With many places to study on campus, finding the best tracks to block out background noise while also staying focused may present yet another challenge. Looking back on some of my favorite albums for the fall season, I selected some personal picks for each location, and hopefully this can help curate your playlist with some new music!
As midterm season continues, many of us have finally begun to look over past lectures and hard-to-read notes. Music and studying have been shown to have many impacts, including mood improvement. According to sources compiled by the University of Cumberlands, the best music to study to is usually more upbeat music that does not contain lyrics, and some of my recommendations will definitely fit that description.
Ellis Library
Ellis, the go-to library for many Mizzou students, holds a quiet, academic atmosphere that serves as a perfect place to get lost in work for hours. For the more bustling environment downstairs, a good study session can be supplemented by calm, jazzy melodies. I would recommend “Kind of Blue” by Miles Davis, a quintessential intro to jazz from one of the most defining musicians of the genre. Jazz as a genre wasn’t something I had explored much until this semester, but there are some great playlists on Spotify that really give your study sessions a richer experience.
For those looking to lean into the ambient in a less busy location, an EP that I was put on this summer would be “The Fish Factory Sessions ” by Greg Foat and Gigi Masin. This short album is a collaboration between two contemporary ambient music artists and I would highly recommend checking out both individuals’ work, as they both have a vast discography of work that focuses on mostly instrumental tracks.
Student Center/Memorial Student Union (Main Level)
The main level at the Student Center and Memorial Student Union both remind me a lot of an airport. Ample places to sit, hundreds of conversations going on at once and a variety of places to get lunch and watch YouTube videos from the lectures that you slept through. It’s also a great place to work on a group project, since there’s no agreed-upon volume restriction. Staying on the topic of music, the best tracks for environments like these are simple instrumentals that you can still talk over, yet subtly enjoy in the background of what you’re doing. “Ambient One: Music for Airports” by Brian Eno, unsurprisingly, can be heard in airports across the world and is exactly what you expect from the title. The instrumentation in this album is fairly light, and the longer track times can help you pace yourself and give yourself breaks in between studying sessions.Â
Carnahan Quadrangle
As the sun’s glare (hopefully) continues to die down, more of us have been willing to study outside. Carnahan Quadrangle, located next to Cornell Hall, is a great place with plentiful seating to get some work done. For this kind of environment, you could steer towards a lot of different directions. However, most of the time I’m there during the late afternoon, when people are still in class and there isn’t nearly as much foot traffic.
Here, I would recommend none other than the grand compilation album, “One Wayne G” by Mac Demarco. I have yet to fully complete this album, as it’s over eight hours and I seem to forget where I’ve left off every time. Featuring 199 unique tracks, it’s so easy to get lost in the iconic mixing of one of the most iconic indie artists of the 2010s. With most of the names being simply the dates they were recorded numerically, this album showcases the growth of DeMarco’s music across five years. I consider this a very unique way to publish experimental melodies, as he did it in one giant chunk rather than separate EPs, as I see a lot of other artists do.Â
Reynolds Journalism Institute (RJI)
The Reynolds Journalism Institute building is one of my favorite places to study as I’ve explored campus this semester. You have The Grind coffee shop on the main level – a great place to grab a drink and work on homework – but you also have the journalism library, which acts as a cozy place to get anything done while still being well lit and colorful enough to not feel as fatiguing as some other locations on campus. Another neat benefit to the RJI building is that there are MacBooks equipped with Adobe apps, making it a great space if you need a powerful computer to process lots of things at once. The best part is you don’t have to be a journalism major to use the space!Â
For this location, I would recommend the iconic “Selected Ambient Works 85-92” by Aphex Twin. I consider this to be one of the more laid-back Aphex Twin’s albums. With over 30 years of experience in electronic music, Aphex Twin, has also worked under many other pseudonyms, my personal favorites being The Tuss and Polygon Window. His extensive portfolio makes it easy to always find an album that best matches your study session.Â
Final Thoughts
Hopefully this article gave you some new items for the playlist! Even if I didn’t list your go-to study spot on this list (as it would have taken too long to find a different album for every location on campus), these are still great tracks that can be listened to everywhere!