I love listening to music; I go almost nowhere without a pair of headphones or earbuds. But when I’m studying, I tend to listen to more instrumental-centered music. Here are a few of my absolute favorite composers to listen to when I’m studying (be forewarned: most wrote music for movie soundtracks).
1. Alexandre Desplat is an amazing French composer whose many works of cinematic soundtracks are absolutely gorgeous. He wrote music for “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” (“The Swings of Central Park” is one of my favorite pieces of his), “The Danish Girl,” “Zero Dark Thirty,” “Argo,” “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part Two” and “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part One,” and “The Shape of Water.” You may not know his name but you likely know his music.
2. John Williams is another incredible composer who you probably know. Do you like the soundtrack for the “Star Wars” movies? John Williams is your guy. “Schindler’s List?” Also John Williams. “Memoirs of a Geisha” or “Indiana Jones” or “E.T.” or “Jaws” or “Jurassic Park” or “Harry Potter” (“Hedwig’s Theme,” anyone?) or a score (pun intended) of other films? John Williams has been composing beautiful music over a span of 6 decades and is, in my opinion, one of the greatest composers I’ve ever heard.
3. Danny Elfman wrote the music for a bunch of films, including “Alice Through the Looking Glass” and “Alice in Wonderland” (the Tim Burton version), “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” the “Fifty Shades” movies, “Silver Linings Playbook,” “Spider-Man 2,” “Edward Scissorhands,” and quite a few more films. Great composer.
4. Nicholas Hooper is another composer who worked on a bunch of the “Harry Potter” films (are you noticing a trend here?), and his music is, like that of the others, absolutely beautiful.
5. John Powell wrote music for “Solo: A Star Wars Movie,” “How To Train Your Dragon” and “How To Train Your Dragon 2,” several of the “Jason Bourne” movies and “X-Men: The Last Stand,” among others. Another excellent composer.
6. Alan Silvestri was involved in two of the “Avengers” films and the “Back to the Future” trilogy, to start with, and his music is also great.
7. James Newton Howard is another name to know. His work involves the “The Hunger Games,” series, “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” (both films), “Maleficent,” “Snow White and the Huntsman,” and other films.
These are amazing composers but definitely not an exhaustive list of every incredible composer, not by far, but I hope you now have a more comprehensive list of music for studying, and good luck on finals and theses!