What music do you read to? (Seriously.)

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So, this is a pretty dire situation. Ever since starting grad school, I can't listen to any music anymore because I have to read all the time. If music is badass, awesome, or rocks out in any way, I get distracted and don't remember anything. This is a disaster.

In fact, for whatever reason, the only records I own that I can listen to while reading are Closer, Discreet Music, and Ellen Allien. After about four months of reading Beckett last fall while listening only to Joy Division I almost threw myself in the river. My hundreds of CDs are sitting there, useless to me.

Anyone else have this problem? What can I listen to? I don't know what it is about those three records -- something about metronomic repetitiveness, consistent emotional tone and lack of dynamics, maybe.

― mrjosh (mrjosh), Saturday, 25 September 2004 13:24 (twenty years ago)

I read to just about anything, really. All depends on my mood. But I can see how trying to find something to listen to while plowing through grad reading is important, having done that myself...

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 25 September 2004 13:28 (twenty years ago)

Try putting the stereo in the next room. It worked for me

― johnny z (johnny z), Saturday, 25 September 2004 13:34 (twenty years ago)

I can't. Doesn't matter if it's Tangerine Dream or hiphop or whatever, I can't focus.

― strom (strom), Saturday, 25 September 2004 13:46 (twenty years ago)

I always found Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness good for reading to.

― jel -- (jel), Saturday, 25 September 2004 14:24 (twenty years ago)

I can't seriously listen to music and read at the same time. Sometimes, if I'm struggling to concentrate on what I'm reading, music helps to filter out other unwanted noises, if you see what I mean. It has to be instrumental, though, and preferably downtempo/beatless. Stuff I find works is 18th/20th century classical, most jazz, ambient, non-dancey electronic music. Noise probably works at low volumes, too.

― noodle vague (noodle vague), Saturday, 25 September 2004 14:27 (twenty years ago)

Spoken word. Seriously.

― maria b (maria b), Saturday, 25 September 2004 16:08 (twenty years ago)

noodle vague OTM. for me, vocals = instant distraction.

― Elliot (Elliot), Saturday, 25 September 2004 16:20 (twenty years ago)

LiquorBall
Double Leopards
Astral Blessing
Crime Desire
Burning Star Core
Conlon Nancarrow
Study to Metal Machine Music if your roomate wears horrible stink oils and leaves Tori Amos cds in your player and you have to read the Mulamadyamikarika and think about buddhist calculus and she reads things by that girl Nomi whatever because she is in Queer Studies.

― Carlos Santana, Saturday, 25 September 2004 16:43 (twenty years ago)

I'm in graduate school, also have much reading to do, and I understand where you're coming from. Get yourself some:

Max Richter - The Blue Notebooks
William Basinski - Disintegration Loops
Philip Jeck - 7
Landing - Sphere

and Boards of Canada usually works too

― Space Is the Place (Space Is the Place), Saturday, 25 September 2004 16:51 (twenty years ago)

Boards of Canada can be hella distracting, tooo.

― {Sand in the [vaseline} on the lens] (x Jeremy), Saturday, 25 September 2004 16:53 (twenty years ago)

I used to have this problem, sometimes I still do, but I try to deal with it: I'm not about to give up listening to music. I tried once and it made me miserable. Usually I just try to play things I'm not familiar with, because it can become distracting if I know the music too well. I also try to fit the style of music with whatever subject I'm reading about: classical for math, world and folk music for history, ambient/downtempo for business-related subjects. For literature I try to match the general feel of the book to music with a similar feel. This gives it a more relevant atmosphere and generally makes me more immersed in the reading rather than being distracted from it. But for the most part, as long as I'm not listening to any Van Vliet I can concentrate well enough.

― Bill Neil, Saturday, 25 September 2004 17:28 (twenty years ago)

-- mrjosh (jrothma...)

There's your problem.

― djdee2005 (djdee2005), Saturday, 25 September 2004 17:30 (twenty years ago)

well fuck me
that was supposed to point out that you were from harvard.

I'm not making fun of your name really

― djdee2005 (djdee2005), Saturday, 25 September 2004 17:31 (twenty years ago)

djdee, don't try it

― Begs2Differ (Begs2Differ), Saturday, 25 September 2004 17:36 (twenty years ago)

Let's pretend last November didn't happen, good people.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 25 September 2004 17:37 (twenty years ago)

Haha I'm not claiming my college is better than harvard! My post about my college on this board is about how horribly rockist my class is! But I'm saying if you want to have time to listen to lots of music grad school at harvard may not be the best path.

― djdee2005 (djdee2005), Saturday, 25 September 2004 17:37 (twenty years ago)

word booty to that...no one I know ever listened to music to study there, just bruins games in the background. and I say maria d is crazy, I can't read to anything with lyrics I understand, so for me it's jazz brazil africa japan.

― Begs2Differ (Begs2Differ), Saturday, 25 September 2004 17:39 (twenty years ago)

if you want to have time to listen to lots of music grad school at harvard may not be the best path.

