I am feeling quite inspirationless today (to the extent of making up such words as inspirationless) and am not quite sure what to blog about… Could tell you about my driving lesson, in which I did things like a ‘turn in the road’ (we don’t call ’em three-point-turns anymore) and ‘parallel parking’ (not sure what I was parallel to, but it certainly wasn’t either the car in front or the kerb). 
When we arrived back at my house, we discovered that one of the front tyres was flat (which explained the odd, urgent motions a cyclist had made on the way) – and so I ended the lesson holding an umbrella over my instructor, whilst he changed the tyre. Our Vicar has repeatedly tried to explain to myself and The Carbon Copy how to change a tyre, but always seemed to choose a day when I was wearing white, and thus not overly eager to be ‘hands-on’…
Something I hadn’t got around to mentioning yet is 
that Kirsty tagged me for Six Random Facts about myself – well, I went two better back in May 07, when someone asked me to do Eight Random Facts – see it here. Which got me thinking about music, as that was one of my random facts.
What do you listen to when you read? Some favourite CDs, or the radio? Or do you need silence? Perhaps you read anywhere, with people chat
ting all around you.
I tend to go for quiet, soothing, beautiful music – though with a singer, rather than classical or instrumental. Usually, like the books I like best, by women. Nothing too distracting, and preferably all by the same artist, so that it can blend into the background and offer no surprises…
I’ve dotted some of my favourite CDs around this post. Clicking on them should take you to their relevant Amazon page…
Came here from Tiffany Norris’s blog. The Janni Visman novel sounds fascinating.
Just the birds singing and the ocean whooshing for me! If there is music, I want to listen to the lyrics and lose my concentration.
I also lose my concentration with lyrics. I love to listen to classical guitar when I read, especially from the baroque period.
I love everything performed by Julian Bream.
I can’t listen to music and read at the same time :( .
Music for me is something to concentrate on as much as reading, so the two tend to be mutually exclusive. My partner is a musician, so it’s a big topic of conversation in our house.
Like “Kirsty” I cannot bear distractions when listening to music. At live performances I tend to keep my eyes closed as the musicians themsleves are visually distracting. I can tolerate other sounds while reading, but I will always try to eliminate them if I can.
The only exception to this is when I am trying to improve my flute playing and then I listen to a piece with score in hand; this of course reduces my enjoyment of the music, but hopefully makes some small difference to the way I play it.
Dark Puss
Ah, I had forgotten when I posted this that the term ‘background music’ can be considered sacrilege! My friend Hannah once strongly berated me for it. I’m afraid I have never come close to reaching an appreciation of music (for its own sake) in the way that I do reading. My loss.
My freshman year of college, I had a roommate who couldn’t study or sleep if there wasn’t music playing . . . and I can’t do either of those if there is. We were not very happy people.
But I love listening to music if I’m just doing something with my hands, or if I’m just lying around thinking. My favorite band is Eisley, and I especially like songs like Brightly Wound or Lost at Sea.
My preference would be to have music playing in my life’s background all the time–the type depending on the activity!
But I can read anywhere with anything going on in the background. My husband? Needs total silence.
i like reading outdoors, so i guess my favorite soundtrack is “sounds of nature”. there are places like parks where u can really forget the world outside the book.