Some artists prefer to paint to the arpeggios of flamenco guitar, while some reporters require the driving beats of house music to punch through their story on a fast-approaching deadline. Still others swear they need the high-pitched screams of heavy metal guitar solos or the wordplay of hip hop’s golden age to inspire their work. And on the other end of the spectrum, many people consider music nothing more than a distraction, preferring instead to crank out their work in total silence.
“Any music has the potential to help you with creativity or rapid decision making,” says Gabriela Ilie, an associate professor of psychology and neuroscience at Dalhousie University in Canada. “It depends on the qualities of the music.”
Ilie has studied the effects that music has on creativity for decades. She was first inspired by the subject in the 1990s after reading a study — and then follow-up research ...
