Baraka_Guru

I work at home, which basically means I can work naked, eat whenever I want, take video-game breaks, and listen to whatever music I goddamn well please and at any volume I wish.

That sounds crazy—I know—and I actually do a couple of those things. One of them is listen to whatever music I wish. However, as an editor/reader, I find that most music can be distracting. Anything with lyrics can throw me off. This rules out songs and talk radio.

I've listened to a lot of jazz, but I've found that it can be distracting depending on the style. Now? I listen to baroque music primarily because I've found it is the least distracting, and I happen to find it quite energizing as well in an understated kind of way. I have also listened to medieval chant. If it's in Latin, I don't tend to get distracted, but the tonal qualities and the harmonies are wonderful to work to.

So this thread has two purposes, 1) to ask what you listen to while working, reading, studying, etc., and why, 2) to get share recommendations for music for this purpose.

I currently have Correlli's Concerti Grossi, Op. 6 and Bach's Brandenburg Concertos as far as my Baroque is concerned. In the past, I've had Vivaldi's Four Seasons. I'm thinking about getting that back into my cycle as well. Also, I'm thinking of adding Handel's Water Music. Any other baroque recommendations?

I have a bunch of music from other periods (classical/romantic/modern), but I find that the styles and forms are too distracting, especially much of that produced in the romantic period. It's wonderful for listening, but it tends to really grab your attention.

More recently, I've found that ragas, a Indian classical music mode, are good for work music as well. There are many pieces that have vocals, but like the Latin, I find that if it's in a language far enough from my own, it's not distracting.

Anyway.... what do you have piping into your proverbial workshop?

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LordEden

I'm like you, when I'm reading/studying I can't have anything with lyrics in it or I'll insert the words into what I'm reading, which will get stored into my short-term memory.

I tried classical but it didn't really do what I needed it to. Tried jazz to the same problem, there wasn't a BEAT there that I could tune into to tune out the outside world.

Most techo/house/D&B/fucking raver synthetic crap had words in it or just plain sucked.

I was turned onto Sound Tribe Sector 9 and loaded it into pandora. I really liked the sound; kinda funk, kinda techno, kinda jazz but hardly anything with lyrics. Pandora was also pushing out songs from all instrumental bands which led me to hardly skip any artists. I listen to them now when studying for computer shit.

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Redlemon

Stream this: < Sunday Baroque >We get this program on our local radio station (Sunday Morning Baroque). It is beautiful. I see it also broadcasts on WNED, you might be able to get it there.

Is New Age too relaxing to have on as background music? I'm a massage therapist, so background droning is a speciality. I also hate to have vocals in my background music, even if it is wordless or in a foreign language.

Another instrumental genre that works well for me is post-rock. I'm sure some people would be offended my my characterization, but to me it is new age music with rock instruments.

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snowy

I personally have to listen to music that is super-familiar when writing or reading. I have to know the music by heart. That can mean anything from David Bowie to U2 to Neil Finn to Enya to Air--I have a lot of choices. New music does not work when I'm trying to do something else. I am too focused on thinking about the music to think about something else. This is true for music with or without vocals, or even if the vocals are in another language I don't know well enough to translate the lyrics (i.e. Japanese).

So sorry, Baraka, I don't have any good recommendations for you.

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Willravel

I've been searching! For whatever reason, I've developed annual tastes in music. It started with Christmas music around the holidays, but expanded quickly from there. I listen to a lot of Afro-Cuban jazz during the summer, particularly when I have barbecues and such. I listen to Romantic classical music in early autumn, and then dark ambient around Halloween.

Late Winter and early Spring, though, have gone without genre for a while now and I'm looking to rectify that. After New Years, I started jumping around my music collection trying to find something that clicks. I listened to Billie Holiday, then Allice in Chains (which I discovered is better suited to Summer for some reason), then Edvard Grieg. Greig wasn't bad, but it feels more like a late Spring kind of thing. Bob Dylan was a lot of fun, but the lyrics are way too distracting to be played while I'm balancing my finances or doing other work. He was more a poet than he was a musician, imho. I have the same lyrical problem with Gilbert and Sullivan.

Maybe I'll take a page from Baraka's book and go for boroque. I recently bought the Keith Jarrett 24 Preludes and Fuges CD from either iTunes or Amazon, I can't remember, and it's outstanding. It's light, but it's also stimulating. Like an Asian girlfriend.

bagatelle

I am also very conscious about lyrics, if I need to focus on reading something. Songs are often stories to me.

If I'm driving the car, the vocals or verbal content of programs and songs don't distract at all, on the contrary. The same when doing workout, only the rhythm is important.

How about "elevator music", Baraka?

I don't mean exactly like this, but found this clip funny:




How does Finnish language in songs feels to you?

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kaerlyon

Hy Baraka. I listen too baroque music. Yes Vivaldi is so quiet for work and you have in this category Marin Marais. Do you know ?

You have too Lully. I made many differents styles for the king Louis XIV. Several are distraying but if you take "motets", there are soft.

If you like indian music, do you know australian etnicmisic with digeridoo ? I listen sometimes just for a behind sound.

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jnthnlllshprd

the music for me is a legendary electronica duo, Autechre. when i'm working, I especially like to listen to the album Untilted. it's a truly bizarre electronic album... if i could imagine what improvised jazz would sond like one thousand years from now, this would certainly be it. Give this track a listen, and keep an ear open for the beautiful yet subtle chord progression:


the beats are incredibly heavy.. it was years before I had the patience to give this album a fair listen, but when I did, I felt remarkably rewarded.

Lindy

As a musician (I play the double bass) I sometimes dislike the idea of background music, it being somewhat akin to "background art" bland, inoffensive, etc. But I work the same way you do at home, and most of the time I don't like silence, because it never is, (silent) especially in the city. And it is hard to find music that is satisfying without being involving, therefore distracting. Like you, I find most anything with lyrics distracting. I find that music can be interesting without being very intrusive if it has a homogeneous texture. Right now, I'm listening (but not really listening) to a collection of Gabrielli sonatas played by a brass quintet. I find most baroque music a little bland for my tastes. Harmonically it is like a cuisine that eschews chiles. I enjoy Indian and Persian classical music as well. String Quartets work well for me, and classical guitar, if it's not too percussive.
Recommendations:
The Antiphonal Music of Gabrieli
Edvard Grieg: Suite -from Holberg's time Shostakovich/Keith Jarrett

Sousa: Black Horse Troop, The LosAngeles Guitar Quartet The Black Horse Troop (arr. for guitar quartet) | Los Angeles Guitar Quartet Song - Yahoo! Music(Not your traditional Sousa)
Ives: Sonata, Concord Mass. 1840-1860
Shostakovich: String Quartets Nos. 2,3,7,8,12.
I like fifties rock instrumentals and circus/military band march music. Old ragtime brass band too. I was a band geek in high school and college.

Grieg feels wintery to me, like Sibelius and Howard Hanson, Neilsen, those other Scandinavians. I assume you mean Jarrett's recording of the Shostakovich Preludes and Fugues. Great recording of great music! Baroque form with 20th Century harmonies thrown in. Bach on steroids. I love it. Of course, I love anything by Shostakovich, without question (in my never to be humble opinion) the greatest of the modern classical composers.

Lindy