Creative thinking is needed now more than ever.

In today’s world, businesses look for creative minds that will not only look outside the box, but will turn it all inside out for an innovative idea.

Luckily, creativity is not just for artists or geniuses. You can unleash your creativity to its utmost effectiveness with music.

According to studies, any music has an effect on us. It affects how we feel and thus affects our performance. 

You know what they say, the better we feel, the better we perform.

So if you’re looking for ways to improve your creativity, you better start letting your mind wander as you listen to music to unlock new grounds to divulge.

Why music?

Hans Christian Andersen once said, “Where words fail, music speaks.” 

Music transcends language. It speaks to you without always speaking and helps you speak without using your words.

In fact, music can be a key component in improving your productivity and focus while working.

One new study by Simone M. Ritter and Sam Ferguson shows how music improves cognition and impacts creativity. It provides employees with stress relief and increased concentration, which help with more creative possibilities they can access.

Here’s why this can help you when creating a design or writing content for a certain project:

A- It can bring powerful emotions

Emotions are more important than you think when it comes to work. Especially in the marketing world… Everything is based on emotions.

You attract customers by their emotions, you create content that speaks to emotions, you sway people with the way of writing or speaking that appeals to their emotions. That’s how the business world works and that’s how it will always be.

So, why not use yours when working on some creatives? Why not switch on those emotions to boost that creativity of yours?

Through music, the limbic system that is associated with emotions and memory is activated. All these feelings and emotions generated by the music in the background transfers into the work you are creating.

It’s really all about you and about perspectives.

Whether positive or negative, creativity is often birthed by emotions. Embrace it, don’t fear it. Let your projects, campaigns, designs, or content show those parts because humans relate to humans and that emotional creativity is either something people will relate to or feel inspired by.

B- Increases focus

Music and focus.

Believe it or not, not all sounds are distracting. 

And some sounds act as a distraction from the distracting sounds.

Music can help you frame the concept you are going with and section it.

With music and focus, your content will follow a certain pattern or rhyme that resonates with the bigger picture. Your design will feel coordinated and your content will feel well packed.

Let’s talk science…

Music can help you focus by providing a consistent and structured auditory stimulus. Repeated rhythm and consistent beat. By that, your brain tunes out all different inconsistent sounds that might interrupt your train of thoughts or train of creativity.

Music acts as a form of background noise that can help drown out distractions and create a more conducive environment to concentrate. So when working on a campaign and you’re looking for this consistent theme or concept that weaves throughout it all, you’re gonna want to focus on one vibe and follow through. 

An inconsistent and fragmented look to a project shows weakness in the execution… better get yourself focused on a mood and pick a genre that speaks to the project you’re taking on.

Quick tip: Classical and instrumental music have been shown to have a calming effect that reduces stress and anxiety, thus improving your ability to focus. 

But really… It all depends on taste.

C- Improves your mood

Music boosts your mood. simple.

It influences the release of neurotransmitters in the brain (such as dopamine and serotonin) associated with positive emotions. This reduces stress and anxiety and allows you to enter a place of calmness and relaxation.

By being in this state of improved mood, you can unlock creativity as your brain will break down mental blocks, get increased motivation, and attract more inspiration.

When you feel positive, you become more open-minded, less self-critical, and more open to see things in a different light. 

Think differently, not being afraid of exploring new grounds, seeing things from a different angle. All of these are necessary in marketing and creative thinking because they allow you to portray and sell more than what’s on the shelf- you sell possibilities and you sell solutions, that’s how you get creative. (all of this is influenced by your mood… crazy right?)

D- Sparks inspiration and kickstarts the creative process

Music can spark your inspiration and boost your creativity by stimulating the creative process. Starting with information gathering, to the incubation of new connections, reaching deeper layers of ideas, up until the verification process where the vision starts forming. Music can guide you through it all.

Whether it’s the melody, the rhythm, or the lyrics, music fosters some sort of “framed” or “specific” environment that helps target and narrow down creative tasks. 

So when you’re finding yourself lost with a project and don’t know where to start, playing some music can help you focus on a certain flow and find that theme for every project, idea, or design.

It will trigger the “declique” you might have been waiting for, that peak of inspiration- that aha moment.

Wondering what to write for that Christmas campaign that doesn’t sound like every other brand? Try some Christmas songs and throw in some Dean Martin or Mariah Carey for inspiration and how they play with words while singing.

Struggling to think of a design for a funky festival? Try putting some upbeat music and let the sounds create that atmosphere or mood for you to arrange and organize your ideas.

So, turn that volume up and let yourself soak into the music.

There are so many ways you can increase your creativity (via Creative Agency UAE) and help yourself when facing a creative block. But there is nothing more convenient and applicable on the daily than using music

So next time you’re feeling that Monday blues or that uninspired state of mind, try listening to some music (or feeling the beat and melody). The ideas will come to you naturally.