Photo: Tampan Destawan/@komikrukii

Music is known to evoke many moods for the listeners. It is able to be the forefront but also as a guiding serenade to fill the soundscape of the surrounding. Meruang is one which chooses the latter. For this special edition of Selected, as part of the Open Column 2 campaign, we have invited Meruang to construct a playlist for you. 

“Curating for Merdu Ruang (Meruang), Noor mixed this playlist using a few songs from our playlist, Perawat Pagi. Additional songs were added specifically for this Spotify-based playlist; some use singing/lyrics – which otherwise would not be found on the Meruang website or flash disks. The songs in our playlists need to ‘hover’ in the background, as the music should not interfere with the sounds of important medical devices in hospitals. This ‘hovering’ character is most often (and easily) found in instrumental music. However, Noor tailored some lyrical music into this particular playlist to fit the aforementioned consideration.

Other considerations taken in tailoring Meruang playlists are time of listening, contemplation evoking, and musical clarity. Meruang provides different playlists for different times of the day: morning, noon, afternoon, evening; because our states of mind during- and motives for- listening to music change throughout the day. We also recognize the way some types of music can provide a sense of clarity and facilitate contemplation, an important state of mind to visit in the pursuit of wholeness. In music, clarity can be found in the timbres of instruments, the arrangement of tones, and the dynamics of melodies. We hope that Meruang playlists bring a sense of clarity to listeners’ minds, clearing space for a sense of wholeness and harmony.”