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Music for a writing session
A special case of music for focus. The line of a sentence is more fragile than the line of a function.
Music for writing is a special case of music for focus, and the rules are slightly different. Code can be paused mid-thought. A sentence cannot. Anything that breaks the line of a sentence is more expensive than anything that breaks the line of a function.
Specifically: no vocals you can parse. The focus room handles this for code well enough — a vocal in a foreign language, or a vocal so washed it isn't language anymore, is fine for code, but a single intelligible word will cost you a paragraph. The writing brief is stricter.
What I use for first drafts is one long ambient piece, on repeat, for the length of the session. Familiar enough that the brain has stopped scanning it. The same album for a whole book, sometimes. It becomes part of the room you're writing in, more than music to write to.
Editing is different. Editing tolerates structure — short pieces, modern classical, anything with internal eventfulness — because editing is a different kind of attention. You're scanning, not generating. The music can do more without costing you anything.