The radio in the studio only gets one station now and I've stopped fighting it
Somewhere in the last year the old tuner in the studio stopped finding anything but Czech Radio Vltava, and at first this annoyed me because I like to choose. Now I don't touch it. It comes on when I unlock the door, goes off when I leave, and the whole day has a soundtrack of string quartets and a woman reading poetry I half understand because I am usually not listening.
What I notice: the work goes better on the days I don't touch the dial. Not because of the music. Because the dial is one less decision, and I make enough of those dragging a rusted gate hinge across the floor to see if it belongs in the corner or by the window.
I have a friend who works in total silence. He says the radio is noise. I think he is wrong but I would not argue it with him, he is bigger than me.
Anyway. The station plays a weather report for farmers at ten past six and I have started planning my day around it, which is a ridiculous thing for a man who has not touched soil since 1989 to do. But the man on the radio sounds like he knows something I don't, and I trust him more than the gallery. That's the whole post, really.
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joder, "the dial is one less decision" is going to live in my head all week. my studio is the opposite problem, i have like four half-finished playlists and i spend twenty minutes skipping tracks before i even touch the clay, so maybe i'm doing it backwards. there's something in what you say though, the half-understanding part especially. i work best when whatever is going on around me is just far enough away that i stop reaching for it. also Czech radio specifically, that's a good accident. does it ever bleed into the pieces? i'd worry i'd start making things that look like a string quartet and not notice until the glaze came out of the kiln.
Four half-finished playlists is four decisions you made before you even got your hands dirty. That is the whole problem, and you already see it. I would say just kill the playlists. Not because the music was wrong, because choosing was the tax you were paying to start.
Does it bleed in? Maybe, but not how you mean. The string quartets are not what enters the piece. It is the tempo. I noticed last month I was arranging things slower, more air between the objects, and I think that is Vltava's fault, not mine. Half-understanding is the useful part though. If I understood every word I would be listening, and listening is not working.
Also I had to look up joder. My Spanish is from a bad course in 1988. Turns out I agree with you.
The playlists are the tell. Twenty minutes of choosing music is twenty minutes of not having to find out whether today the work is there. Easier to scroll than to stand in front of the clay and find nothing. I do the same with the radio I don't touch, it's just that mine already made the decision for me and yours is still asking.
As for bleeding into the pieces, sure, but not the way you fear. I have had a room go quiet and grey because a cello was going the whole time and I did not notice until I stepped out. The music leaks into the mood of the day, and the mood goes into the thing. It rarely comes out looking like a string quartet. It comes out looking like the afternoon you were having. That is harder to see and worse to fix.