Music for Programming (2011) | Hacker News Reader

Music for Programming (2011)

musicforprogramming.net

427 pointsnotkaiho261 comments

Am I the only person who can't listen to anything while coding? My attention goes straight to the music, and I can't concentrate on the task at hand!

When I was in high school, my math teacher would play Mozart during tests, claiming it would help us. It would drive me crazy, and I doubt that my grades improved as a result of the distraction.

For what it's worth, I have a BMus in Piano Performance. I love music... but never as "background noise"!

This is interesting to me, because I almost exclusively enjoy music as "background noise." The only time I really listen to music by itself is if I'm at a concert.

But I'm a musical illiterate

There's tons of different kinds. Here's one I've been enjoying lately: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPugYPbO66E

Pay attention to the lyrics. Treat it as a story, and try to guess at what's happening. There is a canon answer -- Aviator's albums are in fact all stories -- but try to come up with your own before you look for it.

Everyone sees something different in the lyrics.

I can't listen to lyrics because I find it hard to a) parse them at the speed they come out, and b) hearing them through the distortion of them being sung. I also get distracted very quickly. I do not know most of the words to my favorite songs.

This is, again, situational. Try it~

I also don't parse singing as language intuitively. It might be a result of context-based parsing mixups in human brains, so it may not be so easy to just try.

Blame the open office standard. It's the only way to filter out voices, I have found.

It depends on the music for me. Music really tones in my moods. I use it as a tool to motivate my life, for whatever I'm aiming at.

This applies to programming for me because sometimes I need music that promotes creative thinking. Sometimes research. And sometimes, my favorite, hammering out the code because I have a rock solid idea on implementation and trajectory.

The wrong music in any one of those steps is actively harmful to my work. The right music promotes it. Silence on the other hand is weirdly deafening to me, usually. Sometimes I have to pause my music and talk myself through a problem, and sometimes in doing that I forget to turn the music back on. I frequently find myself 1 hour later, super tense in the shoulders and all around stiff. It's a weird and stressful state. The silence is too loud.

Do you think it has to do with analyzing the songs? I do that with some music especially with classical.

With Lyrics I get distracted, with music it helps me.

You're not alone.

It’s because of your music education that you become an active listener and can’t use the music as just noise.

It has nothing to do with it. I've spent 7 years in music school too, with violin as an instrument of choice. I still do play it sometimes too. Not to mention al the concerts I visit.

Still - I can barely code or work in general without music. Not any music though, that's for sure.

I’m guessing music transmits a lot more “information” to you than the average person. It’s hard to have something you love as a background.

I love scuba diving. If there was a monitor with rotating images of underwater scenes, I wouldn’t just think it was pretty. I’d be glued to it figuring out where they took the shot, wondering how deep they were and wishing I was there. I’m guessing something similar happens with you and music.

Not the OP, but I think you might be onto something.

I'm not a huge music-theory guy or anything, but it's virtually impossible for me to "tune out" music; I think I subconsciously like to dissect it a bit.

However, if someone were to put on virtually any sporting event on the TV (without announcers and assuming you didn't have a bunch of people cheering or anything like that), it would have almost no affect on me, since I don't really care at all about sports.

Oh yeah, you know how people put on music to relax and go to sleep (with the music set on a timer)? It doesn't work, it keeps me awake.. I analyze every detail, think about how they made a certain sound or how something is placed in the mix...

That said, at the same time I pretty much have to listen to music while working, otherwise my brain is like 1/2 as functional. No clue why.

There's definitely truth in that. After learning to drive, I found that the sense of vague-but-uninformative flow in the sight of traffic, that ant-like busyness, is gone. Now it all has meanings. Worse, I'm now hypnotized by scenes of cars trying to pass each other in the one-lane driveways below my apartment. A trainwreck of five cars going one way, three the other, and two coming in from the side, might keep me at the window for half an hour.

