10 hours ago, ElainaA said:For anything requiring precision and careful attention I need basic background - classical works best for me because I get distracted easily by lyrics.
I presume you mean instrumental classical. There's lots of classical music that is heavy on the lyrics - opera, lieder, songs set to stringed instruments, etc etc. For myself, I don't need music to cook with - but if I am doing something that requires "precision and careful attention" and feel like some music then almost any "popular-type" music will do with or without singers going at it because it just becomes background noise; alternatively, innocuous easy-listening-type instrumental classical. Otherwise, with both instrumental (orchestral, chamber, single instrumental - especially piano) or vocal (opera, lieder, etc) there are many pieces where I tend to stop what I'm doing and give my full attention to the music especially at certain points (some arias, various passages, etc). I can listen to these pieces if I'm cooking something that only needs intermittent attention - a long-simmering stew, for example. With some compositions I find it hard to have it on at all if I need to focus on something else. For quick/detailed/focused cooking (like multiple-ingredient stir-fries) I can't listen to these sorts of music unless I mentally "turn it off" in which case when the dish is done I'd probably replay what I had missed. There have been a few times in the past when I might be listening to a broadcast of an opera, say, and literally have to shut off the heat and take the pan off the burner while I paid attention to the part that was just coming on, with or without picking up the libretto to follow along. Otherwise, I find that just having the radio on tuned to one of the classical stations is fine for "general purposes" when I'm cooking, if I want something in the background.
In a related way, when I was still working in the lab I liked to work late into the night/evenings (so would come in later in the day rather than at the crack of dawn) or on the weekends because then I could crank up the music when I was alone in the lab when I wanted to at suitable periods. One of the managers once confided to me that he could tell that I was there in the evening when he came down the corridor and heard some aria or other going at full volume the moment he turned the corner. Heh. :-)
ETA: I was just idly browsing the list of still-available broadcasts on medici.tv and was reminded of one of the exceptions to the vocal-genre compositions that I can have on and still cook with attention (more or less) - Messiah (Handel) --- but I'll qualify that by saying that it should be one of the "original scale/instrumental" performances, rather than the full-scale over-orchestrated extravaganzas that some conductors in the modern age feel the piece "needs". Those I find irritating and usually shut it off (or avoid).
