With your final exams and essay deadlines fast approaching, you really need to hit the books in an environment that helps you focus on your studies. But does the complete silence of your workroom bother you? Maybe it’s the humming of your computer that’s to blame when you can’t get your work done.
Some find that music helps them to concentrate on a task or find inspiration and music definitely helps making the situation more enjoyable. You might already have Spotify, but this article lists five free-to-use sites where you can find the background soundscape that’s perfect for you. Before plugging in your headphones, consider these tips:
- Music without lyrics. Look for instrumental music or music in a language you don’t understand. It’s fun to hum the lyrics to your favourite song, but since it’s often done unconsciously, combined with reading or writing it overloads the language processing centres of your brain.
- Are you a musician? People with musical training can be distracted even when listening to instrumental music. For best efficiency in language comprehension tasks, they should opt for working in silence – with visuospatial tasks there is no difference to non-musicians. However, the rules of music making a task more enjoyable still applies for everybody.
- Try ambient noise. If you’re skeptical about background music, try drowning out distractions with ambient sounds. This also works for musicians. The soft harmonious hums and hisses repeated in a pattern have been shown to boost creativity. They also let you pretend you’re in a coffee shop or at the beach, which is relaxing.
When it comes down to it, though, scientists can’t really seem to agree on whether background music is good or bad, as it depends on the person. If you have found it helpful, it probably is helpful.
But how to find the playlist to that will help you through the cramming? Fortunately there are some great sites with premade playlists or looping tracks that will play in the background as long as needed — that way you won’t have to be distracted from your work only because you were looking for music on YouTube and somehow ended up on funny cat videos.
Here are five great sites to help you get started.
8tracks
To be fair, 8tracks has something for every occasion: by typing in some tags, you can find a vast selection of user-made playlists on that topic. Look up playlists with tags such as ‘study’, ‘writing’ or ‘instrumental’. The search will yield both classical and modern music, complete with instrumental covers and movie soundtracks. A battle soundtrack from a videogame makes for a pretty epic studying time, no?
You can start by trying something from the following:
Musicovery
It may look confusing at first, but Musicovery organizes its songs on two axes, one for ‘calm’ to ‘energetic’ and the other from ‘dark’ to ‘positive’. There are no premade playlists – instead you pick out the genres you want to hear, pick a song you want to hear, and the musicovery will make you a custom playlist according to the criteria you’ve set. It’s not so good for finding instrumental tracks, but it is a handy DJ when you want to discover new music to listen to.
myNoise
This website has a satisfying selection of ambient noises for you to enjoy, ranging from industrial noises such as a demolition ground to the meditative church soundscape. The noises are premade, but you can tweak them to fit your stereos or headphones by adjusting its components or frequencies. Try the static white or pink noises to hide any distracting noises from your environment, including tinnitus.
Ambient-Mixer
Like myNoise, Ambient-mixer has a selection of premade atmospheres. However, registered users can also create and share their own atmospheres, which is where the fun begins. What sounds can you hear on an old, creaky ship or in a Hogwarts common room? These might also suit your creative writing needs. You can adjust the premade atmospheres without registering by adding or removing components of the atmosphere.
A Soft Murmur
An easy-to-use ambient sound generator, A Soft Murmur lets you mix and match ten different background sounds. If you want the sound of a public space, try matching fire with coffee shop sounds. Alternatively, a combination recommended is the singing bowls with waves for an eerie hypnotic atmosphere. Plus, the mixing of noises is a fun way to procrastinate. Although that’s something you should leave for after the finals.