Music for Your Week: Music for Flying | A Useful Playlist

Part 1 of my new Useful Playlist series

Ok, for the next few weeks (at least), the Monday playlists I share are going to be a little different. Each one will be fine-tuned for a specific, practical purpose. This is how I usually make playlists for myself, so I thought I’d try sharing them this way to see if you guys find it useful.

This week: Flying

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Music for Flying

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been traveling overseas, spending a lot of time on airplanes, and listening to a lot music I don’t usually listen. There’s a certain calming, warm, mysterious, instrumental vibe that I really love when I’m on a dark airplane, floating in the haze of jet lag.

Honestly, I don’t know much about ambient music, but over the years I’ve slowly collected a bunch of great tracks that might—or might not—fit into that category. A lot of ambient music tends to leave me a little cold (and, frankly, bored), but I think this playlist is full of pieces that not only soothe and comfort, but also really excite the ol’ imagination.

Since I’m addicted to the sound of acoustic instruments, I mixed in a lot of more organic stuff—classical and experimental music—that captures the same feeling as more traditional ambient tracks. It’s fun to listen to this playlist without looking at the credits and notice what you respond to. These pieces come from different times, places, and are made in many different ways, so it’s an interesting game to let your imagination process them with as little context as possible. That’s how I like to listen—and hell, it passes the time on a long-ass flight.

Anyway, I’m so glad to have this very useful playlist and I hope you get as much use out of it as I have.

(Tidal, Spotify and Apple Music playlists below)

Safe travels -walt