Why can't airline pilots listen to music while flying? In an interview I read, a 747 captain (Mark Vanhoenacker, an American British Airways pilot) says he doesn't understand why he cannot listen to music inflight, when for example surgeons – who literally hold peoples' lives in their hands – can:


  Can you ever play music in the cockpit?
  Sadly no. Sometimes when your flight is delayed, on the ground waiting
  for a couple hours, without passengers on board, you might put some
  music on in the cockpit. On the radio, you might hear a little music
  break through on an air traffic control frequency, those frequencies
  aren't much higher than the ones used by commercial radio stations.
  But as for listening to music while flying, no—which I don't
  understand! I think surgeons can listen to Beethoven if they want,
  right?


I looked that up and sure enough, some surgeons really listen to music and it even improves their performance:


  "From classical to rock, music can be heard in operating rooms across
  the world. When plastic surgeons listen to music they prefer, their
  surgical technique and efficiency when closing incisions is improved,
  a new study shows."


So why is it not allowed for airline pilots ?
I don't know where he gets that.  Regulation wise there's nothing stopping an airline pilot from listening to music as long as he/she can hear ambient sounds or communications and modern headsets make it easy to link an ipod to headphones that are also receiving the comms.

Pilots are allowed to take naps in flight as long as they are awake within 45 min of arrival.  A pilot not flying (PNF), where the autopilot is on and the other pilot is monitoring everything, can be doing paperwork or reading a paper or watching a movie on a tablet or going for a dump or wandering around the cabin if he/she wants.  Once on an arrival however, forget it and certainly not once below 10000 ft.

If there is a prohibition in that Capt's case, it is probably a policy with that airline.