Okay. I’ve got a work laptop and metered 4G data.
I work in my vehicle and in coffee shops, restaurants, etc.
I like listening to background music to drown out conversations, kitchen noise, etc
I realize I can stream music from Pandora, etc but that will eventually run up a data bill I’m not excited about paying.
Can someone suggest a good (legal) way to download some classical music or easy-listening MP3s etc to the laptop?
Legal or not, I can’t do torrents on this laptop due to employer policies.
Thanks in advance!
I have a subscription to Rhapsody for something like $9 a month. It lets you download files locally in WMA format. I forget the specific licensing terms, but even though you can download them, you can’t play them from any and all devices. Just the device running the software IIRC
There are…ways…to convert them to MP3s to make them more portable.
And of course there is iTunes.
If you upload existing MP3s to Amazon Music, you can download them to any other computer.
If you aren’t particular, Amazon has lots of free mp3’s. Search for “” (nothing between the quotes) in the mp3 section. Then tell it to sort by price - low to high.
You can narrow down by genre. I clicked on Classical and found 3 pages of free songs. (There are a couple more pages, but they are 30 seconds long and from a “study CD” so they may not be interesting to listen to.) New Age might also have songs you can use. Of course there’s also plenty of pop, rock, country, etc.
They also regularly change the free mp3’s, so you can accumulate plenty in time.
Missed the edit window - I also noticed a couple of hour long “nature sound” mp3’s at the top of the list - rain and sea waves. That might work for you, depending on how well it drowns out background noise.
Check to see if your public library has Freegal; it’s a service that lets you download DRM-free MP3s that you can keep.
Classic Cat is good site to download classical music. You can search by composer, instrument, genre, or just browse. The site is a directory that directs you to where the free file are kept. You don’t need to sign up so it’s easy and convenient.
I’m not sure what qualifies as “easy listening” but you can browse this list and see if you find anything you like.
If I’m reading the OP correctly, it’s not the cost of the music that’s an issue, it’s the cost of streaming over 4G. The solution to that is to download and save music only when you have a non-4G connection, either wired or wireless from home or office. Or if you’ve got a music collection at home on CD then burn them to MP3 and store them either directly on your work laptop or a removable drive or USB stick.
If you’re working in restaurants and coffee shops, why not just stream and/or download over their wifi? Or do all your downloading in batches after work over at a friend’s house or something.
I want to third or fourth Amazon mp3s. They can be fairly cheap (I buy most albums when they go on sale for $5.99), download to your device fast, and they’re stored in the cloud so you can delete them from your hard drive to save space and then re-download them later.
Do you really not have any digital music of your own? If you do, you can easily transfer it to the laptop with a USB drive, external hard drive, or your phone, without using any of your data plan.
I don’t actually listen to music recreationally, unless you want to count 45 minutes every other month.
Leaving that aside, what little music I do listen to would distract me from doing my job.
I’d try just playing white noise, but somehow that is also distracting.