Well that sounds like a very interesting and complex interaction to watch play out! I find sitting by my window at night and watching the cars go by a near meditative experience, difficult to leave. However I am quite able to think and articulate during that time and find the strange monotony of other lives quite the generative brain food.

You're not the only person; it's why I absolutely despise open offices. I have trouble getting things done with people talking, and "just putting on headphones" doesn't really work because I have trouble focusing on anything but the music.

The closest thing I'll do to address my particular problem is find audio of stuff like thunderstorms or waterfalls and more ambient stuff. Personally, I find that much easier to tune out.

I would invest in a pair of nice noise canceling headphones. They work wonders for me and are a must have in open offices.

Did you read parent poster? What good are noise-cancelling headphones if you can't listen to music because it's distracting?

You can use them to tune out noise around you. It muffles conversations, keyboard clacking, people sniffling, airconditioning noise, etc.

They're cancelling noise whether or not you're listening to music ;-) Sweet sound of silence.

Noise cancelling headphones can cancel noise without any music playing.

It's not 100%, but they'll get rid of like 80% of the background noise without playing anything. To get that last 20% yeah you need something playing to help mask it(even at an extremely low volume).

Sometimes I wear mine with nothing playing while at work just to get rid of random office chatter.

You can get a nice pair of ear muffs for much less.

But the parent was also talking about ambient stuff. Noise-cancelling headphones would definitely help.

Seems you failed to realise that 'noise-cancelling' headphones is good for noise cancelling, not just listening to music.

My Bose QC35 set is ~4 years old, on their second set of muffs and only play sound when I fly, once or twice a year.

Don't those only really work with low-pitched repetitive background noise? They don't do a lot for people talking.

I do have noise canceling headphones and I like them, but they don't really do a lot for people talking.

Get some 3M work tunes headphones. Really cheap and they work much better than active noise canceling headphones.

I have Bose noise canceling headphones, and my experience with them is that they do a really good job of blocking conversational noise if you use them with music.

Same experience here. The downside is situations where people end up standing behind or near me to get my attention. Have been startled many times. Still, for an open office they seem a must have.

I use bose in-ear noise cancelling headphones with a custom spectrum of noise from mynoise.net playing which is specifically tuned to the same frequency as certain louder individuals in my office. Completely blocks it.

Another vote for mynoise.net and the Android app. I haven't tried it with noise-cancelling headphones though, just some fairly good Sennheiser HD380s.

Also, the idea of you fine tuning certain individuals out is hilarious to me. Nice job on saving your sanity!

I love that you tailored the noise to actual people's voices! Play track Greg from Accounting...

I really need to know, do these individuals know that they've been IRL-killfiled?

Well none of them are/were Usenet users, so no, but yes I did inform the two most predominate offenders specifically so they know they have to get my attention in other ways when addressing me directly.

"Killfile" was still being used by mailing list users, at least ten years or so ago

I somehow misread your post as saying you had "in-ear, bone conduction" noise cancelling headphones. What a sight those would be.

I think this site does a decent job of avoiding music that can be focused on. They mention on the about page:

> we have found that the most effective music to aid prolonged periods of intense concentration tends to have a mixture of the following qualities:

    Drones
    Noise
    Fuzz
    Field recordings
    Vagueness (Hypnagogia)
    Textures without rhythm
    Minor complex chords 
    Early music (Baroque, lute, harpsichord)
    Very few drums or vocals
    Synth arpeggios
    Awesome / daunting / foreboding
    Walls of reverb

I personally don't mind a bit of rhythm, but this isn't music that your brain will latch on to and want to pay attention - it's more like pleasant ambient sounds.

However, I also suffer from an inability to get things done with people talking - I'm constantly inadvertently eavesdropping on my coworkers' conversations. I find that I have to push white noise up to uncomfortably dangerous levels to drown out conversation - your audio processing systems tolerate shockingly high SNR - but changing, musical audio like this is harder to tune out than thunderstorms or waterfalls and therefore permits me to turn down the volume.

