if you're flagging, tread carefully. It can easily tip you over into distraction.
• Familiarity & Simplicity: Stick with music you know well and that has a simple structure. New, complex, or surprising music grabs your attention, pulling you out of the writing zone. You want tracks that are predictable enough to become part of the background.

The Energy Level Sweet Spot (The Yerkes-Dodson Thing)

There's this idea called the Yerkes-Dodson Law. Fancy name, simple concept: you perform best when your energy or "arousal" level is just right – not too high (anxious, scattered) and not too low (bored, sluggish).

Writing complex stuff like blog posts needs that Goldilocks zone.

• Music as a Regulator: Music is a powerful way to nudge your energy levels. Loud, fast, complex music cranks your arousal up (often too high for writing). Quiet, slow, simple music brings it down.
• Using it Wisely: Feeling stressed or overwhelmed? Calming, low-volume music can help soothe your nerves. Feeling sluggish? Maybe slightly more upbeat (but still instrumental and low-volume) music could provide a gentle lift. But again, it's a fine line. The main job is staying focused, and usually, calmer is better. Forget the myth that certain music makes you "smarter" – it's about managing your state.

You're the DJ: Experiment and Find Your Mix

Look, everyone’s different. What helps me focus might drive you nuts.

Introverts might need near silence, while others find a quiet beat helpful. The type of task matters too – brainstorming might handle different music than detailed editing.

• Be Your Own Scientist: Try different things systematically. What volume really works? Does ambient work better than classical for you? Track your focus, your word count, how you feel.
• Tune In (To Yourself): Pay attention to your own focus and energy. Learn to notice when the music is helping and when it's hindering. Don't be afraid to switch playlists, adjust the volume way down, or just turn it off completely. Silence is a valid option! Treat sound like any other tool in your writing kit – use it deliberately.

Why Turning it Down is Non-Negotiable

We’ve established that low-to-moderate volume is key. But let's dig into why this isn't just a suggestion, it's practically a requirement for focused writing.

• Loud Music = Brain Scramble: Research backs this up consistently. Cranking the volume, regardless of what you're listening to, messes with your ability to think clearly, learn, and concentrate.

  For tasks like writing, it can disrupt your thought process, make it harder to absorb information if you're referencing sources, and even slow down your physical typing. Think of it as trying to build something intricate with a jackhammer going off beside you.

• Finding "Low-to-Moderate": What does that actually mean? Forget specific decibel numbers – that gets too technical and varies anyway.

  The real test is whether the music stays in the background. If you have to strain to hear someone talking nearby, it's too loud.

  If the music pulls your attention away from the words on the screen, it's too loud. It should be a backdrop, a gentle sound buffer, not the main event.

  Some compare the ideal ambient noise level to a running shower, but music is trickier because it has structure and rhythm. My experience? For music, you likely need it even quieter than that shower noise to avoid it hijacking your focus.

Keeping Music in the Background, Not Your Face

The whole point of using music effectively while writing is to help you ignore distractions, not create new ones.

• The Sound Buffer: Quiet background music acts like a shield. It masks those annoying little noises – the chatty neighbour, the traffic outside, the dog barking – creating a consistent sound environment.

  This lets your brain relax its "monitoring duty" and dedicate its resources to your writing.

• Crossing the Line: But when the volume creeps up? The music stops being a shield and becomes an attacker. It actively competes for your brainpower – the same attention and working memory you desperately need for crafting sentences, organizing ideas, and keeping track of your argument. Even the calmest music becomes a problem if it's loud enough to demand attention.

  You've got to keep it firmly in the background so your mental energy stays locked on the blog post. Think of your focus like a spotlight – you want it aimed squarely at your writing, not constantly flickering over to the music.

Volume, Energy, and Why Writing is Different

Remember that energy sweet spot (Yerkes-Dodson)? Volume is a direct lever on it.

• Loud = Too Much Buzz: Louder music pumps up your arousal. While a little boost might be okay for simple, boring tasks (like maybe organizing files?), writing needs calm, sustained focus.

  Too much arousal from loud music leads to feeling scattered, anxious, and unable to concentrate deeply – basically, terrible for writing quality.

