The beginning.

 The life of a student is a constant stream of assignments, worksheets, essays, and tests. Many students find it hard to stay focused and motivated while doing their work. Something that helps lots of people including me, is listening to music to stay focused. You can't just put on any music though, most music has distracting sounds and lyrics that are meant to keep your attention. There are still lots of genres, however, that are great for focusing . Some people prefer classical music, some prefer jazz, and some listen to my favourite, lofi hip-hop. 

Lofi Girl live stream picture that accompanies the music

The most popular way people listen to lofi hip-hop is on youtube live streams where thousands of people tune in to a curated selection of lofi beats. There are hundreds of lofi live streams active at any given time, but the most popular one is made by "Lofi Girl". The "Lofi Girl" live stream is up 24/7 and has been streaming since February 22nd, 2020. There is also an active live chat alongside the video where people from all around the world can talk about whatever work they're doing or just have random conversations. 

As someone who usually listens to lofi hip-hop as I work, I was interested in learning what makes it so easy to concentrate while listening to lofi hip-hop, and what brings in thousands of viewers every day to basically just listen to a playlist. I wanted to learn about how lofi hip-hop was originally created, the science that makes it easier for your brain to focus, the internet culture around lofi hip-hop, and then I eventually want to produce the ultimate lofi hip-hop track utilizing what I've learned.

For the first few days of working on this project, I formulated what I wanted to learn from this project, and what I wanted my final product to be. I plan to make a video where I talk about everything I learn, and then create a song and explain the process of that. So far I've started to research the science behind it, and I've found lots of cool things. One thing I learned is that nostalgic sounds and visuals play a big part of what makes lofi appealing. Lots of lofi songs play a soft vinyl crackle over the top of the song to make it sound nostalgic. 

I'm excited to keep learning about the science that goes on in lofi and start learning about the pop culture influence. I'm also looking forward to the future when I can make the actual song because I think that will be really fun. The next step that I want to take is to talk to artists that make lofi hip-hop and ask some techniques they use to make their music appealing. I'm gonna get back to doing some research now and I'll update the blog once, I have more to share.