Blog1 min read
Music for someone else asleep
You're awake. They aren't. The room belongs to the person who isn't listening.
Someone is asleep next to you. A partner, a child, someone visiting on a sofa. You're awake, with an hour to fill, and you want music. The brief is harder than 'music for sleep' because you're the one listening, but the room belongs to the person who isn't.
Headphones solve part of this, but not all. The wrong music in headphones still keeps you alert in a way the room can feel, and you'll fidget; the sleeper will notice. The music has to be slow enough that you stay still, simple enough that you don't follow it, low enough on attack that you forget you have it on.
The wellness room is closest, but tilted toward stillness. The sleep room works at low volume, because the sleeper has already done the falling. Reading-room music is fine if you have a book. The focus room is wrong — you'd shift your weight every few minutes, and that's enough to wake somebody who's been asleep half an hour.
This is one of the few briefs where the music isn't really for you, even though you're the one listening. The job is to be a person in the room without being a person doing something. The music helps the room stay the room it was when they fell asleep.