Ask HN: What music helps you code better? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What music helps you code better?

Techno? House? Classical Piano? Pop? No music? What helps you code better?

Mostly music with no lyrics. That’s key.

I’m currently enjoying brain.fm set to 30 minutes and synced with a 30 minute pomodoro timer. I enjoyed the trial enough to purchase a lifetime membership (using a discount code) as I feel much more productive, especially when combined with some Bose noise-cancelling headphones. I’ve spent more money on less productive things so I figured “why the hell not?”. It may just pay for itself.

If not brain.fm, then I’d prefer to listen to movie soundtracks, such as Another Earth, I Origins, Manglehorn, or The Wilderness.

Some artists I’ve enjoyed while coding:

Piano: Ludovico Einaudi, Dirk Maassen, Johann Johannssen, Olafur Arnolds, Joep Beving

Electronic: Tricky, Moderat (particularly the instrumental album).

Heavy Rock: Earthless, Russian Circles

Post Rock: Sigur Ros, Explosions in the Sky, This Will Destroy You

I agree about 'no lyrics', at least in my experience, being the key to coding productively while listening to music.

What I'm wondering is, what is it about music WITH lyrics, which interferes with coding? ... is it the language processing side of the brain being overloaded or just distracted from the task at hand ( which would be translation...right? ) i.e. coding == actively translating tasks and concepts into a machine's language.

I think lyrics tend to bring thoughts to the forefront which can interfere with the task at hand. They can conjer images and storylines that force your brain to fill in the gaps, just like watching a movie. Not to mention the thought processes involved with listening to a well-written love song. You better hope your love life is solid or you’ll never get any work done.

For me it works well to listen to music with lyrics that I know so well that I dont even really listen to the lyrics anymore.

In general I feel like music works better if I know it well.

I like to listen to more distracting music though when doing a "boring" task that does not require that much brain processing itself.

Good point! A boring task would definitely free up some of that brain processing.

My coworker watches tv shows on his second monitor and listens to murder-mystery podcasts all day since his job mostly entails cranking out web banners and print ads of various sizes. He could pretty much do it with his eyes closed, as he’s been doing it for so long. Not to mention he’s just damn good at his job.

I guess it all depends on how much of your personal processor you can spare for your current task.

+1. Brain.fm works really great for me (and took the lifetime membership too) - it may be a bit hard in the beginning since there are no distractions as in standard music, but it works.

(and +1 for Ludovico Einaudi - love it !)

A fellow HN user who also loves Ludovico! He's amazing. I had the opportunity to meet him a few years back and he's one of the nicest people I'd ever met. When I told him that I play drums to his music he said he'd love to hear it. A very humble and gracious individual, that Ludovico.

Agreed, brain.fm is fantastic. It's so much more pleasing to listen to than white/grey noise, yet it is not distracting.

Where did you find a code for lifetime membership?

The promo code that I used, "mindpump", no longer works. I'd keep an eye out for any new podcasts sponsored by Brain.fm. That's how I discovered the old promo code.

I listen to New Retro Wave and outrunner almost exclusively.

I have also found that video game soundtrack remixes can help to preserve focus as well.

For me, the only genre that reliably works is "minimal" music, like stuff by Steve Reich[1] or Gas[2]. My definition of this genre would be music with no lyrics that has highly repetitive structures (differentiating it from "ambient" music, which I find too sleepy to be invigorating).

[1]: Music for 18 Musicians https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXJWO2FQ16c

[2]: Koenigsforst https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehNGoyMf9kU

I did an entire project listening to the Steely Dan box set in constant repeat. Something about the precision and clarity of the studio work does it for me. I’ll still fire it up when I need to slam something out.

John Cage's 4'33 on repeat.

Mostly ProgMetal/Djent. Some artists inspire me a lot while coding:

  - Plini
  - Intervals
  - David Maxim Micic
  - Arch Echo
  - Animals as Leaders
  - Polyphia
  - Scale the Summit
  - Angel Vivaldi
  - ... etc – a.k.a. their related artists

There's also this album I used to listen to while reading Blood Meridian and nowadays while coding:

  - Hex: Or Printing in the Infernal Method by Earth

Hope they inspire you too ;-)

You and I have similar tastes. I'd also like to through in some names for this genre... - Cloudkicker - Pomegranate Tiger - The Helix Nebula

Outside of this, I really like video game music while coding. Anything from the Playstation 1 era, namely the Final Fantasy 6-10 soundtracks, both OST and orchestra versions. Nobuo Uematsu is incredible.

Nice additions! Your taste is good, sharp! And WOW, Nobuo Uematsu is really incredible. Thanks for the recommendations!

I'd like to add in Cloudkicker, which sounds a bit different than straight Djent, but has gotten me through a lot of college.

Thanks for recommending Cloudkicker! I've heard (and favourited) one of their tracks (Genesis Device) and already followed them on Spotify but I didn't remember. >_<

Glad to see this here! Modern Day Babylon are great for those looking for instrumental work in the same sphere as the above. Disperse as well - Jakub Zytecki is a fantastic guitarist and features on a lot of David Maxim Micic's work.

I didn't know Modern Day Babylon nor Dirsperse, really nice artists! Thank you for both recommendations! \m/

Posted in HN a few weeks ago [0], Someone wrote a pretty good article on the tricks they use to be more productive developers. At the end, they cover music genres.

