So I’m taking a course at Berklee College of Music on Digital marketing and it’s been the best decision I’ve made since I got married. Of the many aspects on the course, the one we are looking at right now is: “Who is the market for music2work2?”
Unlike my fellow students who are marketing everything from start out rock bands to singer songwriters, club DJs and established music celebrities, music2work2 is less concerned with who you are and who you hang out with and more concerned with what you do.
We know that having noise in the background helps improve performance and we’re familiar with the Mozart Effect; it seems that the idea of music as a study aid is becoming more prevalent, this article in Teen ink that puts forward the idea that music helps with homework and we agree entirely.
So – where do you go to get this kind of music, and what is it called? For my own purposes I classify it as: Long form, instrumental music. Long form because when you longer have the need for words, you free the music from the 3 ½ minute “song” structure that has been so dominant over the last 70 years.
Of course if you go and Google “Long Form Instrumental Music” it doesn’t exactly come up with a playlist. You see, when I start looking at the current categorizations of this kind of music – they don’t exactly make me think of stuff that I would play when I want to work or study: New Age, Spiritual, Holistic, Jazz, Classical, Ambient, Chillout, Trance, Dub etc. I’m listening to a piece called Language of Silence by Deuter right now – it was written to be used by Reiki healers but it’s great as a writing accompaniment.
Most metal heads wouldn’t be seen dead listening to a New Age meditation, but that same metal head on a deadline might suddenly find the same tones exactly what they need to finish. One of the opportunities that I see for music2work2 is to introduce people to a whole range of music that they might not have thought they would like - the challenge here is not the music but the nomenclature.