I just wish someone would build an audio-cancelling headset, instead of the usual noise-cancelling ones that take away background noise but let voices come through clearly...

Space Ambient is best for this purpose... https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLuqZTQ_5gsppMEJWlJoH3...

And the closely related Space Atmoblack is quite possibly the worst...

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCh1Kbh5Ln8tMJ_h7IykOFkg/vid...

> However, I also suffer from an inability to get things done with people talking

Just like for the parent poster, I recommend in-ear headphones. You put them in the ears, and that's all. Listen to all the sound of no one talking and nothing playing.

Pure white noise doesn't quite work for me because my hearing will try to make sense of it anyway. It's akin to looking at tv static and seeing images fuzz & flicker in and out of the signal noise. Interestingly enough, this observation got me into making noise music for awhile, it started with just some noise oscillators running through filters with lfo's on them. Then add in some noise osc's with amplitude envelopes and you can create rhythmic elements, but I digress.

For others who find they need too-loud music or noise, here's my 3 step process that works.

1. Get any in-ear earbuds (for noise even cheapy ones are fine, for music pick whatever type you like).

2. Get the foam tips to fit them: https://www.complyfoam.com/products/t-series/

3. Put some hearing-protection ear-muffs on top

A tiny amount of noise will make all other sounds disappear at this point.

It can also work the other way- if you need budget noise isolation- get foam earplugs, and over ear headphones, turn the music up while simultaneously not hearing anything but it. Saved my hearing while riding motorcycles. Cheap helmet speakers sound pretty good with the volume cranked up and ear protection in- while it blocks out the dangerous wind noise.

Good point, though that's probably less ideal for an office setting, where people can hear your cranked-up volume.

I have had some experience listening to video game music, esp those from strategy games, they are designed to stay firmly in the background during game play.

Do you have any playlist to suggest? Thanks

It is interesting that the site mentions drones, noise, fuzz and walls of reverb as being conducive to concentration. I tried a number of these tracks, and these were the features that caused me to abandon a track. Dissonance would probably aso have that affect, but ambient music tends to avoid it.

Softly-spoken words in a language I do not understand seem to work.

It may be that I am just selecting for sounds that I can ignore. When I really need to concentrate I, like the OP of this thread, prefer silence, though, unlike the OP, I am not musically knowledgeable.

I had so much trouble working around people that I would get an empty conference room. The gentle AC fan in the conference room would act as a "white noise" for me, which would help me concentrate. I then found this iOS app called Noisli that had white noise that helped. But working around people has always been challenging for me especially when they get into a conference call and you can hear squeaky noises of people from the other side of the call!

So for the high volume issue specifically, mynoise.net is a great website that allows you to adjust the volume of differing frequency ranges. I particularly enjoy the white rain noise. I'll put in my headphones and turn every frequency up until it overtakes the ambient conversation or music, from high frequency to low. This allows the noise to cover up sounds but not be too loud by only being turned up where it needs to be. Essential for math in the university library.

I recommend in-ear headphones. You just put them in. No music is necessary.

If you aren’t going to play anything why not just use earplugs?

As someone who does this in other situations: because unlike earplugs, my headphones can also double as headphones in other situations.

Headphones look less weird in the office, and are also functional for when I want to watch a video.

Like you suggest, ambient noise (I'm fond of GNOME's pomodoro bird sounds :)) can help. However I've found that earplugs work even better. I had some nice ones because I attend a lot of shows/dance concerts and want to protect my hearing. Started using them in class during tests and found it to be really effective. Generally useful for every situation I needed to 'turn the volume down' on life.

You're not the only one. I'm this way too. However, I can listen to music while doing system admin stuff but for anything else I need absolute silence.

