120 Words-per-minute

23/2/2014

Introducing Volume 2 of Music for Writing, the product of this exercise that we undertook last year to explore the music that students, researchers, teachers and tutors use to accompany and influence the task of academic writing.

The title of this playlist is a play on the phrase used to indicate the tempo of a piece of music, as well as the description attached to typing efficiency. So, music and writing. The title is also explained by the fact that the tracks collected here are generally of a much higher tempo than on Volume 1: Classical Composition.

I think both collections have their place, perhaps reflecting that we undertake different types of writing and that these varying compositional forms merit distinct types of aural accompaniment. But don't just agree with me: why not use the comments function below to indicate whether and how this playlist might influence of disrupt your own academic writing (or if you nominated a track, tell us how it works for you).

Music for Writing (Volume 2): 120 words-per-minute by Elektronicheslernenmuzik on Mixcloud

1. What I don’t know won’t hurt me
Betty Lavette
2. Let’s Wade in The Water
Marlena Shaw
3. Tightrope (Solo version)
Janelle Monae
4. Teenage Kicks
Nouvelle Vague
5. Hanging on the Telephone
Souvenir
6. The Robots
Kraftwerk
7. Hallogallo
Neu!
8. Revolution 909
Daft Punk
9. Burnt Out Car (Mark Brown Mix)
Saint Etienne
10.Pontape Remake 2013
Renato Cohen

2 Comments

Michael Gallagher link

28/2/2014 10:08:55 am

I could see this playlist (excellent, by the way) as useful to accompany a particular kind of writing, something rough, like a draft. When I first dive in and write like there is no tomorrow. I find it providing me energy (and some resilience) to engage in the writing, but not enough aural clarity to get me to a point of being able to write with refinement. I would use different music for more precision or to revise the draft. I could see it as celebratory after writing music, as well. Excellent work.

Jeremy Knox

4/3/2014 07:50:36 pm

I definitely agree with Michael’s comment about draft writing. At the moment I’m quite enjoying the process of gathering notes, quotes, images and links together in a document, with the intention that it will eventually become some more formal writing, but actually not containing much in the way of structure and refinement…or actual writing. I find that to be quite an exhilarating process where ideas form and associations are made quickly, without the hindrance or interruption of actually having to think through a coherent sentence. I see this playlist as potentially useful for that kind of gathering of ideas, but also perhaps as involved in the process of working into such a document. There seems to be a transition into a less lyrical, moodier, electronic, more repetitive mode, which while remaining at a similar tempo, would more like the kind of audio ambiance I’d write to. I wonder if this playlist is therefore useful to see through the earlier stages of ideas-generation into more formal, or at least more refined, writing. I sometimes find there is a level of excitement about an idea that is sometimes hard to maintain in the (laborious?) requirements for explanation and clarification in academic writing. Can a playlist provide some kind of sensory support to drilling deeper into ideas I wonder? Pontape Remake 2013 is awesome.

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120 Words-per-minute

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