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I like music. I am not a musician by any means and don’t know how to play any instruments, but I enjoy listening to music very much. Often times I use music as a form of motivation. In particular, I listen to techno, or more specifically, trance music. I find that listening to this music at a reasonable level increases my productivity.

Many studies have shown that listening to music does a number of different things, mostly contributing to the emotional state you are in. If you settle down to a nice dinner with your loved one and put on a soft melody, you will probably feel a lot more intimate than say listening to Metallica. As a matter of fact, there is a whole industry built around using music to build emotion. Just look at any blockbuster movie. When I find myself drifting into that afternoon haze, I will put together a nice little playlist to pep up my productivity. Here is a video of one favorite artist.

That video shows DJ Tiesto cut called Power Mix. With closed to 14,000,000 views on YouTube, there seems to be quite a large following. I haven’t seen him in concert, but I have seen similar.

I number one reason I prefer this genre of music over others while working is the lack of words. Instead of words, the primary focus is on the beat. Most trance music has an upbeat tempo that more or less energizes me. In college I would make the journey to the library to work on finals and papers. I would put together my list and away I would go. The funny thing about studying to music is the condition called same state learning, where you remember things the best in the same state of mind you learned them in. While writing an in-class final, I would constantly hear the techno beat playing in my head that I was listening to while studying. I often wondered if I would have done better on tests if I could have listened to music while taking them.

In the end, I am sure most people do choose their favorite music as a form of motivation. In Fargo, even the marathon won’t let you listen to music if you want to qualify for say the Boston marathon. I believe the race organizer’s reasoning is the disadvantage to others without the music motivation. Techno music is one of my productivity tools and if you haven’t used music as a form of motivation, I would highly recommend it.