This Music-Subscription Service Aims to Help You Stay Focused

You can re-fashion your body through practice or a surgeon'southward pocketknife, merely tin y'all fine melody your cerebral cortex to stay alert and focused? Will Henshall, founder and CEO of Focus@Will, believes a mix of music and neuroscience can exercise just that.

Focus@Will, available on the desktop and mobile, features curated and re-mastered instrumental music channels intended to keep your mind from wandering into two undesirable states: distraction and habituation.

Well-nigh people can concentrate for about 20-25 minutes at a time before their heed meanders. Simply Focus@Will aims to soothe your brain'southward hands triggered 'danger or reward' limbic mechanism to create a flow state more conducive to productivity. PCMag went to Marina Del Rey, California, to meet Will Henshall and find out more.

The first thing you lot notice every bit you walk into the Focus@Will offices are Henshall's gold records, songwriter awards, multiple guitars, and a sleek greyhound taking a nap on the sofa. This isn't your traditional Silicon Beach tech start-up.

After spending the mid- to late-80s in New York City, working as a major label record producer and studio engineer, England native Henshall returned to the United kingdom and founded pop soul band Londonbeat. Two Billboard No. 1 hit records followed, "I've Been Thinking Nigh You" in 1991 and "Come Back" 4 years subsequently.

Striking tunes are popular for a reason; there'due south significant science backside sound, Henshall told PCMag. "As a kid I always had a sense of the mathematical structure of music, seeing it most in 3D, which lead me into being a composer," explained Henshall. "Only I knew I'd be taking this further than pop music. One night, Dave Stewart [from the Eurythmics] and I had been sitting in a dodgy pub in North London, talking near the Cyberspace."

This is, of course, when the Web is in its infancy and still accessed via punch-up modems. "I'd joined The WELL, the early online community/bulletin board, non long after Stewart Make and Larry Brilliant started it in 1985," said Henshall. "And it is full of similar left encephalon/right brain people like me, talking about the potential of this new networked society."

Henshall also told Dave Stewart about his noodlings effectually creating a new Internet-based music collaboration tool.

"To cut a long story short Dave said, 'You lot need to talk to Paul.' Then he picked up his brick of a mobilephone and dialed investor Paul Allen, who had been on his yacht off the Puget Sound. The next week I plant myself in Seattle successfully pitching Allen to invest in what became my company Rocket Network."

By 2003, Rocket Network had become the gold standard for musicians and sound engineers collaborating over distance via the Net and, subsequently on, had been sold to Avid/Digidesign; its protocols are now part of ProTools.

For the next few years, Henshall kicked effectually lots of ideas and worked on various projects, mostly in music, only always with a yen to alloy in neuroscience and learn more almost the effects of sound on the brain.

The concept behind the 'focus music' technology is already emerging by 2022. A year later, Henshall attended Ray Kurzweil's Singularity University, which sits next to NASA Ames in Northern California, and it all came together.

"At Singularity University they urged us to come up with something that would positively impact the lives of a billion people," explained Henshall. "So I started upwards Focus@Volition with co-founders John Vitale and Graham Lyus. Vitale is a very experienced music producer who'south worked for Warner Bros, Sony, BMG, and Universal Music, for artists including The B52's, Ruby-red Hot Chili Peppers, and Eminem, and Lyus is our genius Chief Architect at Rocket Network. I knew we had something good—something that could change how the brain works. My advisors at Singularity University really liked our concept—and in fact came on board as investors."

Then how does information technology piece of work? Henshall picked up a nearby guitar and started to play, explaining the relationships betwixt unlike tracks, styles and instrumental arrangements, and the effect on the brain.

"Each piece of music nosotros use has been carefully selected, remixed and re-mastered, removing whatsoever vocals, or instruments that sound like the human vocalization, or other distracting elements, because humans are evolutionarily designed to pay extra attention, via our fight/flying limbic brain responses, when we hear certain sounds that might present danger, distracting u.s. from the task we're working on.

"At Focus@Volition we don't use any popular songs—they're all nigh engaging, the hook, getting you to sing along—we avoid those to keep yous in your flow state. In fact we've commissioned a lot of new composers who are delivering instrumental work that fits into our neuroscientific-based requirements."

In recent EEG (electroencephalographic) tests, Focus@Will has been shown to deliver an increase of 11-12% in Beta and Theta Frequencies at the P3 and P4 regions, situated over brain surface area 39, where bilateral functions governing language, comprehension, spatial focusing, and executive control are located. In other studies, 22,000 of the service'due south well-nigh agile users take self-reported a 200- to 400% increase in focus time per session. Their most recent cognitive research project, run by Focus@Will Science Director Dr Julia Mossbridge, shows a significant increment in focus, task persistence, creativity (especially for shy, introverted people), and an improved sense of well existence and piece of work satisfaction.

The business concern model is based on tiered subscription fees: calendar month to month (US$9.95), annual (US$99.95) or VIP lifetime membership with admission to Beta Features (US$299.95). The visitor is now assisting and has nearly i million users. The more yous use it, the smarter it gets as an bogus intelligence runs in the background, noting patterns and outliers in the tracks you choose, skip, start and end sessions on.

Henshall can't talk specifically about what'south adjacent for Focus@Will, only he did say the mHealth industry has taken a deep interest. "We're in early stages of trialing medical wearables for professionals to systematically amend their performance," he hinted.

The thought of skilled professionals, like surgeons, using it is particularly compelling. I once had a procedure in a Californian infirmary where the dandy bandana-wearing surgeon piped music into the operating room. Although I had been taken down under twilight land, I believe I shouldn't be alert to the music. So when I came round and said, "Oh, I like that anthology" the surgeon looked alarmed. "You weren't meant to hear it," he said, frowning. Because it is "Exile on Primary St." (and not one of Focus@Will's "Ambience" or "Alpha Chill" channels), conspicuously my limbic brain decided to stay switched on to adore Jagger's vocals.

In a style, particularly pushing into the frontiers of mHealth, Focus@Will feels like a natural development of the Quantified Self. Welcome to the concept of boosting your brain.

Source: https://sea.pcmag.com/streaming-music-services/12696/this-music-subscription-service-aims-to-help-you-stay-focused

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