Zack’s Writing Soundtrack

Like many of us, music is a near constant in my daily life, and certain activities are better suited to certain types of music. Although I’m fairly omnivorous in my musical tastes, the focus required for writing often leads me to music that leans heavy into the instrumental side of the scale. More often than not, this means sifting through specific titles from the cd collection or streaming platform.

But early in the writing process for Musical Intimacy, I attended a fantastic talk by Regina Bradley who, at the time, had just published Chronicling Stankonia (2021, University of North Carolina Press), and was dropping absolute knowledge bombs about her writing and marketing process for the book. One of the ideas that Dr. Bradley shared was her practice of a curated playlist to serve as a soundtrack to writing.

Writing is of course a journey that constantly shifts and moves in directions both expected and not. And the way that I approached it, this playlist became a side quest of sorts; I started populating it in the early summer of 2021, but continued to add tracks and re-sequence the playlist over the course of writing Musical Intimacy. It leans heavily on jazz and jazz adjacent tunes, and as such, also helped to shape Jazzish, the radio show that I began in the fall of 2022. Mostly newer artists, a few favorites sprinkled in, but all in all grooves that I relied on while writing and revising.

Enjoy! What are your go to artists/albums/tunes for writing? Let us know in the comments!