Is Listening to Music Multitasking?

Here’s my response to a question submitted by one of my weekly email subscribers.

“Is listening to music with no words and doing something else distracting? Is that multitasking? I sometimes listen to sounds of frequencies while I work. Our sound bowls.” ~ Nomy?

It is not distracting. It is not multitasking. Music with no words does not engage the mind the same way music with words does. If I played a song with words I may start to sing along with it or mentally engage with it. Music with no words, like sound bowls, doesn’t engage the conscious mind the same way that music with words does. When I lived as a monk in my guru’s monastery we often listened to instrumental music while we worked.