I'm a pianist with an active performing schedule and I'm the same way. I'll listen to music at work if I have relatively mindless tasks to get out of the way, but when it comes to actual coding or anything requiring careful thought, forget it. All music ends up being distracting, either because I really enjoy it or because I find it really annoying.

I'd be curious to know if there are any serious musicians here who can concentrate on writing code or any other similarly mentally-intensive task while listening to music.

I can... not sure if I qualify as a serious musician, but reasonably so. My favourite for programming is Renaissance-era choral polyphony, but I'll listen to anything depending on mood!

I've played guitar and bass for 15+ years, and I can't work without listening to music. Sometimes it feels like there is 20 voices in my head when working, like while trying to develop a report I'm constantly juggling the all thoughts of the queries, design, database updates, etc. Music makes my brain tend to focus on the task at hand.

Though I cannot listen to anything spoken word like podcasts or talk radio. Drives me absolutely nuts.

I've played piano for 15 years, and I prefer listening to music. Although, some of my musician friends say it's more noise than music... https://whoami.sh/thought/flow-playlist

You are not alone. I went to a music school majoring violin for eight years. Not quite the same as having a BMus in US, but a long way in the same direction.

Music is never a background to me. I will occasionally switch music on while working, but with the specific purpose to switch my mind. Usually either when I am trying to work out the best solution to some problem and I need to get away from it for a second or when I am task switching.

Sample size of two, but considering you and parent are both musicians I wonder if that’s the reason you pay more attention to the music?

I don't lose focus so much if it's music I know really, really well. I've heard it so many times that I'm not really attentively listening to it, if that makes sense?

OTOH, yeah there are definitely times when I prefer peace and quiet.

I am more or less the same... I never really got into listening to music, so I tend to be quite illiterate when it comes to the groups or albums everyone knows.

But when there's music, I like to enjoy it thoroughly, concentrating on it. I cannot really control it, and it's impossible for me to focus on code or reading when there's music playing around. I contrast this with most of my friends that seem to listen to music almost the whole day.

As a cautionary tale, I used to have very good hearing as well, probably because I didn't listen to music or go to concerts as much as my peers. I think I lost that, mostly as a result of joining my university's brass band... Use earplugs if you do. I could only fully concentrate in very silent environments (almost anechoic), but nowadays I'm doing better as a result (and I now hear this buzzing noise floor when things get too silent). And I now have trouble hearing people in noisy environments: hearing loss impacted both my ability to pick faint noises, and to differentiate noise sources. I still have average hearing, I think, though I should get it tested. Unsure if I can get it back.

For me, it depends: having to hear music from other people drives me crazy, but as long as it's my own music (over headphones of course), it really helps me concentrate.

For people who can't listen to music: how about noise generators (e.g. https://mynoise.net/) to drown out ambient noise?

Thank you for the mynoise recommendation, this is great!

>Am I the only person who can't listen to anything while coding?

Listen to music without human voices. Lyrics are distracting.

Maybe use OST music for films and games. This music is designed to not to compete for your attention with whatever you're watching or examining.

Same here. I use Brain.Fm and a number of playlists that have instrumental jazz (Miles Davis, Bill Evans, etc), and television/film scores (anything by Alexandre Desplat is great).

I get a lot of mileage out of listening to music without words in a language I'm even marginally familiar with.

I don't know Korean well enough to even lex the syllables out of the audio stream, so kpop works really well for me for work listening.

I write some music and been playing in bands for years, but I can't stand having music in the background (decent OSTs and a few others are excluded from this classification, as they are there for a reason and I'm listening actively). in fact, I very, very rarely listen to music. when I do, it's either because I know exactly what I want to listen or because I'm searching new music.

I recently discovered I have a tendency to unconsciously listen to everything around me and analyze it, aggravating my mental fatigue. now I try to be careful and avoid doing that.

I made this comment elsewhere, but I’m wondering if this is due to you being a musician.

