Hot take: Music shouldn't affect your playstyle

Im just going to get right into it

#Macine

Its weird for me to say that music shouldn't effect your playstyle nor enhance it because I'm here going into a field of music (Audio engineer) and boy howdy Let me tell you; sometimes the music you listen to will or can be a detrimental towards how you approach something. Why yes, you may have a playstyle that cause you to go BRRRRR when listening to music. Like in theory, having an agressive playstyle means that you should listening to up pace, up beat, in your face music and for the reverse for the more defensive reactionary playstyle you need calm, low bass, lofi nujabess music. But there are times when it don't and won't work and even can even be a detrimental to your playing and can even be used agiants you in mindgames. So Imma start cracking open these cases with my wisdom and feel free to have a debate against me in the comments for what I have to think

Aggressive music

Ah the good ol' agressor of taking names and kicking ass. I'm just going to rip off the bandaid: aggressive music is bad for you even when you have a aggressive playstyle. When listening to music that have a higher bpm (beats per minute) the brain normally wants to speed up the pace or go faster with things. This has been proven to be true when conducting a test with drivers while listening to various type of music that have different bpm (music go faster) that the faster it goes, the more faster they go. In other words putting this into playstyle (I've used to do this with the song I've linked) I would always be impatient and throw myself at the enemy without thinking fully of a game plane or analyzing my enemy to see what he does. This can cause problems cause if you playstyle is a more into your face style, then thats going to set it into over drive and put your playstyle into monkey brain *monkeybrainisaplaystyledubbedintheconnect4tournamentcommunitywhereallyoudoisjustplacerandomthingswithoutthinkingofafallbackoranextmove* and once you go into that theres no going out. Then you have the problem with snapping out and going "aw beans I need to focus" well, unless you can somehow change or turn off the music then your kinda focusing on half copacity cause while your brain is going *focus* your body and heart is going *BRRRRRRRR* cause of the music. It takes time for your body to go and lower your heart to fully calm and focus but while that music is going, your ears is still listening and still going #LETSFUCKINGGOLOSINGTEAM you can never really focus at the battle on hand which will cause you to panic and get into your own head then its all game over from there, unless it has its own calming element which I will get to why its also bad to have calm elements in your music.

Calming music

More relaxed and gentler music is alot better than hyper music making you go LETS GO FUCKING MENTAL, but its still bad for you. While more relaxed melodies helps you to be more at ease. You never want to be more at ease. Cause once you become more at ease, you get sloppy and also lazy, which is bad for a string bean combo game like smash cause you get a hit then wanna capitalize on that hit. Then, the music goes #awhellyealosingteamwithdumbhashtag you'll mistime your input and mess up which will gave time for the enemy to recover and get back into their mojo.

While yes, more up beat can cause the same problem but since that music makes you go hyper the chances of a combo dropping is less likely to happen than listening to more mellow music. Also with bringing up the point of mind games, if you as well fall and start to panic as well the calming music might help you calm down but now the problem is switched and goes "I need to be aggressive" and then the music will go "naw" and the panicking will still continue. Don't even get me started on the slow and muter parts cause OH BOY DO I LOVE BEING A MASHUP ARTIST

Music in general

So lets say your not weird and only listen to anime ost or gaming ost. You're one of the few that actually like to listen to what the whole music industry provides you and you listen to different types of genres that they will provide you. Great! people like you have a more interesting conversation than most people here. But only problem is for while having a mixture of a playlist with varying different is not the tempo or the bpms but the songs itself. Sometimes people get into your own head while listening to songs and imagen how sick it would be to perform a sick skill combo at the time when the music get to its climax and just goes off. You guys might see the problem to this already but at time the build up to those parts take their sweet ass times to drop and the way that your playing will falter and brain go "cmoncmoncmonalreadygoboommusic" then when it do you might be panicking and falling behind and won't be able to play as well as you imagen or you trt to do sick stuff but get canceled out and everything just fails. Then there's the dead air in between song where its just awkward silence you have to power through and focus through which just sucks all in general cause it feels like forever and then you start hearing the background noise or hear people talking and then your just thrown through a loop and try to focus which be a pain and also you real- oh hey the music started playing AND YOU HAVE TO START THE WHILE PROCESS OF WAITING AGIAN. Not only is it new but its also probably a differnt tone so then your play style get messed up again and you get into the never ending cycle.

How to fix this

Now heres my recommendation: all the music you got in that you like to play while playing, throw it away and make a new one. Here what I did: my play style is the unga style *ungastyleisatermdevelopedinthemonopolytournamentcommunitythatshowsthatplayerswhoharnessthemonkeybrainturnsitintoaviablestartegyandcanniwthinkwhileinmonkeybrain* so with my original playlist having 2014-2016 soundcould mashup nostalgia that I was apart of.I Had to burn it all away for the new playlist and boy, is it better than I imagined. Alright so heres the steps of picking your music

Step1: has to be extended like a 30 minutes that actually loops good (have listen to too many extended musics that loops terribly)

Step2: comes from something that you've listen to/played alot. No, last surprise doesn't count. Its boring and everytime I listen to it that isn't the Manchild and the bastards version, I throw up.

Step3: try not to listen to the music, the reason for having the music on in general is supposed to be a suppression to the noises that are happening around you. If you're like me, you have this weird nack to listening to your surroundings all the time and if one little out of place noise startles you, you tend to lose focus or momentum you had and struggle to get it back.

So with my rules in mind let me show you the songs I listen to while battleing

1st: https://youtu.be/LQ4X-ofMvPs

2nd: https://youtu.be/pIIkYwT5NZY

Scattered Moment

This song is great for all things that lead up to it but I'm here to show why I listen to this song. It's the final boss fight standing around 80 bpm so it isn't really all that fast but with the piano and the violins mostly covering the song, you won't get any conflict between instruments that often like many other final boss music thats just over the top. Also the transition from Exposition, into the development and back to reapitivation is more mellow and goes smoothly that when playing against someone, you wouldn't even notic. I love this song cause its a faithful recreation of the older one but I won't go into detail, that'll be for another time

Rock-A-Bye

160 bpm isn't ideal for using but with context for why it makes more sense. So the game god hand is a more complicated devil may cry game thats really goofy and also REALLY HARD. So everytime I hear this song I always think "ImgonnadiewatchoutImgonnadiewwatchoutImgonnadie" and also thinking "Grovel, Dead Pan, Double Shaolin Blast, Shaolin Zen Revival, Wild Pitch, Home Run God, Dragon Kick, Crescent Kick, 100 Fists, Typhoon Kick, Shockwave 2, Shockwave, One Inch Punch, La Bomba 2, La Kung Fu Tango, Kung Fu Samba, Head Slicer, God Stomp 2, God Stomp, Spirit of God, God Charge, Face Runner, Divine Smash 2, Divine Daisy Cutter, Chain Yanker, Ball Buster and Dead Pan" which cause me to go ultra unga mode to the point where I forget that I'm listening to a song. So yea rock-a-bye is a good song, everyone should listen to it then not listen to the hawaii 5-0 vhs song cause its not the same.

And thats it, literally 2 songs for me to jam to while playing a match. What you expected me to have a plethora of music to pick to? Nah if I did then I'll have a dilemma of "hmmmmmm what do I feel like today?" Its either scattered moments or Rock-a-bye and both are bangers.

So what did we learn today? That music is a beautiful thing and not to pick anime music. Okay thats all the time I got for today and , lets keep these arguments civilized and no jabs below the waist

#LETSGOFUCKINGMENTALMACINE