Music Monday - When I Want To Sleep

Way down at the bottom of the page, is my "Zune Card" - a little widget that shows what my Zune has been playing. It's been there for a month or so, quietly updating whenever the Zune stops playing long enough to sync with the server. Many (maybe even most) days when I check in on it, it shows that my most recently listened to music is by ATB... It's not that I have a one-track, or one-artist mind... The Zune has a dock in our bedroom, and most nights Cindy and I listen to it as we're falling asleep.

The concept of falling asleep to music has always appealed to me, but it's never really worked very well. I have a REALLY hard time just passively listening to music. I'll try to, try to just drift off... but even if it's something I've heard a million times before, there's always something that keeps my mind actively listening to it, keeping it from blending into the background. I've even got a couple CDs specifically made for relaxing/sleeping, to the extent that there's a warning printed on the cover to not listen while driving. They've proven highly successful over the years - even The Donald was rendered unconscious as a result of this particular disc! But not me. I make it through to the very end, and usually wind up more frustrated than relaxed because I just can't let go of my awareness of the music. Cindy has no such problem, and loves falling asleep to music... usually only lasts a few minutes before she's out. So for the past several years, we'd frequently put music on at bedtime, I'd TRY to sleep while listening, and when she was good and deeply sleeping, I'd get up and turn it off.

Then a few months ago, I picked up the latest album by ATB. ATB is a dance artist that I played regularly during my days of producing the Friday Night PartyZone on Seattle's C-89.5 FM. The first several hits were instrumental dance, and were often featured during the last hour of my show, which I'd nicknamed "The Ambient Hour". Turns out ATB is a guy named Andre Tanneberger, and he is very skillful at making very melodic, richly textured musical masterpieces that you can dance to. His latest album, "Trilogy" is a 2 disc set... The first disc is right along the lines of the music I had come to know and love, with a few surprisingly good vocals thrown in, and even a couple slower songs for added variety. After a few days with disc one, I put in disc two, and realized that it would be an excellent disc to put Cindy to sleep with!


A few nights later, as we were getting ready for bed, I pulled up disc 2 on the Zune, set the volume at a "fall asleep" level, and waited to see if it worked like I thought it would. Yep, she crashed somewhere during the second or third song. I was impressed that it worked that well, and was even more impressed at how GOOD the music was. And then an amazing thing happened - I was listening, thoroughly enjoying it, and the next thing I knew, my alarm went off. I HAD SUCCESSFULLY FALLEN ASLEEP WITH MUSIC PLAYING!!

A couple nights later, we were going to bed, and Cindy asked why there wasn't any music playing.. In truth, I was a little bit nervous that lightning wouldn't strike twice, but I turned it on again, and again, didn't make it to the end of the album. After a few nights of this, I put together a playlist of similar music from other artists, and it failed miserably. It was a return to my normal actively-listening-and-unable-to-drift-off mode. Next night, back to Trilogy's Disc 2, and the magic was still there.

The best thing about this, is that as our kids are getting older, and staying up doing homework and other things late into the night, I have found it nearly impossible to go to sleep until I know they're sleeping as well. Having my magic, non-prescription sleeping music has saved me from countless hours of tossing and turning! I certainly can't claim that it'll work like that for everyone, but for me, Mr. Tanneberger has provided a highly valuable service!

NOTE:
I've decided to start a (hopefully) weekly feature on the music I like. Music Monday will cover an artist, an album, a genre or even an individual song each week for as long as I can keep it up!