I dunno, you could follow Rivers C. around.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 25 September 2004 17:40 (twenty years ago)

Let's pretend last November didn't happen, good people.

No anniversary celebration in 2 months?

― djdee2005 (djdee2005), Saturday, 25 September 2004 17:41 (twenty years ago)

Well, you know. We'll either be celebrating an election victory or drunk off our ass trying to forget the result.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 25 September 2004 17:42 (twenty years ago)

Either way, I'll be drunk.

― djdee2005 (djdee2005), Saturday, 25 September 2004 17:43 (twenty years ago)

oh me too!

― Begs2Differ (Begs2Differ), Saturday, 25 September 2004 17:46 (twenty years ago)

Ha! -- I have to say that my handle 'mrjosh' is pretty making-fun-worthy. So I just went to buy Philip Jeck, but because it was $19 I ended up buying Killing Joke instead. No reading today . . . .

― mrjosh (mrjosh), Saturday, 25 September 2004 18:44 (twenty years ago)

For me, when I'm studying/reading/essay-writing is when I do most of my listening to music. I wonder if that has something to do with the preponderance of jazz, ambient, drone, classical, etc in my collection.

― sundar subramanian (sundar), Saturday, 25 September 2004 22:16 (twenty years ago)

But it's not always the case. Sometimes energetic stuff keeps me motivated to work.

― sundar subramanian (sundar), Saturday, 25 September 2004 22:17 (twenty years ago)

I LISTEN TO METAL AND READ FANTASY NOVELS

― astroblaster (astroblaster), Saturday, 25 September 2004 22:28 (twenty years ago)

RHAPSODY!!!!

― djdee2005 (djdee2005), Saturday, 25 September 2004 22:41 (twenty years ago)

Miles Davis (early)
Stan Getz
Oscar Peterson

― meathead, Saturday, 25 September 2004 23:53 (twenty years ago)

Long, long prog rock songs were recorded to be read to. Three songs in 45 minutes instead of 14 helps with concentration.

― steve hise, Sunday, 26 September 2004 00:32 (twenty years ago)

baroque music always works well for me ... no beats but you can still get lost in the repetition and interlocking structures. of course i usually don't listen to it anyway, which is why i'm perpetually behind in class.

― ryan kuo (ryan kuo), Sunday, 26 September 2004 00:41 (twenty years ago)

Oh, I've had big success with Philip Glass too -- the solo piano stuff, mainly.

― mrjosh (mrjosh), Sunday, 26 September 2004 01:30 (twenty years ago)

This has been helping me concentrate on work:
'singing speaking sounding' a new ambient drone indie washout lovefest mix. by me.
It's very pleasant!

― +, Sunday, 26 September 2004 02:54 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, minimalism can be really good for work flow - the consistent steady pulsing.

xpost

― sundar subramanian (sundar), Sunday, 26 September 2004 02:54 (twenty years ago)

(cool! ilxor automatically converts internal links to thread names)

― +, Sunday, 26 September 2004 02:55 (twenty years ago)

Anything without words works for me. Things I have listened to recently while reading are: Dirty Three, Marumari, Aphex Twin (SAW II), large portions of the Kranky catalog (Keith Fullerton Whitman and Stars of the Lid in particular), Third Eye Foundation.

Although they have vocals, I also find Stereolab and Slowdive to be very condusive to reading.

― Ryan WS (fffv), Sunday, 26 September 2004 03:13 (twenty years ago)

I truly envy anyone who can read and listen to music simultaneously. The closest I can get is with baroque, but it has to be practically inaudible.

― jim wentworth (wench), Sunday, 26 September 2004 03:32 (twenty years ago)

good music tends to put my brain in order, and i read more carefully.

― amateur!!!st (amateurist), Sunday, 26 September 2004 03:56 (twenty years ago)

What Jim said. I know myself too well to even try to mix the two.

― Bimble (bimble), Sunday, 26 September 2004 05:02 (twenty years ago)

Noise samplers - Try the Anomalous Silencer series, or the Noisefest compilations.

I just got 3x cassettes by Pedestrian Deposit, so that's pretty good to have in the background.

― Sasha (sgh), Sunday, 26 September 2004 23:22 (twenty years ago)

I tend to feel like I'm wasting time if I'm reading and not listening to anything, unless I'm at a library or someplace where I don't have access to music. Also the constant whir of my PC and overhead fan need to be drowned out, so for me it's more distracting NOT playing anything.

― bill neil (inabillity), Monday, 27 September 2004 00:07 (twenty years ago)

Reading: Eno's Ambient 1: Music for Airports is hella good. I also find it works to study to Merzbow's Dharma... it's active enough to keep me from getting bored with my extra attention, but it's solid and steady enough to keep me from actively attempting to listen to it.

Pelican's Australasia is what I've gotten into writing along with. For some reason, it keeps me focused and going.