Somewhat related: I’m an amateur photographer and have studied photography extensively. When I see pictures I can’t help but mentally pull them apart to determine how they were made. Seems like musicians might have the same inclination.

It depends on what my current task is.

If it's something tedious, i.e. robotically making some kind of change throughout a code base, then my attention span can handle the additional load and the music may help me not procrastinate.

But for anything involving serious thinking, all forms of music I've tried are too much of a distraction.

I have ADD, which may be a factor.

Similar for me. Track has to be something very familiar and with a steady rhytm. Task has to be something semi-mechanical, like implementing an idea in code with no additional thinking required.

Haven't been diagnosed, but attention span is pretty short.

May want to get evaluated for ADD. My worklife improved greatly once I had a diagnosis, because at least for me there are some meds that truly help.

Have all my upvotes. I just cannot work with music on. I work from home and silence can be depressing all day long, so I make a point of turning on the radio in breaks, but never when I code.

Something I’ve used to break the silence: police and fire scanner traffic. It’s just enough to cut the silence and not as distracting as the radio.

I can only listen to certain types of music, usually instrumental. Can't listen to anything with vocals in it.

You're not alone. To me is a matter of if I have to _think_ on what I'm doing or not. During graphic design work, music allows my mind to wander and be more creative; I could say I _need_ it. But during coding is more difficult: I can listen at low volume some instrumental music while coding CSS and HTML; but for Javascript or other programming languages I need no music (but not necessarily silence, I can code with mild background noises).

> I have a BMus in Piano Performance

That's probably then reason. The more you know about music and music production the more it consumes resources of your brain.

I like working while having music as background noise but with a couple rules: no vocals and not many instruments. I tend to listen to atmospheric, jazz, hotel lobby music (but I cant take out Morcheeba or Portishead from my playlist, it deserves my divided attention).

me as well.

but I found some exceptions like Wardruna. :)

I'm the same way. My partner is able to do all her homework while listening to music or playing a show in the background. I was somewhat envious, until I looked at some studies that suggest while it's possible, it's not ideal, and can reduce information retention.

As to why some people have an easier time doing it than others, no clue. I have a background in music so I suspect that plays some role. I need absolute silence in order to concentrate.

For me it's only gonna work if the music have already been what I use on repeat while doing other mundane tasks, like white noises sort of thing. Otherwise distraction for sure.

If I could have absolute silence I would take it. Unfortunately, music is often then only option to block the constant noise and chatter in an open office.

Have you tried white noise instead?

How about this - I can't focus with office noise but I can focus while listening to podcasts. Makes no sense!

I can't listen to music at all when I'm designing the code, and I find it very distracting. Designing interfaces/APIs/etc is a higher bandwidth activity for me, and requires more focus, so music is a distraction.

But when I'm implementing the design, I find music very helpful. Just turning the code from design to actual code takes less focus from me, so I can end up getting distracted by other things in my environment if I don't have something else that can "fill up" the remaining amount of mental attention bandwidth. Also podcasts work even better than music for this.

My wife and I have ADD in different areas/amounts. The difference between us in the way we use and react to sound is, in my rather biased opinion, fascinating:

Me: Single source only, absolutely can't listen to music while trying to code or read. I have used https://mynoise.net/ and the Android app to drown out environmental noise when I'm working around others. I'm very easily distracted by noise, especially things like speakerphone conferences. Music to me is a single focus thing, I can't do anything else and have to focus only on the music.

Her: can hold a conversation with me while listening to a podcast and simultaneously playing a phone game. Music is very much something that happens while she is busy doing other stuff, even when it's her favourite songs and she's rocking out singing along.

It was a revelation to her when we discussed this. She was completely unaware that to me, trying to hold a conversation if I was already listening to music was almost painful. She's adjusted her expectations and knows that if my good headphones are on, it's my music time. We both love music so much, it's an integral part of our gen-x upbringing, yet our different attention problems lead us to consume it in very different ways.

