If my life was a movie, it would have wall-to-wall music

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I hate silence. As I sit here in my office writing this, I am really aware of how quiet it all seems – just the soft sounds of keyboards tapping, a few quiet conversations, footsteps along the corridor... and it is distracting. I just can’t concentrate on anything when there is no music on!

Let me go and grab my MP3 player... ah that’s better!

Now with my head full of music (Barry Manilow, since you asked) I can concentrate better, focus and feel the creative juices flowing for this entry. Silence, for me, is loud and really distracts me. Music, on the other hand, has the opposite effect.

So whenever I can, I scrap to music. I find that I actually produce better work when I do it to music. It isn’t always possible as it isn’t very sociable at crops to wear my earplugs and sometimes at home I’m in the dinning room scrapping and my husband might be watching TV or something, so we keep that on instead. But scrapping to music, in the words of Mr Manilow, could be magic.

As I have said before, my music tastes ARE quite cheesy, just in case you hadn’t noticed. I just love anything pop, anything commercial and anything that’s on the radio. I also just adore 80s pop and grew up on a steady diet of Duran Duran, Wham, Miami Sound Machine, The Police, Michael Jackson and a few Latin groups like Timbiriche, Mecano and Nacha Pop. I love music I can dance to and music I can sing to – even if I’m actually quite a bad singer (really. No, really)

I also like really embarrassing stuff like the ubiquitous Mr Manilow, S Club 7, and my top favourite: music from Disney movies. All of that eclectic mix is what lives in my MP3 player and it is quite a good job that no one else can listen in as it is quite shameful sometimes the stuff I listen to!

I do also seriously like classical music and movie scores, I have a real soft spot for R&B and grew up listening to Opera which I also love. I guess I just love music, but music that feels “musical” not just random noises (a bit like House or Garage which I really don’t get, perhaps I’m showing my age). One of my first “dates” with my now-husband revolved around us listening to the entire Michael Jackson “History” album: all 2 CDs of it. Twice. We sat and chatted and listened to the music... and that whole album has great memories for us since.

I’ve been having quite a busy week and it’s not until Friday evening when I will have the chance to sit down and scrap. I’m looking forward to it already: an evening of playing with my lovely stash, getting a few pages done and singing along to Copacabana: bliss!

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