A Little Night Music

♫ I close my eyes, then I drift away
Into the magic night, I softly say
A silent prayer like dreamers do
Then I fall asleep to dream my dreams of you…♫

Lyrics, music and recorded by Roy Orbison.

Well we are heading into the Canadian annual right of spring – the Victoria Day long-weekend.

With images of heading to the cottage, heading to the condo at Whistler or just kicking back and taking a few days to relax, I thought I would share my tip for the best music website that I have found to relax…or work ..to.

www.songza.com is a free website that contains playlists curated by experts.  It can stream playlists based on mood, activity, artist, genre of music and time of day.  You can get music to clean up, write, relax, party and much much more.  You can give a ‘thumbs-up’ on a song or a ‘thumbs down’ (that immediately causes the service to skip to the next song in the playlist).  Aside from the fact that it puts a virtually endless amount of music at your fingertips, it plays artists that you may not normally run across.  For example, this post is being written to “The World of Roy Orbison” that not only contains many of his best works, it also has songs of those who were contemporaries and  influencers of Roy.  So it is a musical introduction site as well.  At the moment Tom Waits is playing on the Roy Orbison playlist (and if you haven’t been previously introduced to Tom…well, there is no time like the present…)

You can also search by criteria – for example, songs of eras (50s, 60’s etc) or songs used in Apple commercials.  You can try out songs from categories that you may not otherwise try  – for example, searching ‘Philip Glass’ brings up this playlist (among others):

Cosmic Dreams: A look at the minimalist approach to composing music, with works ranging from modern classical to Japanese new age.

Songza is a gem.  It has become one of my most visited websites EVER.  I say a silent prayer that it isn’t bought out by someone and then morphed into something else.

In the meantime I can listen to the music, close my eyes and drift away….

-David J. Bilinsky,  Vancouver BC