Music in the Composition of Writing Space

This chapter reports on a short experiment where, as four academic authors, we explored how music ‘composed’ spaces that were conducive to writing. Taking an autoethnographic approach, we recorded and then reflected upon our music-listening practices as we separately wrote chapters as part of the same book project. Combining a logging method with reflective accounts, we documented the music we were listening to while writing, where this was happening, and our reasons for doing so. Despite varying practices and reasoning, and without making broad claims towards generalisability, our experiences point towards the power of music in contributing to the composition of spaces that can support academic writing. Music, almost aways mediated through digital audio technologies, and relational to other human and non-human elements, was shown to be connected with agency, mobility, and the orchestration and rearrangement of productive spaces for academic writing.