Can you write with music on? Not every writer can. I used to love having music on when I wrote, I even found playing a certain CD would get me in the headspace to write. But eventually, that changed. Now I listen to classical music sometimes, other times even that is too much.
However, with noisy neighbours and a main road right outside my window, I usually need something to drown that out without overwhelming me. For that, I use ambient sounds.
There is a great website called A Soft Murmur that allows you to create some simple ambient sounds for free. You can’t download them, but you can have the gently playing in the background while you work.
Main Page
When you first open the website, this is the screen you see. Clear, simple dashboard. As you scroll down you see the sounds you can choose from.
Sounds
For the free version, you get Rain, Thunder, Waves, Wind, Fire, Birds, Crickets, Coffee Shop, Singing Bowl and White Noise. For more sounds, you do need to upgrade.
Each sound has a bar beneath that you can move, this will raise the sound and change the intensity/volume. As you can see, when I took the above screenshot – my ambient sound was mostly cracking fire, with gentle cricket noises and a very low singing bowl.
Timer
There is also a Timer setting. This allows you to start a timer for when the sounds can start or stop playing.
Mixes
The Mixes button opens up this option for saving your ambient sounds. I have not logged up for A Soft Murmur and yet it still saved my mix and is available whenever I go in. If you clear your cookies, it may remove that – I haven’t tried it.
This means you can create a few different mixes for different moods or writing projects. I’m not sure if there is a limit on how many mixes you can save for the free version, but the fact you can save any is pretty good.
Share
Next, the Share button is exactly what it sounds like – you can share your mix on your social media or copy the link to clipboard.
Meander
Finally, there is the Meander button, which is this little wavy line. As you can see below, this just allows the different sounds in your mix to change volume up and down at random. When I tried this, I personally found it drew my attention but it’s a cool feature.
Thoughts
I had a lot of fun making up mixes to test out and different ones inspired me differently. They played quietly in the background and just removed some of the distractions from my noisier neighbours.
Currently, I use my new Fireside Mix the most. You can listen to it here.
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Do you like ambient sounds? Would you find something like A Soft Murmur useful? If you do create any of your own ambient sounds using this website, let me know I’d love to hear them.
Happy writing & stay safe
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Oh this will be very helpful to me Ari … I work from home and next door is a dog who starts whining and howling about every 15 minutes because its alone. The houses are close in proximity and it owner leaves the house and five minutes later it starts whining and it is annoying. I had thought of getting big windchimes but I think that I will try this. I am reluctant to get a white noise machine because it drones me to sleep. When I still worked on site, we had white noise pumped into the building and it would have me nodding off many a day.
Thanks Linda, hope it helps. Let me know if you decide to make a mix, I’d love to know what sounds you choose.
How frustrating having a constant barking dog. Poor thing must be so lonely but that noise just punctures your concentration so much.
I hope so too Ari – I am going to try it this weekend and I’ll tell you what I decide on. It is constant and gets on my nerves. I listen to the news or music sometimes, but then that gets on my nerves as well.
I cannot write or draw with music on because I analyze it and I end up getting distracted with thoughts and music in my head so I have to turn it off.
I prefer just to have a loud fan on to drown everyone else’s voices out.
I can appreciate that. I need a fan on at night, the sound of neighbours and traffic is too much. The repetitive whirring of the fan is so soothing.