These free tools will give you nice sounds while you work

• Defonic lets you play nature sounds in a browser tab as background for your work. Listen to rain, birds, fire, forest, or evening crickets. Pick one or create your own combination. Defonic’s Ocean Noise Generator has watery soothing sounds like seagulls and waves. Avoid the distracting seal and whale noise.
• A Soft Murmur also offers a range of sounds. It also lets you set timers and save sound mixes you like. Here’s my waves, wind and white noise mix.

• MyNoise Cafe Restaurant gives you “the noise without the social distraction.” You can even adjust the volume of chatter vs. the amount of kitchen noise.
• Coffitivity lets you pick a morning murmur, lunchtime lounge or other such coffeeshop atmosphere. The site links to research in the Journal of Consumer Research published by Oxford University Press about how “a moderate level of ambient noise is conducive to creative cognition.”

• The Sound of Colleagues lets you aurally simulate a corporate workplace without the commute. It was created in response to the pandemic work-from-home period in Sweden. I like the simple sliders for adjusting the audio mix.

Send someone a musical smile

• Jazz Keys turns a short message you type into a little melody you can send a friend or colleague. Here’s my message today for you.
• Typatone lets you send someone a little message with bell-like sounds. Here’s a little tune I typed for you. You can also listen to brief musical messages others have recently added. Here’s how the makers describe their idea: “The act of writing has always been an art. Now it can be an act of music. Each letter you type corresponds to a specific musical note putting a new spin to your composition.”