Blog1 min read
Music for waiting
Airports, lobbies, doctor's offices — a brief for short, low-control time.
Waiting is a brief of its own. You don't choose when it starts. You don't choose when it ends. You can't really commit to anything because you might be called away in the next minute. Music has to fit a duration you don't know.
The trick is picking something that doesn't reward attention. Anything that asks you to follow a structure or wait for a payoff fights the brief, because the wait might end in the middle of it. Music that's the same at minute three as at minute thirteen is what you want.
Lo-fi is the default — it can be paused and resumed in any direction without losing anything. The reading playlist works if you actually have a book to read while you wait, which is most of the time the best version of waiting. Focus works for the kind of wait you fill by trying to get a small thing done.
Headphones are a small kindness in waiting rooms, where everyone is in the same low-control situation. You don't owe the room your music, and the room doesn't owe you silence; the headphones let both sides off the hook.