(and, yes, she's awesome. I'm amazed daily by her and count myself incredibly lucky to find someone as kind, understanding, funny, loving, sexy and brilliant as her)

sorry if that's TMI.

I'm very much like you describe yourself. There are only a few very ambient musical tracks to which I can do concentrated work while hearing. Interestingly, I can't even do that much on the first listening of them. It's only when I've heard them a bunch of times and they are already familiar. Then my brain can focus on other things. However, even in that case, my sense is there is still a cognitive 'tax' going on. I don't get as much done or think as deeply even with familiar ambient music.

I also can't have the radio on in my car if I plan to actually think. It's hard for me to even imagine how people are able to concentrate with active music playing or, worse, a television show running in the room. I'm always reminded how different I am every time I stay at one of those hotels that has a communal free breakfast area. They invariably have TVs tuned to those 'happy babble' morning talk shows and most people seem to have no problem working, reading, or carrying on a conversation with it running constantly into their brain.

Apparently, some of us are just made differently. I have an occasional multi-hour drive I need to do and I will sometimes listen to music, a good podcast or an audiobook but I'm actively listening to it. Most often though I drive in complete silence and just think. Some of my friends are surprised by this and can't imagine just sitting in silence that long. However, I love it.

I'm glad you two can get along in this capacity. I have ADHD and I'm very much like your wife and my last partner was like you, but my ability/tendency to multitask tended to be overwhelming for her even when it was just me doing it. Like, if I tried to talk to her while simultaneously listening to a podcast and doing something on my phone, she would be feel overwhelmed by association and ask me to stop the other things and just talk to her.

I don't think she had ADHD though so maybe it was different for her and more of a sensory thing. I just appreciate that you two are so different (in this aspect) and still able to respect and adapt to each other's differences.

Your conversation quality might be noticeably different when you are doing something else and when you are not (even if you don't notice it).

For me, I can kinda participate in a dialog when distracted, but I'm definitely not pulling my weight in such cases, so the person on the other end has to do all the work.

I've actually never really thought of this and I find it rather interesting. For years I've used a combination of ambient and post-rock music and services like mynoise to focus. I've never thought that it could be a distraction for people. Thank you for posting this, gave me something to think about.

When I am doing a task that requires full mental thought, I need silence. However, for more repetitive or mundane tasks, I need music to drown out the various stray thoughts in my head that would otherwise distract me from the task at hand.

For really repetitive thought-free stuff (e.g. mopping a floor), music that I would listen to while just sitting down is fine. For less repetitive stuff, either something with a set pattern (like 8-bar blues) or something I know well enough to "tune out" when I need more focus on the task at hand is better.

tl;dr you may have ADD

I can only listen to instrumental songs that I'm really used to.

I can write code when I'm listening to music perfectly fine but as soon as I need to document anything, like a docstring, informative comment, etc. I need to pause the music, my brain just shuts down as soon as it needs to switch to writing English.

For me, music is often the lesser of two evils compared to the background noise of the open office or the noise of the conversation going on in my own head. It also gives me a happiness fix which helps me not burn out and distract myself in other ways.

For me, it really depends on my mood and what I'm working on which type of music is appropriate. Some days it's rap and the flood of words doesn't get in the way even. Other days it has to be instrumental bluegrass or similar.

completely agree. Silence is the only way to code

Music helps me drown out surrounding noise/distractions and energizing music can pump me up, but I also get distracted by playlists because each new song triggers a novelty response in my brain and will distract me (especially if I start wanting to sing/dance to it).

What I've been doing that's actually been quite effective is I'll just loop the same energizing song over and over for the entire work day, sometimes even for multiple days. For me it helps keep me energized while also letting the song fade into the background since it's on repeat. I'm sure many people would not be able to stand this, but it's been the perfect solution for me.

I do the same!