From personal experience, I agree with everything he says. Music with less or no lyrics keeps me focused more on coding. When a song starts playing with lyrics that I enjoy, it distracts me from what I am working on. I particularly enjoy Lo-Fi Hip Hop[1], because there typically are not very many lyrics in the music and it typically has white noise in the background to help reduce distracting noises.

[0] - https://raddevon.com/articles/focus-for-better-work-life-bal...

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlKlmgksvgQ

Ambient, lo-fi, chillstep and garage is the best. I love these so much that I produce music for coding myself. These are my best playslists https://open.spotify.com/user/1167646885/playlist/0adabJ0Yu4... https://open.spotify.com/user/1167646885/playlist/04uAJE4hhK...

And my own EP https://open.spotify.com/album/40Td5u6cbC8iApy1VMopCu?si=uqv...

thanks for sharing!

Check out http://www.focusatwill.com - music designed / curated by neuroscientists for focus

It depends on the day, but for some reason when I really got to get stuff done, I listen to the theme for Ghostbusters II on repeat all day, Bobby Brown's "Control." I wonder if my coworkers hear me listening to the theme from Ghostbusters II all day on repeat and think I'm weird, but I get so much done with Ghostbusters II theme song. I get too hot to handle, too cold to hold.

Anything with a decent tempo (except for Dance Music - too much thoomp thoomp) that is decent but that I don't know the words to. The important part is not knowing the words. If you know the words it can pull you out of the zone without you realizing. As for type I have no specific type, I'm all over the place, just as long as it follows the above criteria.

Haha, that "thoomp thoomp" genre is called "unsa unsa" in some ex-Yugoslav counties.

The Dwarf Fortress background music.

Game music (mostly) is designed for a related purpose - setting a mood whilst also encouraging you to focus on the task at hand (whether it's shooting aliens or squashing bugs). Film scores are similar.

For coding, it’s usually classic music (no lyrics) but while researching, I’ll put on techno. No matter the genre though, I will use MusicChoice which is the streaming service that comes with my cable tv subscription.

The Social Network Soundtrack https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yydZbVoCbn0

Any music that blocks me from external noise but at the same time doesn't distract me. Anything without lyrics is best but I have found Classical Piano works the best for me.

https://www.mixcloud.com/prototype202/

Depends on the situation, but I've found that hard rock has helped on many occasion (AC/DC, Steppenwolf)

I’ve been listening to Animals as Leaders recently it’s instrumental and is kind of Jazzy, and Heavy Metal.

House / Tropical House when typing away, no music when designing

I used to write university assignments under the influence of Rush.

Swedish death metal

Gilfoyle?

musicforprogramming.net is pretty good

down-tempo.

If I'm not doing architecture, emails, or thought provoking tasks, I can get away with lyrical music.

"The Dark Knight" OST

Downtempo (Tycho etc)

SomaFM Groove Salad

Nordic Death Metal

Hardcore Gabber.

Synthwave.

Silence.

beatbasement / somafm

http://serv1.beatbasement.com:9622/

http://ice1.somafm.com/secretagent-128-mp3

http://ice1.somafm.com/defcon-256-mp3

http://ice1.somafm.com/deepspaceone-128-mp3

http://ice1.somafm.com/thetrip-128-mp3

http://ice1.somafm.com/cliqhop-256-mp3

http://ice1.somafm.com/earwaves-128-mp3

sleepbot

http://sc13.shoutcaststreaming.us:8194

http://sc7.shoutcaststreaming.us:8044

bbc radio http://bbcmedia.ic.llnwd.net/stream/bbcmedia_radio2_mf_p

(bbc radio one) http://bbcmedia.ic.llnwd.net/stream/bbcmedia_radio1_mf_p

(bbc radio fourfm) http://bbcmedia.ic.llnwd.net/stream/bbcmedia_radio4fm_mf_p

(bbc radio five live) http://bbcmedia.ic.llnwd.net/stream/bbcmedia_radio5live_mf_p

(bbc 6music) http://bbcmedia.ic.llnwd.net/stream/bbcmedia_6music_mf_p

(bbc 1xtra) http://bbcmedia.ic.llnwd.net/stream/bbcmedia_radio1xtra_mf_p

(bbc radio four extra) http://bbcmedia.ic.llnwd.net/stream/bbcmedia_radio4extra_mf_

(bbc world service) http://bbcwssc.ic.llnwd.net/stream/bbcwssc_mp1_ws-eieuk

I listen to old french house classics. It's an odd choice and occasionally the lyrics or samples distract me, but I figure the potential for distraction is always there and I'd rather be yanked from concentration into my most pleasant memories.

I also like some trance music or instrumental movie scores if they're chill enough.

But it kinda depends on what kind of code im writing. If I'm knee deep in the guts of some poor program with disassembly and an exploit and pointers floating in my head, I have a pair of those bose noise canceling that I can wear for complete silence.

I don't think music is necessarily a good frame for productive coding. At least not on its own. When I sit down with an intention, I'm just hearing ambient office noise until something a bit more interesting catches my attention, I kinda feel that urge to put my seatbelt on, Spotify is just a reflex, and I'll get to debugging or whatever I'm doing.

I know some guys who have like playlists or whatever queued up for work, but that's not really how I work. Hell, I know another guy in my department who wears noise canceling headphones all day every day. That's just how he likes it.

Mostly soft music without lyrics.

- Luv letter / Flower Dance - Sakuya2/3 - REBORN -Dr.ミンチに会いましょ - 失, 焚梦 |A Chinese musician 十指流玉 - A Little Story (etc...)

some Japanese Team Shanghai Alice soft musics

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