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Best Music To Model and Groove To

Published
by
Josh
on December 27, 2007
in Rockin' Cool and Working Smarter
.

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thomyork.jpgDays and nights of sitting in front of a computer can be very hard on the ol’ melon. The low droning buzz of the fluorescents is enough to make you go completely mad and your ipod just ran out of juice.

Fortunately, the interweb has had little radio babies with endless hours of streaming tunage to help shut out the annoying noise of others people being productive. There’s many out there, but my favorite has to be Pandora. It adapts to what you want to hear and the music quality is excellent.

But what’s the best music to listen to when you’re sitting for hours studying or modeling or writing helpful articles?

It’s all about the groove
Hand’s down, the best music to listen during times of deep concentration are tunes without words. Who needs some singer going on about this or that when you’re trying to get things done. Boot the singer and settle into a nice groove. Here are 10 stations that are bound to help you keep the rhythm going.

Got another one you like? Hit the comments!

Groove 70’s Radio
The Meters, Mighty Imperials, Soul Strokes, etc.

Groove Dixie Jazz Radio
Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Jack Teagarden, Pete Fountain, etc.

Groove Drum n’ Bass Radio
Deiselboy, DJ Zinc, Roni Size, etc.

Groove Flamenco Radio
Paco Pena, Rodrigo Y Gabriela, Carlos Montoya & Andres Segovia, etc.

Groove Guitar Radio
Leo Kottke, Bert Jansch, Preston Reed, etc.

Groove Quintette Radio
The New Quintette Du Hot Club De France, The Hot Club, Pearl Django, etc.

Groove Rock Radio
Stevie Ray Vaughan, Chris Duarte, Led Zeppelin, etc.

Groove Smooth Radio
BT, Tosca, Rocket, etc.

Groove Surf Radio
The Tornadoes, The Ventures, The Lively Ones, etc.

Groove Western Radio
Ennio Morricone, Liz Carroll, Jack Nitzsche, etc.

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Viewing 8 Comments

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    Josh,

    Thanks for the link. Listening to the "Groove Flamenco Radio" and really helping me focus on the modeling. All that Latin guitar gets my brain juice flowing. =)


    Have a happy new year! Here's to a SOLID 2008 Smack!
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    Hi Josh

    Andres Segovia & Leo Kottke, I was lucky to see both of these 12 string guitar players in concert. I was about 9 or 10 when I saw Segovia, my Mom and I sat in the front row. I saw Leo Kottke many times in the 1970's in SoCal.

    Here's a favorite iTunes radio station; Technicolor Web Of Sound.


    With over 400 songs on my iTunes library, it's difficult to list all my favorites, but here's a few;

    Dave Mason, Led Zepplin, The Ramones, The Seeds, The Beach Boys, The Move, Elvis Costello, The Traveling Wilburys, Eric Clapton, ....

    Devon
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    Hi, Josh,

    Back in the 80's there was a radio station in San Francisco which played 'soul groove' kind of stuff, and though they had lyrics, it mostly sounded like gibberish to me and didn't interrupt anything. But in later times, I've come to enjoy what I'd call 'space music,' that is, kind of floating new-age stuff. It makes no demand on the intellect, so it's good background sound for thinking.

    Maybe it has something to do with brainwave frequencies. The groove stuff that seems to work the best for me is somewhat slow, maybe 72 to 96 beats per minute. This is probably not low enough to induce deep brain waves, but it seems to be calming all the same.

    I'm a musician, but I don't play either real groove stuff nor space music. What's most enjoyable to play, for me, is sort of 'elevator music' with jazz harmonies and a groove pulse. (I play two-handed touch-style music on the Mobius Megatar electric guitar and bass instrument. I also make them.) But playing means listening, and background music for thinking sort of works best for me when it's not very active listening.
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    Hi T. I checked out the site. That's definitely a unique instrument. did you design that using SolidWorks? It's got a great sound too. some of it reminds me of how Les Claypool from Primus plays. He's probably a purist though huh. Anyway, thanks for the comment.
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    Josh, I'm embarrassed to say that I didn't know about SolidWorks till recently. Our first guitar prototypes were made by folks better in the shop than me, and then drawings were reverse-engineered. At that time my first prototype builder (Bruce Sexauer, who shares credit on the design patent) used a popular cad program, and I couldn't afford it, and so I got a different one. Out of kindness I shall refer to it as BongoCad.

    Boy, that was a lot of work! But I learned how to do it and made engineering drawings. You can see some of them here --

    http://www.megatar.com/english/library/Engineer...

    But later on, when we undertook to make these two-handed touchstyle instruments using CNC machinery, rather than struggle with the old cad program, I got a different program, and that's when I discovered that all programs are not the same. Some are easier to use than others.

    And it looks like SolidWorks is truly superior in this regard.

    It's impressive, and I'm sure that as the news continues to expand, so will the use of SolidWorks. I guess that, once upon a time, just having CAD and modeling software was a big deal, but nowadays, I'd speculate that preserving the designer's time and making the tool clear to use is the most productive path.

    Like your company, our company has redesigned the basic approach to an existing universe, in our case it's guitar-playing, and *merely by making the attempt* we found a simpler and faster way to learn to play music, and even allowing people to play bass and guitar at the same time. And yet, *simply by rethinking the approach* it's easier than learning normal guitar (or piano). (Plus it's fun!)

    It would seem that your company has focussed on preserving the engineer's clarity of mind and attained rather magnificent reductions in design time. And that's got to make engineering more fun, right?

    My hat's off to you!
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    Unfortunately due to license issues Pandora is no longer available in the UK. Great shame as it was simply the best way to listen the type of music you like while srtill being surprised at what is played.
    Bring Pandora back to the UK soon!
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    Just last night my friend told me "Just as all mechanical engineers drive stick shift cars all true mechanical engineers listen to Rush". So thats what I plugged into Pandora today. Let see what kind of designs come out of it.
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    Sorry to add to an old old old posting.

    I'm a new reader and this blog has been me company while i do boring site work at night.

    Anyway, for Instrumental stuff, I usually listen to mogwai,god speed you black emperor, and sigur ros.

    I made a station on pandora a few years ago for "chill out" music for when i do CAD work or whatever.

    http://pandora.com/people/oogerscave (pick "chill out mang" for a listen)

    I also use Last.fm (http://www.last.fm/) a whole bunch or i stream an Australian radio station that's pretty good called triple J (http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/).

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