Does this song match my sofa?

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: that were ‘kid-friendly’ and yet ‘wouldn’t make me want to tear my hair out strand by strand.’ The resulting list included Stevie Wonder, the Barenaked Ladies and Simon and Garfunkel. “It’s calming,” she said.

Musical benefits

Daniel J Levitin, a professor of neuroscience at McGill University in Montreal and the author of “This Is Your Brain on Music” (Dutton, 2006) said background music, or “auditory wallpaper,” can not only change the way people see their environment, it can profoundly affect their mood. Pleasurable music leads to the release of ‘feel-good hormones’ like dopamine, he said.

Levitin believes that the ways people use different rooms in the home may call for different music. For example, he likes to play Alison Krauss in his kitchen because her warm voice and melodic songs match the sense of ‘comfort and groundedness’ he feels while preparing a meal. For relaxing in the living room, he prefers the ‘smooth and uplifting’ music of Luther Vandross. Lori Hoffbauer, a personal music stylist whose company, Groove Gurus, is based in Brooklyn, said many of her clients want room-specific soundtracks.

She recalled a bachelor who wanted particularly “cheesy” amorous music for the bedroom of his vacation house in the Hamptons. “That was one of those times when you learned more about the client than you wanted to know,” Hoffbauer said.