Sienna Tohar -- week 17 -- Focus Music/Sounds

  It’s honestly been a long time since I comfortably did my homework without listening to anything play in the background. I could still do my work in silence, but I generally don’t like the sound of nothingness. Even when I sleep, I always put the air purifier at a certain level so that I can hear it work (for white noise). Okay, reading that written out kind of sounds weird, but I just know I’m not the only one!! 

I’ve known a lot of people who do work and study while listening to music, but when they say music, they mean like regular songs with vocals. I can’t really focus on work when I hear songs where someone is singing (unless it’s like humming or something), but I love to hear melodies that can just go on for hours.

Most of the music I listen to when I work is from Youtube and a lot of my go-tos take the form of piano music. I love older works of romantic and impressionist pianists/composers like Frederic Chopin (especially his Nocturnes), Claude Debussy, and Erik Satie and could just listen to their pieces on loops. I also enjoy general classical music (especially music I’m familiar with from ballets), but there’s just something about soft piano that really soothes me. If I could describe the sound of gentle piano, I’d say it’s like melodic rain drops (if that makes sense). 

I don’t only listen to older musicians, I also like pianist/composers of today, like Yann Tiersen, Philip Glass, Ludovico Einaudi, some works of Alexandre Desplat (I grew up listening to some of these people too, so that might be why I like them so much). Joe Hisaishi is one of my favorites (he does the soundtracks for Studio Ghibli films) and I could listen to piano and cello versions of his music all day (and of course the originals). All of these guys have done amazing scores/soundtracks for different films, but I could honestly write a whole other blog post on that alone. 

Jazz is always nice, too. I like upper beat jazz/Bossa Nova (like “cafe music”) in the morning, but most of the time, slower relaxed jazz is way better for me. There are 24/7 live jazz radio channels on Youtube that I always come back to. 

And now for the ambient (and sometimes new age) music. These days, I love listening to music that sounds like it could blend into the background (kind of like what you might hear at a nail salon or spa). I actually found out about one of my favorite channels through Morah Miriam and her Torah Yoga! She would often play their videos and I found that they always contributed to my relaxation. Lately, I’ve been listening to the works of Takashi Kokubo (including right now as I write). They just sound so magical and soothing. I also like Peder B. Helland’s work. There’s this one video of his that I’ve been coming back to for five going on six years now. His music is very Celtic-sounding and fantasy-like. For some reason, it’s never really been distracting to me.

Other less musical or white noise type sounds are also helpful to me. I love the sound of water, so rain sounds always work. William Basinki’s “Watermusic II” is a nice mix of ambient and water sounds. I even listen to “alpha waves” study music sometimes. Every once in a while I might put on one of those music box or harp work music videos, but that happens rarely. 

There’s probably a lot that I forgot to mention, but this post seems pretty long already :,) Is there any music that helps you focus? Any specific sounds? Or do you prefer silence?