Classical Composition

James Lamb writes: Last March, I posted an invitation on this blog  for tracks that learners used to support the task of academic writing. Whilst acknowledging that the digital classroom encourages and allows for new ways of writing, my interest was in identifying music that accompanied, influenced or enhanced activities what might be described as 'essayistic composition'.

In the following weeks, more than twenty students from a broad range of disciplines suggested a wide variety of listening material. As the comments under the original blog entry show, the task of academic writing was shown to be influenced and inspired by Classical, Northern Soul, Electronica, Techno, official film soundtracks and guitar music made by thin men in hipster jeans. This is great in terms of diversity but difficult in terms of making what I wanted to be a single, cohesive and usable soundtrack. And so I decided to make two separate compilations, loosely classified as ‘Classical’ and ‘higher tempo’ (and if my use of terminology presents me as a musical amateur, that’s because I am).

I need however to offer a couple of qualifications at this point. First, there were too many suggestions to include every track, therefore in my role of curator I’ve drawn together individual pieces of music that I think work well within a single playlist. Nevertheless, I’ve included at least one track from everyone who took time to contribute. Secondly, where a participant suggested an artist rather than an individual song, I generally made my own selection using iTunes (both as a way of listening to the tracks and also to get a measure of their popularity based upon downloads), or from my own collection. I think this was a legitimate approach in the circumstances.

As I put Volume 1: Classical Composition together, it struck me that it sounded a bit like an hour of listening to Classic FM, albeit without the adverts for dental implants and encouragement to get along to a concert taking place in north London tonight. 

Music for Writing (Volume 1): Classical Composition by Elektronicheslernenmuzik on Mixcloud