Music for a long flight

Long flights are a difficult listening environment. There's a low rumble of engines that eats the bottom end. The cabin is bright in a way that doesn't dim. The seat keeps you upright when you don't want to be. Most music sounds thin through over-ear headphones at thirty-five thousand feet, and any music with delicate detail loses it entirely.

What works is music with structure but not with surprise. Long ambient pieces survive the noise floor; piano with body to it survives the headphone leak. Anything dynamic, anything with sudden drops or hush passages, gets eaten by the engines and then ambushes you on the swells.

I tend to mix three rooms across a long flight. Focus while there's a meal or a film. Sleep for the dark middle of the flight. Reading when there are a few hours left and I want to come down from the cabin. Each one is doing about a third of the job.

What I never bring is anything new. The flight is the worst possible time to discover music — distracted, tired, listening through a compromised system. I save discoveries for the ground.