I am a background music girl through and THROUGH! I also used to religiously listen to Chopin but now I listen to tonnes more instrumental music;
Dev Hynes' scores for Queen & Slim and We Are Who We Are are so addictive to me and so unique, I love listening to them while studying.
Piero Piccioni is a composer that made scores for old Italian films and the Camille score and Amore mio aiutami score are my favs for studying when it's sunny.
I'm seconding the other reply left to this q. Whenever I'm doing the most boring work and I have no motivation I shuffle the Succession soundtrack and pretend that what I'm doing is super important and going to save the world.
Berlioz is an artist I listen to exclusively when I'm studying late. Jazz is the perfect vibe for late night studying but sometimes I just want to fall asleep so jazz-house is perfect because it keeps me awake enough.
Hiroshi Yoshimura's Surround album is a lot more ambient than my other recs and can put you to sleep if you listen late BUT is very calming and gorgeous and runs almost no risk of being distracting.
Mac DeMarco has a whole 9hr album of 90% instrumentals that I'll listen to sometimes.
Low-key also drum and bass... this is verrrrry hit or miss I'm aware. I can only listen in certain circumstances but sometimes when I need to do a lot of work quickly I'll just slap on an instrumental drum and bass playlist and hammer it out. Listened to Entanglements by Alix Perez for a while last year, but usually just find a playlist. Dnb tends to feature samples with words but I don't find them distracting typically as they're not at the forefront of the mix.
I also find that if I listen to music in a language I don't understand, the lyrics don't distract me as much. I've been listening to Eliana Pittman's self-titled album recently while studying but this could potentially apply to any album.
OMG okay that's all I have. I feel insane.
