For the last few weeks, I’ve been putting music on in the background while I’ve been writing. That’s not something I’ve done much of in the past. I tend to find songs with vocals distracting, and often the tempo and mood of the song clashes with the ideas I’m trying to get down on paper (too upbeat, too downbeat, too much damn fun that I tend to stop writing to listen!). But ever since author Gareth Powell shared his “Writing” playlist on Spotify, I’ve changed my mind.

Almost all of the music in this playlist is instrumental, and that helps. A lot of it is drawn from film scores which seem especially good at capturing mood in a non-invasive way. It’s music that to some extent can disappear into the background (which is what I want) yet works its magic in terms of mood and inspiration.

And boy is there a lot of it! About 96 hours all told, so little danger of getting bored hearing the same tracks over and over. I’m familiar with some of the work, but much of it is new to me and there are some real gems in there–another bonus!

So if working to laid back, subtle-but-inspirational background music is your kind of thing, then I urge you to give it a try. (And many thanks, Gareth, for sharing!)

Here’s the link to the playlist: https://open.spotify.com/user/112472346/playlist/2Wg8GUdE42nN7usTMkRomo