Can I work to what I hear?

Fast Company’s Eve Upton-Clark reports on a survey by the career development firm TopResume on piped-in Christmas music’s effect on worker productivity.

The key is BPM – beats per minute – in the song. TopResume cites research showing that 50 to 80 BPM “is optimal for focus and productivity,” Upton-Clark writes. “When background music at a workplace is out of sync with what workers need to get on with their jobs, it can affect their energy and mood – and even performance.”

Holiday songs that hit the BPM sweet spot include Nat “King” Cole’s version of “The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting),” Brenda Lee’s “Rockin’ around the Christmas Tree,” Whitney Houston’s “Do You Hear What I Hear?” and the Vince Guaraldi Trio’s “Christmas Time Is Here.” Andy Williams’ “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” and Ariana Grande’s “Last Christmas” were too juiced on BPM.

Upton-Clark’s report:

(via https://artsjournal.com)

People who have to spend their working hours with Christmas tunes in the background, especially tunes that lay on the merriment with a trowel, probably spend much of January with the cultural equivalent to post-traumatic stress disorder.

I once got a taste of an especially ghastly playlist – B- and C-list stuff, likely from the late 1950s and early ’60s, judging by the tinny sound and relentless cutesiness– being piped into a medical facility where invasive procedures were performed. I imagined that the practicioners’ wanted, more than anything, to finish what they were doing as quickly as possible, and flee to a quiet place. Medical people are trained to endure a lot, but three or four weeks of this?