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5 Must Haves For A Music Room
A music room is a gift to any home.
16:47 07 May 2021
Whether that''s because you’re installing a home studio to get some of your musical ideas recorded to tape, setting up a space for your kids to play their instruments, or just giving yourself a space to enjoy your favorite records.
However, the key to having a space that you can dial your brain out and dial your creativity in is having it set up to get you in the mood and remove all distractions – which with a little planning is easy to achieve.
Here’s our top five tips for getting your music room ready for action.
Sound Proofing
Of everything on the list, sound proofing is the absolute must have. You’ll find it can be pretty hard to relax in your music room if you’re always thinking about how loud you are.
Of course, if you’re building a house from scratch, you can pout some extra sound proofing in the walls to begin with, but for most of us sound proofing is a game of finding what you can fix later.
One of the best things you can do is to get a good pair of sound proofing curtains – this will make sure your volume stays inside the room and doesn’t annoy the neighbors.
Taking a leaf out of most musician’s playbooks, our friends at KillerGuitarRigs.com tested a bunch of different sound proofing curtains by blasting AC/DC’s “Back In Black” at full volume and standing in the street to test the noise levels – as good a test as any!
Once you no longer have to worry about how loud you are, you can focus on enjoying yourself!
Strong Shelving
Another issue people run into is having bare light shelves holding up a bunch of records, groaning under the weight and leaving them wincing every time they go to pull something off the shelf.
To avoid having to worry about all of your records, or amps, or pedals suddenly crashing to the ground, spend the money and get some decent shelving that looks good but also ensures none of your music room turns into a trash pile.
There are any number of options for good sturdy shelving, but for most people, Ikea scratches an itch of having shelving that is both functional and stylish. There’s a reason every serious record collector has one or more of the classic Kallax storage boxes in their room.
Inspirational Art
This one almost doesn’t need to be said – but then many people end up with a room with bare walls and realize they’ve accidentally created a music cell instead of a music room!
There are a million way to decorate a music room, from framing some of your favorite records, to hanging some cheap guitars as decoration, to getting posters of your favorite artists.
Really think about who you want to see when you’re being creative, and then put them on your wall. It will really help you to keep focus when you’re in the zone.
Abundant Greenery
One thing that helps your music room scream comfort is having some amount of greenery. This goes with the suggestion to adorn the walls with images of your musical heroes – if you don’t add a handful of things to make the space more cohesive, you’ll end up with a cold music box that you really don’t want to spend time in.
Now, a couple of things here you need to be aware of. If you’re leaving your sound proof curtains closed all day and all night, you’ll want to either choose some fake greenery (Ikea sells a ton of very realistic looking plastic plants and small trees), or you’ll want to decorate your room with succulents – a type of plant that is very hardy and needs no sunlight to stay alive.
Another thing to remember, if you do go the route of actual live plants, is YOU NEED TO TAKE CARE OF THEM. Your music room isn’t going to be very inviting if it’s full of dead and dying plants, and the smell of rotting fungus isn’t going to be very inspirational to anyone!
Look up some results for “indoor plants” to get some inspiration, and decorate that room out to be a warm and inviting space.
Comfortable Seating
This one is a no brainer – you can’t just put a couple of folding chairs in a music room and say you’re done.
For one, you need to find a chair that fits your main usage – for example, if it’s a home studio you’ll need a desk chair that will allow you to sit comfortably for hours as you work on your music. If you’re a guitarist you’ll also want to take into consideration something where the arms aren’t going to get in the way of the neck of your guitar.
If the room has a piano, now is the time to spend some decent money on a good piano bench to facilitate the longer practice sessions you will have with a dedicated room.
If it’s just a room to listen to music, think about what kind of comfortable armchair or similar you would want to sit in.
Whichever one you opt for – remember that you’re not the only person who will be using the room. Get some additional couches for visitors to come hang out. Sure your music room might be a place for solitary writing sessions, but there will come a time when you want to share what you have with others, and it’s not going to have quite the same vibe if they have to stand!
Conclusion
For many people, a music room is the dream. Having a room in your house dedicated to writing, recording or just listening to music gives you a space to close the door on the rest of the world and tune right into what makes you the happiest.
Set up the room just right, and you’ll have years of enjoyment ready to roll right in your own home.