Image: Matt Galligan

Popular music is so basic. This O Week, if you really want to impress your new classmates and come across as the sophisticated, mysterious person that you wish you were, you’ll need to up your game, music reference-wise. You need to go way back. Back to Bach.

We asked Makoto Harris Takao, an expert in Early Music who’s nearly finished his PhD at the University of Western Australia, to school us in the musical movements of the Medieval (500–1400), Renaissance (1400–1600) and Baroque (1600–1760) eras.

Smart people like Harris Takao have been using Early Music to enhance all kinds of moments in their lives for ages. He points out the time that Martin, our favourite nerd from The Simpsons, played a “beguiling lute solo” for butterflies to “ease [their] metamorphoses”.

Harris Takao has shared a selection of Early Music and how he incorporates into his daily life, so that maybe you too can ease your metamorphosis into someone whose musical knowledge extends beyond the realm of their existence.

For driving to class – or getting in the mood

Troisième Leçon de ténèbres by Francois Couperin (1668–1733)

You could put on Rihanna or Drake (or Rihanna and Drake), but why not switch it up a little with some “intertwining soprano voices”? Harris Takao calls Couperin’s stirring 17th century song “the perfect morning ‘swoon’”, but says it also goes well with a morning cup of joe. “With my morning coffee in hand I love nothing more than letting the lush textures wash over me as I drive into the office.”

For when you’re trying to study while faded

For when you’re getting ready to hit the clubs

For when you’re feeling fancy

For doing late-night laundry to

For when you can’t sleep

Sarah Gooding is headbanging to Vivaldi right now @sarahgooding