I had this problem at a job where music was piped in, at one time I was a professional musician so I'm trained to hyperfocus on the song at hand when listening, I like having background noise but listening to actual music is distracting.

My go to is meditation music, hums, drones, no drums, and no vocals. It’s like white noise but less grating.

Back in high school and some of University I used to be able to listen to music while working, but no more. If I need some noise then the stuff I listen to is so minimal it could hardly be called music.

I also have some difficulties doing "brain work" while listening to music for the same reasons, I just start paying more attention to the music. I'm a hobbyist musician and have been playing trumpet and saxophone since I was around 8~10. I wonder if that changed the way I (or we) perceive music

No, me neither. Unless I'm working on something brainless and repetitive (I'm currently doing formatting for a book I'm writing, and using my old version of Indesign which means a lot of repetition of the same thing as it doesn't have the ability to set sane defaults!), I can't listen to any music - either the music gets my mind, or the job does and then I'm not listening.

FTR I partially make a living as a musician, so maybe that's why?

Generally agree, but I also need to drown out my coworkers. Found that NIN-Ghosts type of music to work the best, that repetitive/drony music gives me the space I need to think.

I can't work without music, it drives me crazy.

I have ADHD, so working in an environment with lots of voices and other sounds is impossible for me.

I've also got tinnitus, so working in silence will drive me insane too.

I'm listening to music for upwards of 12 hours a day. It also helps that I have a real passion for music, mostly techno and psytrance, and also DJ and produce, so I love it.

I can listen to music when doing easy/repetitive work - it actually makes it seem less dull. When working on something hard or reading/learning something I can't listen to music.

I listen to Kizomba (Portuguese) or Salsa/Bachata (Spanish) music while I work. I enjoy the rhythms, but I can't speak either of those languages, so I get the enjoyment without the distraction.

I always like pointing software engineers and people who need to focus to this playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/61RNVG9yeQpFBRi8OAVC9I?si=...

Before this, I could not listen to music and code at the same time AT ALL. Then, I found a coding playlist with only full length albums with very little vocals, and I changed. I recently created my own flavor of the playlist with only albums that have a consistent flow from one song to the next.

Give it a try and fork it to make your own version!

Same for me -- EXCEPT for certain Brain.fm tracks, and my carefully-curated "flowstate" playlist consisting of a few dozen familiar tracks w/ no lyrics and a steady beat. These are only sort of "music" to me; they're _strictly_ for use as background for focus, w/ noise-cancelling headphones, and I don't listen to them for any other purpose.

If the world is silent, then not listening to anything is better (for my programming).

In the noisy clusterfuck of sound our open office is, listening to music is a soothing balm.

I studied music classically from a young age, and I absolutely cannot listen to music while programming (or writing, etc) I immediately fall into studying the music. I truly believe this is a phenomenon among musicians.

It depends on the music. Electronic music with no vocals really helps me concentrate. As soon as there’s vocals I’m doomed.

Have you tried Deep House? Deep House and Jazz/Blues are the only genre that work for me while coding.

If it's late at night then you need something to keep you awake and focused. I stumbled across this on cmd.fm and then found it on soundcloud. When I need to stay awake and blast through some work and really make some progress, I go straight for a featurecast mix. The one below is relentless (in a good way).

https://soundcloud.com/featurecast/featurecast-keep-it-comin...

Past submissions:

2018-07-20: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17573053

2016-11-01: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12844434

2012-02-18: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3605957

2012-02-03: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3547694

Every time I feel like writing a "pastbot" I start to think it ought to be part of the site, and then I look up top and see the "past" button! :-) Maybe it should be highlighted and blinking if it's a frequent flyer...

I've also thought about bots on Hacker News - they might be useful for somethings though I can't put a pin on what exactly.

I'm pretty sure the community won't really like the idea of bots on HN because of spam issues and such, but what is the official policy on this? Can't find anything about bots anywhere.

you could probably figure out some cool insights about tech people's beliefs and opinions in aggregate with some clever NLP and sentiment analysis and some.... ahh, not asking for user's consent to use their data for that! classic.

