Work Music

The concept of "work" music has always been somewhat of an enigma (to me atleast). I prefer listening music while working, studying or any brain intensive work for that matter. But the stock music is usually ruled out. First, if the song has lyrics it's really hard to actually concentrate without drifting away on a tangent, especially if the song is a sad one that for some weird reason you relate to (Relating to song lyrics should be made illegal, but more on that later). And if the song genre is metal, I break into that evil grin as I look at the mirror (did i tell you the mirror is right front of my table in the room? Makes it insanely difficult to actually study).

No, what you need here is a song that refreshes your mind , without actually grabbing your attention. In comes ambient music. I started listening more of this type of music after coming here. It has those atmospheric layers in the music that is actually soothing. I don't know how to accurately describe it right now and it doesn't help that i'm freakishly sleepy. So anyone who wants to know more :
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambient_music

So coming back, even ambient music has a lot of sub-genres, some of which have disturbing, creepy music to say the least. But the good side is some of the other genres actually make for great work music.

Case in point: The Social Network Soundtrack

Composers Atticus Ross and Trent Reznor with Best Music Score award

This is the best piece of ambient music let alone work music that I've come across! Made by Trent Reznor (the "nine inch nails" guy) and Atticus Ross, this work consisting of 15 tracks is what i put on repeat and listen to again and again and again when i'm doing just about anything. It's classified as "dark ambient" and "industrial ambient" by last.fm, I have no idea what that means (I do actually, but that'll make the post even longer than it already is). So this soundtrack is greatly recommended if you have some long boring work to be done. Be warned though, this album (It shouldn't  be called a soundtrack, it's as good as any of those albums out there) takes it's own sweet time to grow on you.

There're also other good artists like God Is An Astronaut (instrumental ambient+ rock band having a really cool name) and Explosions in the Sky (ditto). Do check them out.

What to you listen to while working? Post it in the comments!

And I really need to sleep now.
Until next time,
KK

Update 6-10-2011: Lifehacker has a section dedicated to work music, do check it out here.:

VIT,Common Bathrooms and the Works

Ah well, VIT.

It's a kind of a bittersweet experience. It certainly is better than what you read about it on the net, but then there is something, forgive the cliche, missing. Maybe it's just that Kolkata raised the bar way too high(Cheers KVB mates!) or something.

When i was at home, the one thing that scared me (a delicate darling who'd never left home alone ever before) most about hostel life was the whole concept of common bathrooms. Fortunately, i don;t have a problem with the common bathroms here. No, not even when my current block ("E - Blaak") doesn't have those rods to hang the clothes from. One can hang clothes on the door. What i do have a problem with is people leaving their underwear behind (Even the lizard here says "Tch Tch"). I mean , How the hell does one manage to take all his clothes and leave the Jockey behind? Another pet grouch is unflushed toilets. But there's always a safe cubicle where one has written on the door- "Whoever doesn't flush the toilet is a Fothermucker". Talk about proactive.

On a completely unrelated note, have you ever noticed in moderate to large stations how the announcer(usually female) has a amazingly cool voice that sounds stitched together from different words(somewhat like the president speech in Die Hard 4, if you get my drift)? Always manages to cheer me up!

Until next time,
KK

Missed me?

Hey everyone!
Phew it's three years since i last wrote this blog!!
a lot has happened since 10th standard and me coming to kolkata...
11th and 12th were like full on pagalpanti years... 12th boards etc ho gaye... Then came admission time... after 2 years of FIITJEE coaching i was sure of only one thing... "IIT hobey naa".

And the IIT exam... Questions paper se nikal ke thappad maar rahe the.

Anyway jinka IIT nahiin... unka VIT hai!
So yes ladies and gentlemen, I'm a sophomore at the Vellore Institute of Technology.

Right now if you guys are realy bored i suggest you google "VIT reviews" or "VIT hostel life" or something like that.

So i was like completely freaking out.... But on a serious note, VIT ain't that bad.

And thus begins the second phase of my blog.