I have some tinnitus so am not a big fan of absolute silence. However like you I cannot concentrate on something and listen to music, for example when I am doing my accounts at the weekend. So what I do instead is have ambient sounds running. There's a decent freeware app for Windows called Aire Freshener which does the job. 

Yeah... I need white noise or I go apedoodles. There is a fan going here pretty much non stop to block out the little squeaks and bumps of life.

Hi,

Not anymore, although I admit that a lot of music was, and IS, one of my highest inspirations fo rmany things that I write ... but folks will have to go look and figure out which piece is behind it ... because I ain't tellin' and I can't remember!

All in all, these days, I prefer the quietness so I can describe my inner movie with more attention and concentration. In that sense, in the earlier days I was much more innovative and free form than I am today ... but the wildness and the total lack of respect for "composition" and "ideas" about composition in writing, have always been with me, and probably come from the "Surrealistic Manifesto", the one thing that I resemble the most I think! And appreciate the most, as it is one of the most complete artistic definitions of a process that has ever been defined. Hint ... there is no definition!

I knew early on from Opera that the words did not necessarily represent the music or vice versa ... and rock music in its history has been married to an unfaithfull witch that couldn't careless (how romantic that is!!!), which made that whole thing better for attitude and feeling, but worse for music ... because most of it was anti-music in the first place ... if you wanted to express yourself, you didn't need the music because it was just in the bottom!

But there is a lot of music, that lives up to its beauty and then some and deserves the title of inspiring, and no, I can not listen to Tales from Topographic Oceans at work ... or Tangerine Dream ... or Klaus Schulze ... because they will take me away, as they should! I don't even like to play these in the car while driving ... because your head wants to trip ... and you have to concentrate on the road and such!

I am not writing as much as I used to ... I think that I am either bored, or things are changing ... which is more likely, since I am working on a couple of novels, and surprisingly enough they are "smooth" for me in terms of writing in that when I read it later, the only things I can find is a comma here, a mis-spelled word there ... and little else ... which suggests that I am fairly good at just folloing the movie regardless of its speed!

That "movie" by the way, is where I write from ... and it has nothing to do with anything else ... just what I see ... and what triggers it can be just about anything you can think off. I have two poems written for Julibee, and that one piece of music I heard, that I still do  not know the title of ... but I'm too shy to post is, and I do not want to embarass her, and people getting stupid ideas that are not there! It was just about the voice. Only one other person has EVER grabbed me with her voice that fast and that well ... Sandy Denny ... (well, actually two of them!) and Gilly Smith (Gong). The rest, for me, is just another song instead of a movie!

In the case of a crowded office environment, listening to music is not only not distracting, it can be a necessity for tuning out all the other distractions.  My job is far from mindless ... I do software engineering tasks of various kinds all day long.  If I have to listen to someone else's conversations, it just blows my concentration totally away and I cannot work, period.  But anything from Bach to Verdi on the headphones keeps the noise nicely out of my head.  Some things need to be avoided, particularly anything with English words.  Of course, I do miss the occassional phone call because I don't hear the phone ringing ... but folks have learned to just send me emails.
 
Funny thing about serious listening, though.  I know several conductors of national/international repute.  Michael Morgan, conductor of the Oakland East Bay Symphony, doesn't have a CD player in his home.  Nic McGegan is the conductor and musical director of the Baroque Philharmonia Orchestra.  I was at his house once for a social event.  No music on in the background, which would be unthinkable in most "party" situations.  But for someone so dedicated, I guess there's no such thing as casual listening.  To people like that, if you cannot give it your full attention, you shouldn't listen in the first place.

What was the question? The TV was on and um... what? 

Yes I can read etc with music on but I couldn't do it with ear buds or headphones, background music... no problem. Trying to read my Kindle in an office waiting room with some silly show on the TV that has showed up lately in almost every waiting room is more distracting because I usually get mad about some nonsense they are talking about (I am already irritated by the mere presence of the TV in the waiting room). Yes, I am an old fart who is getting more and more intolerant and more likely every day to answer a rhetorical question with what I really think.. but I digress. In a nutshell, low background music, no problem. TV.. problem.

Can't.  Not since I were a lad.

Well it's good to know I'm not a complete spazz. I just get sucked so far down into music these days everything else disappears. Then when I re-emerge after whatever I'm listening to finishes I look at the time and think "Oh crud... I did it again. Whoops."

I'm ADHD, I have to have multiple things going on.  I've been known to have a football game on the TV with the sound off, music on, have the computer up and running while reading a book and eating all at the same time.  Oh well.

there is a background  music and there is a a foreground music.  With the former I can do other things like have a sex or read a book - with latter I can run and listen.