You may have read by now in one of my interviews how fond I am of classical music. In fact, I usually listen to Classic FM all day long.
Another thing I love is reading the Economist. I may disagree with half their editorials, but they’re always well-written and interesting. I do not have shares or any other financial interest in this journal, if you were wondering; I just enjoy reading articles that range from economics –obviously- to politics and scientific discoveries. Which brings me to the present blog post.
You see, scientists and advertisers do all sorts of research to see what enhances our shopping experience. In other words, they try to see how they can sell more to us. In a new study commissioned by eBay and presented by The Economist, the researchers were trying to find how each type of sound affects our shopping experience.
The first easy conclusion is that annoying noises such as a crying baby or road works are perfect for putting you off shopping (perhaps a good hint next time Electra wants to buy more shoes and/or bags).
However, classical music makes people overestimate the quality of goods on offer and drives shoppers to pay more for items.
So, my question is this: how can I convince my reviewers to listen to classical music when they review my books? Can we start a “bring back classical music” campaign? “Mozart for books,” perhaps?
Anyone that has an easy and applicable solution, feel free to comment!
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Hurray! Someone speaking up for real, er, classical music. All my books were fueled by it. A post in my blog suggests a soundtrack for my book series. And yes, silence is good too.
Link, please! What’s the link to the soundtrack? 🙂
Dang! I should have said “playlist,” not “soundtrack.” You won’t find a sound file, unfortunately, but here is a link: https://audreydriscoll.com/2014/04/19/playlists-for-the-herbert-west-series/
No, I got it. I just wanted to have the link here so people can visit your blog 🙂
Thanks for the link!
I love classical music and used to listen to it all the time but for the past two years or so cannot write with anything on in the background except silence. Don’t understand this.
I, too, love silence. There are times when I need perfect silence to write, and others when I don’t mind a bit of music. Nothing with words, though. 🙂
Definitely nothing with words but for the most part, crisp, clean silence. Sigh.
Why the sigh? I love silence! That’s when I can hear the voices in my head the clearest 😀
😀 My fingers copied a release of innocent breath, nothing to do with silence. 😀
I love classical music too. When you figure out how to package this way, let us all in on the secret!
Lol – deal! 😀
I listen to music when I’m writing, too, always something appropriate for the time period. I enjoy listening to classical music, but I confess I’m a Jim Brickman junkie. His music can set the mood for any scene in my contemporary books.
Jim Brickman, nice! 😀
You could always compile a soundtrack for your books. I haven’t but if I did the stuff on there would range from Mozart to Green Day. So…. Quite an eclectic mix. 🙂
Cheers
MTM
Lovely! I do have mixes for driving etc, so I might actually try that 🙂
A lot of the most vivid scenes I write pop up while I’m listening to music. I just play the song a couple of times and write down what I’ve seen.
Cheers
MTM
Isn’t synesthesia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia) supposed to be a condition? If so, it seems that a lot of us suffer from it! 😀
The music/ pictures thing may not quite be the same. It’s more like its a backing track and I see stuff. My Mum sees all letters as colours but numbers are grey -neither she nor I have passed a maths exam since we were nine. I relate numbers to space so while I write them the wrong way around and muddle them up, I can guess metric to imperial conversions quite well because I can visualise fractions so it’s two bars against one another and to increase or decrease you just move one in your mind’s eye and the other goes too.
I imagine groups of numbers as shapes which can help me remember phone numbers etc. I also can’t look at art or write with gloves on because they translate as texture and I need to ‘feel’ it between my fingers.
Weird isn’t it. I wish I had a stronger dose of synisthesia. It would be cool.
Cheers
MTM
Awesome! You’re amazingly extraordinary, now I’m envious!
It’s not that exciting, honest. I think it would be if it was one of the coloury ones…
Hi Nicholas,
I love classical music and need to listen for my soul. I’m sure having classical music playing in the background would make all the difference. Perhaps authors should include a disc with their book where the reader could listen to the appropriate classical music while reading.
Juliet
Now, there is a thought! “Buy one book, get a CD to listen to while you read” 😀