Working Music

Olive Us Episode 1: Garden Day from Olive Us on Vimeo.

Music is a great way to get into a working groove, am I right? I love a bit of background something while I work. When I worked in a big office I started from episode 1 of This American Life, and nearly caught all the way back up. I had hours upon hours of sit-at-the-desk-and-don't-get-up work and I listened to a looot of stuff.

Now that I'm (more or less) my own boss, I don't have to wear those doggone headphones, and don't have to worry about getting in trouble for anything. So I've found some things that work well for me. And I want to share them with you! When I'm doing repeats I love something with a pretty quick beat. For some reason it gets me working in a nice rhythm and I think gets me moving a bit quicker.

If I'm answering emails, writing blog posts or trying to come up with new ideas, sometimes I need something that's more like background music, that won't get me typing lyrics instead of what I'm supposed to type. And sometimes, when I'm doing technical stuff like tracing a drawing into the computer, or recoloring, I'll add in something visual, a video, TV show or music video. Lately my husband and I have been watching The Newsroom. We're getting a kick out of it.

Since I live in Brazil, Pandora isn't available, and Hulu isn't available. Those were two big sources of ear pleasing inspiration in the states. But I've found some great alternatives. For this nice Monday, I'd love to share some of my favorite work jams to get this week started off right!

Visual:
I'm a huge fan of Vimeo, mostly because of their 'watch later' feature.
The Perennial Plate has a nice little vimeo show, it's short and easy to watch. A bit informative and inspiring. Sometimes I miss North American food, so this is where I go to daydream about it.

Although I'm never sure whether they're official or not, I love Diplo's videos, great tunes, mesmerizing visuals: here's a fav, but probably NSFW. Or moms. Don't watch this video Mom, I know you read the blog.

Find the Newsroom where you can, it's an HBO show. Try and do the right thing and watch it through legal sources. It's pretty good. Banter like that just doesn't happen much in real life. And I can't help but see Emily Mortimer as Phoebe with avian bone syndrome. Ouch. My bones.

Genine Zlatkis's Videos are inspiration to the max, and informative, and relaxing. Wait, I need to add more describers, educational, aspirational, technical, musical!

Musical:
Diplo and Fujiya & Miyagi make the bulk of this playlist on Grooveshark. The odds and ends are made of of artists mostly pulled from the Breaking Bad soundtrack. There are some bad words, so don't play it for your 3 year old. If you like it, go to their sites and buy it!

All Day by Girl Talk is one of my super favorites. There is a free download of All Day, but his other music you can buy, and a lot of it is name your price. Go support a great artist and purchase a few. Also, there are some bad words on this one too.

I somehow ended up with a Picture Shop download, and it's such perfect background music. On that note, how are there so many talented French musicians? Right?

Another favorite of mine is anything by Danny Elfman. Edward Scissorhands is really nice. Here's the main titles to give you an idea. I think you can get it on iTunes.

For everything else, pretty much just close your eyes and pick an NPR (or any affiliate) program, and you'll most likely be entertained, and hopefully learn a bit too.



Bottled History from Smith Journal on Vimeo.

**Wait, I don't want you all to think I'm too cool for school. I published this and turned on my itunes...Paul Simon. If I'm listening to music year after year after year, it's totally Jimmy Buffet, Paul Simon, James Taylor, Ben Folds, Queen, REM, Bob Marley, Counting Crows, DMB, you know, more normal music. I listen to a lot of normal music too.