Turning your home to a perfect workspace with music
What music do you listen to when you are working?
During this Covid-19 pandemic, we got used to working at home and started to create a lifestyle to make ourselves feel comfortable with being at home 24/7. At home, we can play music with either speakers or headphones and unconstrained by the silent atmosphere of our offices or working places. Whether we use music to isolate ourselves from the noisy environment, to relax from the stress of work, or just to create a chill-out feeling of coffeehouse atmosphere, there are always personal preferences on what music to be included in our ‘Work from Home’ playlist. But what makes a perfect playlist for building a nice working environment?
Music sometimes can influence our mood or bring us to a different environment. Some music asks for attention to their details and complex composition, others are better suited to stay in the background. However, a playlist with carefully picked music may enhance our efficiency working and the quality of what we produce.
There are lots of guidance about how to make a playlist for working/studying on the internet. If you google ‘best music genre for studying’, all the results shown on the first page say that instrumental classical music is the best genre for studying. This is because this kind of music is calming, easy-to-listen and help relieve stress. However, not all classical pieces are suitable for concentration since they may be too complex, as pointed earlier, or rhythmically too disruptive. Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, for example, will automatically attract us with its intensive rhythmic patterns. Furthermore, the choice of music that suits for one’s concentration can be very personal. Because we all have different music listening experiences, our tastes and preferences can always vary. Some even think Heavy Metal music helps them to soothe their mind and make them focus…who knows? Anyway, below is my own personal pick of music for concentration:
Here I included a large extent of classical pieces written for string quartets. This is because the sounds created by strings instruments are, in my opinion, usually warmer in colour than instruments from the winds or percussion family. Therefore, the strings’ warm timbre may calm you down from the stressful working/studying atmosphere and at the same time will not drag your attention to the distinctive, vocal-like melody as played by wind instruments. In addition, some Steve Reich’s minimalist music are also included. What makes it special is the repetitive materials from it. The constantly-looping phrases help you keep focusing on your tasks and enhance your thinking process as compared to music with continuously new melodies. In general, the classical music picked here are mostly in moderate or fast speed, this is to keep you motivated and less sleepy.
The reason I choose Miles Davis’s jazz classics from his famous album Kind of Blue is that most of the other jazz music either have quite unique melody or too lyrical that they draw your attention. These Miles’s pieces, which were categorised as ‘Cool Jazz’, are so soft and mellow that they suit perfectly as a background for your study. While working, I usually listen to these music at a very soft volume. This way I can hear only subtle voices from Miles’ muted trumpet and ringing noises from the bebop rhythm played by the ride cymbal, which work like a background raining noise that calm me down in some way.
Kan Sano is my recent favourite singer-songwriter. He produces many Jazz Fusion and Hip-hop instrumental tracks that are good to be played softly in the house for a nice ‘Work from Home’ mood.
As people on the internet stated that lo-fi hip-hop or ambient music also help to calm the mind and improve one’s concentration, I randomly selected some music from different playlists of Chill-hop, Ambient Chill and Lo-fi Hip-hop. Besides, the choices are made in relation to the current situation where on one hand we all are isolated and alone, on the other hand we have a chance now to quiet down and search for the ‘real soul’ inside us, to know what we actually want in our lives and to achieve a better self.
Here is the link to the above Spotify playlist created by yours truly:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/61O8dU5Zq0yTounh9I8xqZ?si=EAFRZztFR5Ku6sAov46v1w
This playlist will be updated constantly, so stay tuned!
As mentioned, there are lots of ways to create playlists for working at home, the music choices can be very personal and so there is no such a playlist that can fit everyone’s study/work habit. In my experience, the key to make a suitable ‘working playlist’ for myself is to follow my own instinct. Search for music that I found calming but, at the same time, motivational as I don’t want to be too relaxed or fall asleep while working. If I am running out of idea what to put into the playlist, I will try to look at playlists made by others on online platforms like Spotify or YouTube and pick some of the music I like to put into my own playlist. This way I can also avoid the distraction from the music I am too familiar with.
Hope you enjoy your ‘Work from Home’ experience with this playlist!
