You should consider using music beyond just listening to your favorite artists. Most people listen to the same few artists over and over, stick to one maybe two genres, and never listen to new music past their 40th birthday. I’m going to write about just one way I use music outside of this standard.
Years ago, in college, I discovered that listening to EDM while working helps me focus and keeps me energized. This is especially helpful since my work involves staring into a display, sedentary, for hours on end. For me, the music needs to have very little vocals. Deep house is a particularly good sub-genre of EDM for this purpose. These days, I’m a big fan of Above & Beyond for this. Their whole music label, Anjunabeats (especially sub-label Anjunadeep) are great for this.
I viewed my Apple Music Replay stats for 2022 today. I listened to nearly 55,000 minutes of music. That’s more than 916hrs. Roughly 38 days of music. Much of that goes through my Sonos Five pair in my office during the work day.
After EDM, I listen to classical and jazz while working, too. Sometimes, some ambient and new age-y piano music. Which brings me to the latest thing I’ve been listening to…
…a great background music recommendation from Shawn Blanc, who previously suggested the Monument Valley Soundtrack with which I also love working to, and which set me on the path to Todd Baker and then to a band he’s in called Lydian Collective which became my favorite modern jazz quartet.
How does music help get you through your day?