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Discover an easy way to start your day on a high note – and learn more about yourself in the process! Whether you’re an owl or a lark, the right morning melody can set the tone for a delightful day ahead. Learn how this small musical life enhancement can transform your mornings, whether your personal song selection is an energizing anthem or a soothing serenade.
I’m Mindy Peterson, host of Enhance Life with Music podcast, where we explore the ways music makes our lives better. And this is Microhance, a micro-dose of musical enhancement.
One of my favorite ways to enhance my life with music is also one of the easiest and one I have used for years. And that is to select a song as the sound of my alarm in the morning. If you have a smartphone, this is really easy to do. But you may find that it takes some experimenting to find a song that you really truly want to wake up to! This will be a fun exercise in understanding more about yourself. I’ll explain…
I think the first song I set as my alarm was The Cranberries’ song, Dreams – it seemed like the perfect way to start a day – it’s peppy, upbeat, cheerful, and energizing. But… I am NOT a morning person. At. All. Hard stop. I don’t DO any of those words in the morning (peppy, upbeat, cheerful, energy). I never have and if I ever do, I will freak my husband out. I found that song to be a brutally abrupt way to wake up, and it made me hate this song that I thought I loved in sort of a twisted way. And I thought: This has got to stop; I can’t hate this song!
I may have tried a couple other songs, but once I tried Chris Botti’s Embraceable You, I thought: THIS is IT! This is what I need – it EASES me into consciousness and into my day. It’s a gentle, easy start. My kids can’t believe that I use that for an alarm: How does that actually wake you up? How does that not just make you sleep more soundly? Here it is…
Now I am one of those people who LOVE Christmas-time. And as soon as Halloween evening wraps up and we’ve turned off the light for trick-or-treaters, I am switching my alarm song for my November 1 wakeup song to Celine Dion’s O Holy Night. I LOVE easing into consciousness with this easy-start song that ALSO reminds my sleepy brain that we’re in the most wonderful time of the year.
I am recording this in February, and I actually JUST switched back to Chris Botti again for the post-Christmas season alarm. But… this is partly because I had to do a little reconnaissance to figure out how to make what always was a super easy switch in my iPhone alarm setting. So let me walk you through it. On the iPhone, go to Alarm, Edit an existing Alarm or Set Up a new one. Go to “Sound,” then “Pick a song.” This always took me to a bunch of song selections… until I went to switch back after the holidays. And there were only about 3 songs there for me to choose from. Whenever I hit Pick a song, I got an “Internal Error” message. Turns out my Apple Music app needed to be re-installed (I don’t use it much – I mostly use Spotify). As soon as I did this, all my songs re-appeared.
I’ll put a link in the show notes to basic Android instructions and Apple instructions for selecting a song as your alarm. I know this is not the only way to wake up to music. I personally don’t use a voice assistant like the Echo Dot, but you can set a music alarm with Amazon Alexa — just say something like: “[Insert name of voice assistant], wake me up at 7 AM to “Beautiful Day” by U2.
Side tip: You can also set your alarm to wake up to a podcast (like this one!).
If you already wake up to music, or try it out, I’d love to hear which song you chose and why – and what mode you use if it’s something other than a smartphone.
You can always connect with me on email (mindy@mpetersonmusic.com), Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or LinkedIn.
I’m Mindy Peterson, and I hope this inspires you to enhance your life with music.
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