• Quiet = Calm Focus: Lower volume helps maintain that focused, moderate energy state essential for tackling complex ideas and expressing them clearly.

• Task Matters: This is why generic advice about music for "productivity" can be misleading. What works for data entry (maybe louder, more upbeat tunes) is likely detrimental to drafting a thoughtful article.

  Writing demands more nuance, more cognitive heavy lifting, making it far more sensitive to over-stimulation from high volume.

It’s Not Just How Loud, But What You Play

Okay, volume is crucial. But the type of music interacts heavily with it.

You can have the volume perfectly low, but if the music itself is jarring, it defeats the purpose.

• The Lyric Problem (Again): This is the big one we touched on. If you take nothing else away about music type, remember this: lyrics clash directly with the language part of your brain you need for writing.

  It’s like trying to read a book while someone reads a different book aloud right next to you. Your brain tries to process both, and neither gets the focus it needs.

  • Stick to Instrumentals: For drafting, editing, and deep thinking, instrumental music is almost always the better bet. Classical (especially Baroque), ambient, lo-fi, some electronic, movie soundtracks, nature sounds – these don't create that cognitive traffic jam.

  Some people say they can handle lyrics in languages they don't speak or songs they know so well the words are just sounds, but why risk it? Go instrumental for core writing tasks.

• Tempo and Rhythm: Speed matters.

  • Fast (120+ BPM): Can give you an energy jolt, maybe useful for brainstorming bursts or admin tasks, but generally too stimulating for deep writing focus.
  • Slow-to-Moderate (50-80 BPM): This is often the sweet spot. Think calm, steady, and conducive to concentration. Music around 60 BPM (common in Baroque) is often cited as ideal.
  • Consistency: Predictable rhythms are less distracting than music with lots of sudden changes or complex, syncopated beats that grab your attention.

• Keep it Simple, Keep it Familiar:

  • Familiarity: Music you already know well fades into the background more easily. New music makes your brain work harder to process it, stealing focus.
  • Simplicity: Simple, repetitive structures (like in ambient or lo-fi) are less demanding on your brain than complex compositions with lots of variation.

• Good Genre Starting Points: Based on the above, writers often find success with:

  • Classical: Especially Baroque (think Bach).
  • Ambient/Electronic: Look for instrumental, steady, atmospheric tracks.
  • Lo-fi Hip Hop: Designed for background focus.
  • Nature Sounds/White Noise: Excellent for masking external noise without adding musical distraction.
  • Avoid: Pop, rock, hip hop (with lyrics), complex jazz, anything overly fast, loud, or emotionally intense during focused writing periods.

Remember, the genre label isn't magic. It's about the characteristics: no lyrics, steady moderate tempo, simple structure, familiar sound.

Volume then acts like the master control – keep it low, and you allow these beneficial characteristics to work for you, not against you.

Watch Out: When Music Turns Against You

Using music while writing isn't foolproof. Get it wrong, and it can actively sabotage your efforts.

It’s crucial to understand the potential traps.

• Overloading Your Brain: Think of your brain's working memory like your computer's RAM. It’s what you use for active tasks – holding onto ideas, structuring sentences, remembering key points for the blog post.

  Music, especially if it's loud, complex, or new to you, demands some of that RAM just to be processed. If the music takes up too much space, you have less capacity left for the actual writing.

  This can make it harder to learn things if you're researching, solve problems in your draft, or just generally think straight. It's like trying to run too many programs at once – everything slows down.

• The Distraction Danger: This is the most obvious one. Music, by its nature, can grab your attention.

  Lyrics are a prime culprit, as we've discussed, but so are sudden changes in tempo or volume, or even just a track you really love (or hate!). If your focus keeps snapping back to the music, you're not in the writing zone.

  This constant attention-switching kills productivity and can even mess with your comprehension if you're trying to read source material while listening. It's an "attention leak" – your mental energy is draining away from the task at hand.

• Emotional Interference: Music hits us emotionally, right? That can be good, helping set a mood.

  But it can also backfire. If a track makes you feel super excited, intensely sad, or even just irritated, that strong emotion can become its own distraction.

