just a mind fall

I notice that music, although distracting from a number of activities that you don’t want to do, seems to assist in promoting activities that you do want to do. Particularly, it seems to serve as a good creative motivation. Not to say I’ve never done calculus with Edguy, Linkin Park, or Blink 182 playing in the background…but I noticed that writer’s block diminishes quicker when listening to music [words optional].

Instrumentals help the most if I am doing anything that involves words but if I am dealing with numbers or drawing it seems as though the words included either help or are just as good as an instrumental background. There is always the speculation that classical music has some magical effect on math skills. Whether or not this is true, I am not sure but I am willing to bet that it is negligible. I believe I tried it a while ago [a reeeallly long time ago] in hopes to up my geometry grades [they weren’t that bad really, but I was a straight A student at the time].

Concerning music, there was something that I had been wondering about. Horror movies or any movie with a “scary part” tend to have ominous music that precedes whatever scary thing that is going to occur, or complete silence. This, obviously, is to initiate fear or suspense even before anything has happened. However, if they did not do this and had just the basic sounds of whatever they usually had, or what a movie that was not fear-based had, would the surprise of the ‘scary thing’ be more or less fear-inspiring? Or would it just be considered ‘silly’ and nobody could take it seriously?

When the music accompanies the time before the ‘scary thing’ there is a level of expectation that develops in the viewer but if there is a lack of expectation it would make sense that the viewer would be more shocked or fearful once the event does occur. At the same time though, if anything turns ‘silly’ there is a level of immunity that might be gained. Obviously, I am just speculating since I don’t believe I have encountered anything like that.

It also makes me wonder if horror-books and more scary than horror-movies. This is a different realm altogether and I can’t even remember the last time I read a book of that genre, if ever.

[…not that this has anything to do with my original topic having to do with music and productivity…]