Your Cooking Music

Do you play music while you cook? How nice! What is it?

Does music play in your head while you cook? Excellent! What is it?

Lately my only-in-my-head cooking groove is this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UOqK1QZgOg

Varies widely from day to day. Could be cuban, chamber music, celtic, bossa nova, chet baker, wilson pickett, or something else altogether.

i fall back on 70’s classic rock a lot (pvmic) or an old-school easy-listening format radio station OR oldschool upbeat country like Buck Owens

if I am attempting something daunting or new or super-involved that might stress me out I go for something lively like the Pogues so that i dont get too in my head

I'm in the kitchen cooking spaghetti when the woman calls. Another moment until the spaghetti is done; there I am, whistling the prelude to Rossini's La Gazza Ladra along with the FM radio. Perfect spaghetti-cooking music.

I hear the telephone ring but tell myself, Ignore it. Let the spaghetti finish cooking. It's almost done, and besides, Claudio Abbado and the London Symphony Orchestra are coming to a crescendo. Still, on second thought, I figure I might as well turn down the flame and head into the living room, cooking chopsticks in hand, to pick up the receiver. It might be a friend, it occurs to me, possibly with a word of a new job.

70% (maybe more) of my music listening is while I am cooking, usually about 2 hrs per evening on average and way higher on the weekends.

Being stoned, puttering around in the kitchen, while listening to a record is one of my favorite things on earth.

I listen to everything, but more and more I want something with a casual groove and often that is the Grateful Dead or classic Blue Note jazz.

No music unless I have 30+ minutes of prep, at which point I bring my bedside bluetooth speaker to the kitchen and put on WFMU (if a show I like is on) or the music on my phone on random play.

Nine inch nails, for some reason, especially the early stuff

Some of the most pleasurable listening-cooking experiences have been had by cooking while listening to some of the hardest end of the serialists and electro-acoustic composers. Stockhausen’s “Hymnen” is especially good accompaniment to the sound of chopping and frying

I mostly catch up on my podcasts, though I used to just put on Pandora.

stockhausen can be great board game music too, imo

Do you play music while you cook? How nice! What is it?

Yes. My own live recordings of Catherine Christer Hennix. I'm so glad you asked!

I also listen to commercially available recordings by Catherine Christer Hennix while i cook, and music that for some reason reminds me of Catherine Christer Hennix. For example, I recently noticed that on her releases with the group Deontic Miracle, the trills played by the renaissance oboe seems derived from John Coltrane's trills (e.g. approx 4 mins into Inch Worm). Since then, I've started playing more early 60's Trane while I cook, such as the Complete Village Vanguard Recordings box.

Other times, I listen to some minimal solo piano music.

70% (maybe more) of my music listening is while I am cooking, usually about 2 hrs per evening on average

i also listen to music in the bath or shower, in my blanket fort while reading research papers, and while riding the train to the beach in the summer. But the 2 hours per evening presents a unique opportunity to listen to longer duration pieces. But I've found that the sounds and rhythms of the kitchen compete too much with delicate improv. Trying to listen to Anne-F Jacques while cooking has probably been the most epic fail.

if I am attempting something daunting or new or super-involved that might stress me out I go for something lively like the Pogues so that i dont get too in my head

does anyone else find that their selection of music affects the outcome of their cooking?

"uneventful music" makes me less likely to postpone noisy processes because i dont want to miss a certain passage etc