An experiment in creating a custom background music loop for working. Made in Caustic (Modular + Beatbox).

One of the side-effects of digital music tools and the huge amount of information available online, is a sort of democratization of music making. Anyone can make "music" as long as they have a laptop or phone. This opens up a whole world of making very specific music, created and customized specifically for you (like a background score for your life during a certain period/phase, kinda like WWF theme songs 😅) and maybe even for a specific task (working, exercising, walking, running, cooking, meditating, etc.). While not everyone will agree with or approve of "music" created by non-professional musicians, I for one feel there's lots of value in the added diversity.

So here is a track I created as background music for when I work. The track is symbolic of the ebb and flow of productivity (the ups, downs or the compete lack of it) and its cyclical natural.

I focused on 3 aspects with this track: Interest, Pace and Space.

Interest: I wanted something simple and repetitive that puts me in a state of flow and can be easily ignored but yet is interesting enough for me to tune in when I want to groove to it, to get recharged.

Pace: I wanted to get the tempo just right for me, not too slow and laid back, and not too fast and rushed. Moving forward and making progress, sustainably and at my natural pace.

Space: It had to feel spacious but not immense or empty, to prevent "wandering". It needed to be constrained yet allow for spacial and temporal pockets/openings.

I've been using proto versions of this track for a while and have iterated to this current state which seems to suit me (for now). I'm sure I'll be iterating on it (hence the version number v1 in the title) as I already have some things I want to "solve" and that's really the cool part of all this: I can evolve/fix it based on my changing needs and preferences. 

So, give it a listen and see it works for you. If not, you can always make your own, cause anyone can make music 🙂

P.S. Listen in stereo (earphones/headphones/speakers) as you might not be able to hear the stereo effects on phone speakers.

Sandeep Shetty (SoundChaser.org)