get your groove on

Whether it’s cleaning your house, doing your taxes, or creating stuff, music helps. If you’re like me, you have to find music that’s *just* right. It has to fit your mood and your energy level. The wrong music can throw everything off.

I usually listen to music while I’m at the torch. It helps me get in the zone. Some people watch movies, some people like silence… but I find I can’t work without some noise in the background.

Usually it’s all 80’s all the time. I don’t know what it is about 80’s music… It’s just light and fluffy and it’s like candy for your brain. Plus, it makes my husband dance around the kitchen, and play ‘name that tune’ with every song. He knows them all. It’s disturbing.

Back in the day, Pandora Internet Radio was still available in Canada. It was a sad, sad day when they restricted it to the US. It was genius. Once you’d been using it for a while, every song was better than the last. I discovered so many great artists that way. If you’re in the US, Australia or New Zealand and you don’t use Pandora, you should. It’s amazing. Now, in a Pandora-less world, I don’t know what I’d do without TuneIn Radio. It’s a free app on iTunes (and other platforms), and you can listen to virtually any kind of music you can imagine, on different ‘themed’ radio stations from all over the world.

Here are my favorite 80’s stations:

– .977 80’s Hits (80’s)
– The 80s

When I get 80’s overload, I have a few other go-tos, depending on the mood:

– ABC Lounge Music (Ambient) – when I’m in a quiet mood and need to relax
– Chill-Out Radio Gaia (New Age) – when I REALLY need to relax
– 94.9 CKUA (Public Radio) – local radio from Edmonton, great mix of artists and genres
– Bluegrass – AddictedToRadio.com – when I’m in the Bluegrass Mood.

Yes, there is a Bluegrass Mood. It usually strikes on Saturday mornings.

What gets you in the groove?