  It might also clash badly with the tone you need for the article you're writing for your client. Imagine trying to write a serious business piece while listening to intensely melancholic music – it's going to be an uphill battle.

  And forcing yourself to listen to music you actively dislike? That's just asking for a bad mood and tanked motivation.

• Feeling Good vs. Writing Well: Sometimes, music can make the process feel better. You might feel like you're in a flow state, cruising along.

  But be careful – that good feeling doesn't always equal good work. It's possible for music, especially more engaging tracks, to subtly lower the quality of your thinking, making your arguments weaker or your language less precise, even while you feel productive.

  You have to judge by the results, not just the feeling.

The common thread? Interference. Loud, lyrical, complex, or overly emotional music fights for the same limited mental resources you need for writing.

Be especially mindful during the heavy lifting parts – drafting complex sections or editing meticulously. What works for brainstorming might actively harm your focus later.

What Other Writers Are Doing (Hint: It Lines Up)

It's always useful to see what other professionals in the trenches are doing. While everyone has their quirks, when you look at writers and bloggers discussing music, some clear patterns emerge that echo the research:

• Instrumental is King for Focus: Many pros specifically mention switching to instrumental music (classical, ambient, lo-fi, soundtracks) or even just ambient noise when they need to buckle down and write or edit. They know lyrics get in the way.
• Music for Mood: Some writers use music intentionally to create an atmosphere that matches their topic, using specific playlists to get into the right headspace for a particular piece. It becomes part of their creative immersion.
• Different Stages, Different Sounds: Smart writers often adapt their soundscape. Maybe upbeat instrumental for brainstorming, quiet ambient for drafting, and near silence for final proofreading. Some even use music as a "start work" signal before turning it down or off.
• Volume Control is Conscious: You'll hear writers talk about keeping the music in the background, deliberately managing the volume so it doesn't intrude on their thoughts.
• Beyond Music: Many writers swear by non-musical options: white noise, pink noise, rain sounds, the simulated hum of a coffee shop. These mask distractions without adding musical complexity.

What does this mean for you as a ghostwriter crafting blog posts? It means you're dealing with the same cognitive challenges as other professional writers.

The strategies they use – avoiding lyrics for deep work, controlling volume, choosing simpler sounds, maybe using ambient noise – are directly applicable to keeping your focus sharp and your writing quality high.

Managing your sound environment isn't just a minor tweak; it's a fundamental part of building a productive and sustainable writing routine.

Matching Your Soundtrack to the Task

Writing isn't one single activity, right? Brainstorming feels different from editing, which feels different from formatting.

The type of focus you need changes. So, why should your background sound stay the same?

Here’s a breakdown of how you might adjust your music and volume based on the specific writing stage:

Table 1: Music & Volume Strategies for Blog Writing Stages

Bringing It All Together: Tuning Your Focus

So, what’s the bottom line? Using music effectively while writing your blog posts is a balancing act.

It’s about the specific sounds, how loud they are, what you’re trying to accomplish at that moment, and even your own personal wiring.

But the overwhelming message from both research and practical experience is this: be mindful, especially with volume. Loud music is generally bad news for the complex thinking required in writing.

It overloads your brain, distracts you, and can push your energy levels into the unhelpful "anxious/scattered" zone. Low-to-moderate volume is where you want to be, letting the sound act as a background buffer, not a competing main event.

And while volume is job number one, the type of music is a close second. Instrumental is almost always better than lyrics when you need to focus on language.

Simple, familiar tracks with steady, moderate-to-slow tempos (think classical, ambient, lo-fi) tend to work best because they demand less of your brainpower.

My strongest recommendation? Start there. Use familiar, simple, instrumental music at a genuinely low volume, especially when drafting and editing.

But don't stop there. The real key is paying attention to yourself.

Experiment. Notice how different sounds and volumes affect your focus, your energy, your writing quality.

Adjust accordingly. Don't be afraid to switch to silence – sometimes it’s exactly what you need.

Think of music (and silence) as tools in your ghostwriting toolkit. Like any tool, they're most powerful when you understand how they work and use them deliberately.

Master your auditory environment, starting with that volume knob, and you’ll be better equipped to produce the focused, high-quality writing your clients depend on.

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