Using music in virtual meetings

We often use a selected piece of music in the following situations:

• At the beginning of the meeting
• During breaks
• During energisers
• During individual reflection and individual work
• At the end of the meeting

What music to play?

Have you ever wanted to play music during a session, but then you thought to yourself that you are not an expert in music, your taste in music may not resonate with the participants, and you actually do not know what to play?

If so, then you are not alone. Most of us have occasionally had these thoughts. Therefore, we have gathered a few ideas below on how to get started on choosing music, including specific music suggestions for your next session.

First of all, you need to consider the emotion and mood that you want to create, e.g. a happy, focused or experimental mood.

Your choice of music depends very much on the purpose of your session. If you are having your weekly touchpoint, you might choose your favourite “coffee break tune” to get a nice start to the meeting. If you are working on a new product and are in the early stages of a creative process, you might go for something more experimental. And if you are at the end of a session and about to send people off on a high, you might go for music with high energy. If you are really into this, you can even match the theme of the song with the content of the agenda.

Consider the pace of the music, level of energy, whether the lyrics emphasise your message or if it disturbs individual reflection.

Examples of what to play

We have put together a playlist with a few examples of music for your session. When searching for music, you can use the playlist as a source of inspiration. You can find the playlist here.

If you are not on Spotify or just want a quick tip for what music to play, we have collected a few tunes that we like to use during our sessions in the list below. We have divided them into three categories: energising music, calming music and reflective music. You can use them at the beginning of the session, during breaks, for reflection or at the end of a session to support the purpose and create the right energy.

In the following section, you will find specific examples of what to play during a meeting if you want to create energy. We have added several songs for each element as you might need more than one break during the session, you may have a long opening and thus need more than one song, or you simply prefer one over another:

Open the meeting five minutes prior to the scheduled time and play the following tunes:

• Solange: Cranes in the Sky
• Kings of Convenience: Cayman Islands
• José González: Heartbeats
• Rag’n’Bone Man: Human

During breaks, go for:

• Coldplay: Viva La Vida
• John Mayer: Waiting on the World to Change
• Gavin DeGraw: Chariot

As an energiser to get up and move around, consider doing physical energisers such as squats (download a list of inspirational physical energisers here) while you play:

• Moby: Flower

During time for individual reflection and work, consider:

• Bill Conti: Alone in the Ring

End the meeting on a high with:

• Isaac Waddington: Ordinary Days

Or go all in with:

• Kool & The Gang: Celebration

Practical and technical tips to ensure a smooth session

If you are using your computer to play music, remember to click “use computer sound” (or similar) in the programme you are using to make sure that your participants can hear the music.

It can be quite difficult to set the volume correctly, since what you hear may not be the same as what the participants hear. Therefore, use the chat at the beginning of the meeting to ask if the volume is ok. If not, adjust accordingly.

To make it easy to play music during a session, remember to add the names of the songs to your playbook so that you know when to play which song. Create and organise your playlist before the meeting so that you simply have to press “play” when you are live and need to play a song.

If you want to know more about how to design and execute a virtual session, you may be interested in reading our book Virtual facilitation.