Blog1 min read
Music for an unfamiliar city
Present enough to keep the walk steady, light enough not to compete with the signs.
A city you don't know is a strange listening environment. The streets you're walking aren't familiar, the time zone is probably slightly off, and you're paying more attention to signs and corners than to whatever's in your ears. Music for it has to handle that.
The brief is: present enough to keep the walk steady, light enough not to compete with what you're trying to look at. Anything you'd want to stop and listen to is wrong; you can't stop. Anything you'd zone out to is also wrong; you'd miss your turn.
Lo-fi works well, especially with a touch of melody. The focus room works if you're heading somewhere specific. The reading room is for when you've stopped — a cafe, a bench, a hotel lobby — and want the city to keep being interesting through the window.
What I leave off is anything I associate with home. The right soundtrack for an unfamiliar city is music that doesn't have your own house in it. Otherwise you spend the trip listening to the wrong room.