During school, especially online, finding motivation and not dying of sheer boredom can be difficult. Or at least it is for me. I have to have a cup or two of coffee, maybe some food, sleep, and music. And since some of those things are more difficult to get than others, and because I’m lazy, I’ve listened to a lot of music. While listening to an 8 hour long Spotify playlist, I might get through the entire thing in a day. I guess this writing is about some of the things I’ve been listening to, but I would prefer to call it ” A Students Ode to Music”. Maybe because it’s from the perspective of students. It might also be because that sounds cool.  

First off, it would be worth it to say what I’m writing is an opinion. I don’t know all that much about music, except for my liking for it and maybe a few big words sprinkled in. So, let’s crack on. Focusing on recent music releases, some of the ones I’ve been listening to a lot is Nectar (Joji), Everything’s Strange Here (G-Eazy), and some Post Malone stuff. I’m a sucker for nostalgia, and I also want to listen to some fairly “chill” music because it’s a lot less distracting in (online) class. I find in an online class I get bored a lot, so it’s usually pretty nice to just listen to music in the background, not to drown out the message of the teacher but to just keep me awake. 

Aside from just listening to music in most of my online classes, I think it just improves everything that you’re doing. Laundry? Slap some Mac Miller on that. Twenty math problems? Just a sprinkle of 6LACK. I would say on average I listen to music around 7-8 hours a day, while only an hour or two just for listening to music as a type of therapy. When I interviewed Jack Hebert 23′ and Rayan Kashif 24′, they also said they listen to around 5-6 hours of music a day. Carlos Charriez, MS Science Teacher, said he listens to around 5 hours of music a day. Everyone gets stressed, I get stressed out, burned out, or just kinda done with stuff a lot, and it helps a lot to listen to music. It might be the lyrics or beats that give any song its “healing” purposes, but I think it’s more based on memories. As I said at the beginning of the feature, I’m a total sucker for nostalgia. If I can put a scene, a face, or a memory with any given song I tend to feel happier while listening because I can remember those times. 

Whether it’s working in the basement with my dad was a kid or hanging out with my friends around a campfire at 1 am. It’s the good parts of life that I associate with music, so I think that’s why it’s such good therapy. That’s also why I always bring a speaker with me. To create new good memories for future use.