The Effect Of Music Listening On Work Performance

When music2work2 was still somewhat in the planning stages, we decided to do some research and see if others felt as we do that “music is good for you.” Andrew's psychology degree influenced his thinking on this and you can read the write up of his final year dissertation here - Why listening to music can make you smarter.

One of the articles that pops up regularly for this search is “The effect of music listening on work performance” by Teresa Lesiuk at the University of Windsor. She reports on the results of a Canadian study that measured work quality, time-on-task and workers’ mood when listening to music. The study showed a positive affect - that quality-of-work was better with music, and time-on-task was longer when music was removed. The workers also noted a positive mood alteration when music was played.

See - we knew it - music is good for you - particularly when you want to get things done. So - if you have that blog post to write or paper to finish, why don't you head on over to Identification - get yourself some music2work2 and get to work!

What is a Musician?

One of the blogs that I subscribe to is a musician centric blog called http://www.musicianwages.com - essential reading if you're going to make a career of this music thing!  The content might be a little specific for most readers but they recently sent out an all inclusive request asking for input on the question - What is a Musician? I've been asking myself that one for decades now and couldn't resist a slightly tongue in cheek response - you'll find it at the bottom of the list - What is a Musician?

Travis, Ode to J. Smith

So it's Saturday and I'm sitting here putting the correct meta-data on all the free 5 minute samples at music2work2.com - should have done this a while ago - you can stream the track, download the sample and you don't even need to register! Anyway - while I'm doing this I'm listening to Travis' new album Ode to J. Smith streaming at Spin.com, I'm on my second listen and it's pretty damn cool.  My sister introduced me to Travis and I fell in love with their album The Man Who - they're almost, but not entirely unlike if you took say - Radiohead, Oasis, Weezer and perhaps Nickel Creek -  mixed them around and then gave whatever came out a big bowl of something.

You can check out the Travis' official site here - I just went looking for the album on Amazon - it isn't there - bummer.  Interestingly enough the album image on the front page is a link to the itunes store - and I can't see any other way of buying the album - you know - if they'd had a little widget that I could have put in this post with a listen and a purchase link - then I would have!

Oh and thanks to @tindle for getting me to blog this.