Whether it is classic or alternative, listening to music can be one of the best ways for a student to focus on completing homework or for reviewing before a test.

Junior Lulu Dawson, a frequent concert-goer and music enthusiast, makes a routine of listening to music while she does her homework every night. She tends to lean towards mellow indie and acoustic music during her work time. The music allows Dawson to concentrate and she stated, “it helps me to focus by drowning out whatever else is going on around me.”

Senior Sara Rothrock listens to oldies, pop, or classical music while doing homework. The artists that best help her to zone out background noise are Elton John, John Mayer, and Beethoven. Rothrock believes she is able to complete her homework more efficiently with the aid of music. Being a musician, she said listening to songs while she works “has always been a good way to keep me centered and focused.”

Choir director Mr. Beyer is not necessarily a strong advocate of listening to music while doing school work, however he feels that it can change one’s mood and in a sense trick one’s mind to become more attentive to what it is learning. Beyer suggests that there has to be some sort of balance between the two: “studying in the foreground, music in the background. If the balance shifts, homework will take twice as long.”

Beyer also recommends that if someone decides to listen to music while doing homework, that they play well-known songs “so that hardly any brain power needs to be expended listening to it.”

Much research has been dedicated to answering questions about the relationship between studying/doing homework and listening to music. According to a USC News from 2014, University research in France has theorized that “the music put students in a heightened emotional state, making them more receptive to information” and the Duke Cancer Institute has concluded that classical music can lessen anxiety.

For those with continuous stressful late-night studying and homework sessions, listening to music could be the answer to the problem.

Follow The Panther on Spotify and find playlists dedicated to reducing stress, the best music to study by, and the music that we listen to while laying out the paper.