Why You Should Listen to Lofi While Studying

We all know that studying and listening to music go together, but many wonder: What music should I listen to while I work? If you are asking yourself that question, fear not! I will be helping you find the perfect type of music to listen to while you are working.

Music has taken on many shapes and forms across time. There are many genres of music, among them Pop, Indie Rock, Rock, Lofi, and House. All of these genres produce different emotions in the audience on the basis of how they sound. For example, Ludwig Van Beethoven, a German composer who was born on December 17, 1770, composed some of the most famous pieces of music that are still relevant today, 250 years later. Beethoven communicated emotion through his music, making his pieces sound happy, sad, joyful, enthusiastic, playful, serious, and so much more. 

When it comes to doing schoolwork, relaxing music has been found to calm your emotions and improve memorization. According to a study from Vaughn College in New York City, relaxing music stimulates the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for focus, problem solving, and organization; it also calms your emotions. In particular, Lofi Music has been found to make people study more effectively.  Lofi stands for Low Fidelity. You may find that Lofi music is very different from music you may hear today; it has ambient sounds in the background, a quiet drum, and a soothing main instrumental theme that repeats throughout the song. Lofi also has no lyrics, meaning there is less for the listener to focus on. Lofi music is very predictable in the sense that it repeats the same notes for the whole piece, causing the listener to focus less on the music, and more on the work in front of them. It also helps drain out outside distractions by sucking you in with ambient sounds in the background, making you feel like you are in a place different from where you actually are.

The above image is taken from lofi hip hop radio, a stream on youtube that has been live since February 25, 2017. This stream plays Lofi beats from different artists while showing a simple animation of a girl studying. Every day since 2017, an average of 25 thousand people have been watching the stream at a time. Just recently, the Lofi Girl Youtube channel (previously known as Chilled Cow) reached 10 million subscribers. The person who owns the channel is a french musician named Juan Pablo Machado who runs the stream 24/7. In just the past 30 days, the Lofi channel has gained 37.674 million views on a collection of all the videos uploaded. As of March 2nd, in total, the channel has 33.651 million views. This channel, without a doubt, is one of the most successful Youtube channels on the platform. On Lofi beats streams like these, the order of the songs is completely random. This is important because if you know the music you hear really well, you are more likely to focus on the song rather than your work.  What’s more, this randomization causes people to hear a unique song each time they tune in to the stream. 

Overall, Lofi music is a great genre of music to listen to when you have to buckle down and work. So next time you need to do all of your research for Talking Leaves, hop on the Lofi Music Stream and get to work!