In the Eyes of An Architecture Student: What Music do you Listen to for Studio Work?

Hi everyone!

Hope you all had a wonderful, restful MLK weekend!

I’m back again this week to discuss my answer to the question: What music do you listen to as you’re doing studio sketches or modeling?

First things first, I’ll just say, I have always been someone who’s been easily distracted no matter the context. So, getting me to focus and stay still to focus on specific tasks under a seemingly far away deadline is like pulling teeth. Whenever I do my structures assignments, I’d say that I listen to anything really, I find that classical music is alright too (I did used to be in orchestra, in case you were wondering how I don’t fall asleep listening to it for two hours straight). For any assignments that involve in-depth writing, like essays or reading, I listen to instrumentals. Again, orchestral music is great with me for this. I also really enjoy listening to dub step or even just instrumentals to tropical pop songs, and even remixes. I’ve even done quite well listening to non-English music. As soon as I hear English music, I find it inevitable that the lyrics will end up somewhere in my paper haha. As for my studio design sketching and modeling, I guess I do not really distinguished playlists for either of the tasks. I enjoy listening to anything really, as long as its upbeat. So, pretty much anything within the genres: pop, EDM, tropical house, and synthetic instrumentals, I find quite inspiring to my work actually. Besides the fact that sometimes I will find myself awake or still-awake at unearthly hours, I just find that anything upbeat and catchy just sets a great groove for me to “settle” into the work that I need to do. I oftentimes find that the beats and catchy lyrics keep me energized for hours, as I’m usually doing some sort of tedious, repetitive task either with my knives on the cutting mat or on my laptop with the software. I do also think that the devices that I use to listen to my music influence my ability to make this work as well. Sometimes. if there is just too much linework, or powerful renderings that need to be done, I will go to the BT Lab (our PC classrooms with very powerful computers) and I just end up listening off of their PC with my earbuds. If I’m at my desk doing my work on my laptop, I’ll just listen off of my laptop with my earbuds or my wireless headphones- the only downside with the headphones is I often get too warm or my head starts to hurt from the weight and pressure put on my ears for the extended period of time. Now, if I’m modeling, I find it immensely more convenient to use my wireless headphones- you can imagine, there’s a ton of materials and blades and sketches scattered on the desk, so the last thing you need or want is a tangled wire of your headphone getting caught on stuff, as you’re constantly re-positioning in order to produce the most effective cuts. I’ve definitely forgotten to charge my headphones and ended up using earbuds, and the result was just some wasted minutes to untangle things, or bring my phone and headphones along wherever I moved. Aaanddd, here’s what you would consider the click bait of this post: an excerpt of my playlist! I hope ya’ll will give it a go, whether you’re sprawled in bed or doing your own work. If you do, (or don’t I guess) and have comments or suggestions, feel free to drop your thoughts in the comments below, or reach out to my instagram at: themichiganarchitect Ciao 🙂

TheMichiganArchitect Work Playlist Winter 2020 🙂

Mike Perry feat. Tessa: Stay Young

Sistek feat. Tudor & Amy J Pryce: Pitfalls

Doja Cat: Say So

Far East Movement feat. Jay Park: Sxwme

Maggie Lindemann (Cheat Codes and CADE Remix): Pretty Girl

Bazzi (Bazzi vs Young Bombs Remix): Mine

Timeflies: Once In a While

Timeflies & Shy Martin: Raincoat

Alex Ross feat. Dakota & T-Pain: Dreams

Ali Simpson: Guilty

Allie X: Catch

Overstreet: Carried Away

Lovelytheband: Broken

Jax Jones & Ella Henderson: This is Real

Arizona: Electric Touch

Kim Petras: Icy

Alexandra Stan: Little Lies

Adventure Club & Crankdat feat. Krewella: Next Life

One Republic (Arty Remix): I Lived

The Knocks feat. Foster The People): Ride or Die

Austin Mahone: Better With You

Tiesto feat. Stevie Appleton: BLUE