Clef Notes

I listen to a lot of music. I mean A LOT. Part of my job requires it as I get a continuous stream of requests from students to sing and play certain songs, and I need to cull what seems appropriate as well as obtain sheet music. So when it’s time to cook or eat, I need a special playlist curated just for me. Every song on it must fulfill the following requirements:

• Be somewhat upbeat but not too much
• Have some kind of groove
• Not be too demanding
• Sound mostly happy or at least soothing
• Not cause me any stress listening to the vocals (that’s why most of it is instrumental)
• Use more than two chords
• Play more notes that are in the key than are not in the key
• Be a song I’ve heard fewer than 1,000 times.
• Not use any melodica

Since it’s SUCH a happy and fun playlist of 17 songs, I thought it would be fun to share it with all of you. You’ll find the following artists and more:

• Jerry Douglas
• Joscho Stephan (German jazz guitarist)
• Chet Atkins
• Mark Knofler
• Allen Toussaint
• Jon Batiste
• Pearl Django
• Willie Nelson
• Biréli Lagrène

I am constantly updating and adding to it, so if you follow the playlist on Spotify, you can enjoy the ever-evolving playlist along with me.

There are buttons here that will take you right to Spotify and YouTube, whichever you prefer. Or, perhaps just clicking on the embedded Spotify playlist below will work for you too.