Re: music to study by

[think!ames!csccat.cs.com!larry@EDDIE.MIT.EDU (Larry Spence)]

In article <13105@sdcc6.ucsd.edu> mbharrin%sdcc13@ucsd.edu (Matthew Harrington)
writes:
>
>Say, what are some sounds to study by?  Sometimes
>I play some Tangerine Dream, and other times
>I play some Bach.  Anything with vocals probably won't
>do because they are too distracting.  And, it
>can't be too dramatic, like Beethoven's No. 9, etc.
>
>Any suggestions?

Off the top of my head:

1. Erik Satie (classical): any piano music.
2. Chopin (classical): Nocturnes. 
3. Bill Nelson (ambient / semi- new age): Chance Encounters In The Garden
   of Lights.
4. David Sylvian & Holger Czukay (ambient): Flux & Mutability, 
   Plight & Premonition
5. Eno albums (ambient / pre- new age): On Land (Ambient 4), 
   Music For Airports (Ambient 1?), other albums in the Ambient series.
6. Fripp/Eno: Evening Star (side 1 more than side 2).
7. Andy Summers (ambient / semi- new age): Mysterious Barracades, 
   The Golden Wire.
8. Harold Budd (some w/Eno): The Serpent (in Quicksilver)/Abandoned Cities,
   The Plateau of Mirrors, The White Arcades, others.
9. The Durutti Column: The Guitar and Other Machines, Valuable Passages,
   The Sporadic Recordings.

All of these are pretty tranquil.  There are some very low-key vocals on
some of the Durutti Column, and one vocal track (pretty lame) on Summers'
"Golden Wire."  My wife has been studying for her GRE recently, so we were 
faced with the same question.  Playing stuff like the above keeps us both
happy.

---
Larry Spence
larry@csccat.cs.com
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