i don't listen to music in the studio anymore
used to always have something on, podcasts, playlists, the same few albums on rotation. then about six months ago i just stopped. didn't plan it. one day i realized i'd been working in silence for a week straight.
at first i thought something was wrong with me. like i couldn't focus. but turns out i was just hearing the work for the first time. the paper moving. the brush clicking against the jar. my own breathing.
now when i try to put something on it feels like someone talking over a conversation i was already having. weird how long it took me to notice.
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I know what you mean. I had a similar stretch maybe eight years ago, went silent for about a year without deciding to. When I went back to music it was only certain things, and only some days. Still can't have anything with words in it when I'm working. The brain grabs onto language like a handhold.
What you said about hearing the work for the first time, that's it exactly. There's a kind of rhythm in the studio that's not music but has its own pulse. The scrape of the palette knife, the sound of a dry brush crossing canvas. Once you start hearing that, anything else is interference.
I still go back and forth. Sometimes music, sometimes not. But I notice the silence is never an accident anymore. I choose it.
Yes, the language thing is so real. I can do instrumental music too but even then it has to be pretty ambient or it pulls me out.
I've noticed I'm way more aware of my own sounds now too, the brush rinsing, water splashing, even the cats walking through. It's kind of nice actually. Like the studio feels more like a place where something is happening instead of just background noise while I work.
the cat thing hits. mine will walk across the table and i can hear her paws now. never noticed before. feels like the studio got bigger somehow when i stopped filling it.
yeah, the language thing is real. i can do instrumental stuff sometimes but even that depends on the day. there's something about the silence that made me realize how much i was using music to fill space instead of actually being in the room with what i was making.
the palette knife scrape though, that's a good one. i've been paying more attention to the sounds of different brushes lately. some are almost silent, some have this tiny scratch. never noticed before.