I really wanna hear these Disintegration Loops. Anybody on slsk got 'em?

― moofman (moofman), Monday, 27 September 2004 23:24 (twenty years ago)

I've got'em - check your email.

If you dig that at all, try Gas - Pop. Similar textural feel, but a more rewarding listen IMO. It's actually one of my favorite albums at the moment.

― sleep (sleep), Tuesday, 28 September 2004 02:55 (twenty years ago)

Mr. Rothman,

Stop posting on ILM and hand in all those term papers you owe me from last semester.

― Prof. James Engell, Tuesday, 28 September 2004 03:12 (twenty years ago)

Phish!

― Tim Joseph, Tuesday, 28 September 2004 03:12 (twenty years ago)

i need absolute quiet to read. otherwise i get distracted. i wish i could read while people talked, but i cant

― todd swiss (eliti), Tuesday, 28 September 2004 03:30 (twenty years ago)

Yesterday evening: reading the Collected Short Stories of Roald Dahl while listening to (at least some of) the new Albert Ayler box set.

― Jasper Milvain, Tuesday, 28 September 2004 08:04 (twenty years ago)

I went through a phase of writing my dissertation listening exclusively to "Depths" by Windy & Carl. Mutually exclusively even, in that I couldn't do the work without the record, and I found it impossible to listen to the record when not working. Weird.

― tissp! (the impossible shortest specia), Tuesday, 28 September 2004 08:32 (twenty years ago)

Instrumental/ambient techno/idm etcetera played VERY quietly.

― Rasputin Kitten (Nick Southall), Tuesday, 28 September 2004 08:41 (twenty years ago)

I find the quieter I put a record on in the background, the more I focus on it because I'm frustrated at not being able to properly hear it.

Baroque, definitely, or not-very-engaging instrumental (State River Widening! who I'd never listen to were it not that they're a good reading soundtrack) Nothing with lyrics that you'd want to sing along to, nothing poppy, and personally I can't even have something very complex or emotionally heavy behind as I'll be more likely to listen to that rather than read.

― cis (cis), Tuesday, 28 September 2004 09:17 (twenty years ago)

Molasses is good also.

― tissp! (the impossible shortest specia), Tuesday, 28 September 2004 09:27 (twenty years ago)

Why not use The Tired Sounds of Stars of the Lid? I use it a lot in many different ways. I can't imagine it not being perfect for this purpose.

― jonas siig (plast), Thursday, 30 September 2004 12:33 (twenty years ago)

"House of Sun" !

― hey, it's sonny!, Thursday, 30 September 2004 13:31 (twenty years ago)

Anything that doesn't have lyrics.

― o. nate (onate), Thursday, 30 September 2004 14:16 (twenty years ago)

(But even then, it's sometimes too distracting.)

― o. nate (onate), Thursday, 30 September 2004 14:16 (twenty years ago)

Phillip Glass
cLOUDDEAD
tuvan throat singing
Death Cube K Dreamatorium
this one Michael Brooke/Daneil Lanois/Brian Eno record
qawwali
Miles Davis In a Silent Way
Sigur Ros Von
Tabla Dub Science

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Thursday, 30 September 2004 14:48 (twenty years ago)

I've recently discovered that Interpol's Antics is really excellent background music for general reading and busywork, which sorta explains why I've listened it so many times in the last two months. I didn't even realize I liked Interpol til just recently.

― Matthew Perpetua (Matthew Perpetua), Thursday, 30 September 2004 14:50 (twenty years ago)

Thomas Koner owns this thread.

You should also get ahold of Fluxion's Vibrant Forms albums. Very minimal electronics with subtle shifts in the accents of a single groove. Very repeptive and hypnotic, great music to drift in and out of while you are doing other things. The only record that I have ever heard that threw me into a genuine hypnotic trance state(happened while driving through a white-out snow storm in michigan).

Another thing that I was into a few months back was music that had different volume levels throughout the course of a song. I made a few simple loops on a sequencer and altered the velocity programming so that a phrase would repeat every so often(say every 32 bars) and when it repeated it would be at a different level, mostly low and every so often at a normal level. Mostly it would be quiet or almost non-existant and then every couple minutes after I had forgotten about it I would heard a drift of sound. I think the secret is to stop listening to music, and just look for pure sound. WHen you are going for real music(normal harmonic structures, chord progressions, tension and resolution...) I think you kind of force people listen because their minds are subconsciously hearing the math, whether or not you know the theory your mind is accoustomed to a certain set of intervals and it is waiting for them to arrive. When you get rid of that and just present sound without a conventional structure you alllow people to be a lot more noncommital with music. I am sure there are people out there doing super minimal, almost non-existant ambient, but I don't really know who they are. It is easier for me to cook the stuff
up myself than it is to hunt it down and mail order it. If anybody in north america wants a copy, shoot me an email and I will send you an odd little gift.

― Disco Nihilist (mjt), Friday, 1 October 2004 04:07 (twenty years ago)

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