Dissertunes

Edit: When I embedded the songs in this post, it didn't occur to me that doing so would incur a very high data transfer rate from my online storage account. As such, I've removed the embedded players and replaced them with links to the files. If you want to listen to any of the songs mentioned, just right click on the link and save the file to your desktop. Thankee.

Music is a pretty important part of my life. I won't go into the reasons for that right now, but the point is that where possible, I like to have a soundtrack playing. Probably nothing else sets the mood of a moment quite like the tunes that are playing in the background. Unfortunately, I am incredibly easily distracted. As such, I can't listen to any music with lyrics in it while I'm studying, reading, grading papers, dissertating, or anything else that requires a higher-level mental function. If I know the words to the song (and I usually do), I start following along, analyzing them and re-enjoying the meaning. If I don't know the words, I try to learn them.

But I've got to have music, so over the last few years I've collected a frighteningly small number of albums that I listen to while studying. They serve simply as background music, and I can listen to them nine times in a row without really noticing, but each album has its own kind of mood and purpose.

The best and most reliable homework music has always been Bach's Brandenberg Concertos. This is what got me through the reading of My Antonia in 9th grade, and I've been relying on it ever since. The Concertos have this wonderfully structured air to them, which just makes you feel instantly productive and intelligent. Plus, they have a solid, forward moving pace throughout, which keeps you going.

Also in the classical vein but much more stripped-down are Bach's Unaccompanied Cello Suites by Yo-Yo Ma. It doesn't get any purer than this: one guy on a cello. The same forward-moving spirit is present, but the singularity of the instrument is just wonderful when the Brandenberg Concertos feel overwhelming. I think that "Prelude" might be one of the most beautiful pieces of classical music ever written.

Sometimes my studying brain is in a classical music mood, and sometimes it is in a mood for jazz. There is a lot of jazz - especially a lot of the free-form, frenetic bob stuff - that is just too distracting to work well as background music. Dave Brubeck's album Time Out, however, has an excellent balance of structure and free-spirited jazz cool. Sometimes it is good to be a little chilled out while working, as "Take Five" often helps me to be.

And naturally, some dissertation sessions last long into the wee hours of the morning, which is when it's time to switch from Brubeck to Miles Davis. There is nothing in this world as cool as Kind of Blue. It is relaxing, but still contains that late-night energy, that jazz buzz that will keep you going and going. Soothing, smooth, and most excellent. "So What," the first track on the album, might be the perfect jazz song.

Some days the whole damn world is coming down on your head. You don't care a damn bit about what you're supposed to be doing because you're not going to get it done anyway, and even if you do get it done, it's going to suck. But you have to calm down and do it anyway. For those days I have the score to the Indiana Repertory Theatre's production of a play called The Drawer Boy. It is a fantastic play, and the IRT commissioned a musician named Greg Coffin to create a score specifically for their production. People liked the music enough to justify selling CDs, and I bought one. This is the album that I can listen to on repeat for probably six or seven hours without really noticing. It says, "It's okay. Keep going, you'll get there."

And those are the five albums to which I've been working for as long as I can remember. Any suggestions as to what I might add to my play list?