We don't allow bots to post to HN, other than https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=whoishiring.

I frequently read HN and this site was new to me. The (2011) in the title lets me know it isn't new content.

What do I have to gain by knowing it was posted several times before?

Threads like that are typically linked because people might be interested in the previous discussions. This is especially true for this one, because people will inevitably suggest their own preferences for programming music in the comments.

This also links to Datashat's own Businessfunk compilations, which are excellent on another level from your regular ambient: http://datassette.net/businessfunk/

And btw, there's also a fourth mix for the Near Mint web radio: https://www.mixcloud.com/Resonance/near-mint-8th-march-2016-...

But as heavy-artillery concentration music, I recommend TechnoLiveSets. It's the ‘accidentally done all work in one day’ grade material: https://www.techno-livesets.com/

P.S. I'm also gonna gripe about lack of volume controls on the site, which for some reason a bunch of sites consider acceptable. All volume levels on my machine are carefully tuned—and then this site comes along for which I have to fiddle with the master volume. While listening to this explicitly background music, I'll likely come across some videos that I'll want to watch for ten seconds—and then I'll have to either crank the video volume, or scramble to stop the music each time. Don't do this.

On top of that, site authors' ideas of proper volume pretty much never matches mine: Bandcamp and Soundcloud both have to be cranked down a lot: Soundcloud's embedded clips make me lower the system volume to 1/4th of a notch on my Mac, which is about 1/32nd the normal volume for me.

Holy shit! Businessfunk 4! And on Resonance FM, no less. How was I not aware of this? You've just made my 2019. I love Businessfunk to the extent that I am prepared to name it as my favourite genre of music.

You can find a lot of it on Youtube and elsewhere: it's all library music from KPM and such. E.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2uAw_SOshE

Datassette has tracklists on Soundcloud (iirc), and Andy Clark, Keith Mansfield and James Asher seem to dominate his mixes (though Asher is apparently more into tribal music). Alas my favorite bit from Businessfunk 2 at 34:25 is unidentified.

Nothing better than Gamelan, the album Degung Sabilulungan vol. 2 in particular[0]

The repetitive, gentle sounds put me into a high efficiency mode without putting me to sleep like most ambient.

[0]: Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nrgTossoB0

I agree, I hope it catches on.

I just listened to the video you linked to. It seemed promising, but the lead flute was too much of a distraction for me. Perhaps after more hours of listening it wouldn't be such a problem.

Oh wow, I didn't think i'd see someone mentioning Gamelan, but while were on the subject, have you tried Geinoh Yamashirogumi? Check this out!

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRQiaRrNbCY

Big fan of their Ukranian folk album "Chi no Hibiki Higashi Yuroppu wo Utau", it's a jewel for programming (apart from THAT track).

It's precisely via Gamelan, which led me to Akira OST gamelan sounds, that I've discovered Geinoh Yamashirogumi (which then led to Muslimgauze, tangentially)

Cheers!

I have found several “brown noise” tracks which I find great for getting into the zone.

Right now, my absolute favorite is “cockpit” brown noise (the sound of muffled airline jet noise). For example, you could set this track to repeat endlessly: https://open.spotify.com/track/01Kk9an41cyVj7oIXd2Fsj?si=NnC...

For whatever reason, it gives me the feeling of “fast” (jet), important (I’m the pilot of this important thing?), and cozy (strapped in tight in the cockpit), and I never get the distracted (hmmm! What is this song?) feeling that I usually get from programming to music.

FYI: Difference between “white”, “pink”, & “brown” noise: https://www.soundofsleep.com/2017/07/18/white-pink-brown-noi...

I can't hear anything. Is it normal? Does it only works with headphones?

I would summarize the differences between noise types this way:

White noise: equal energy per Hz (flat)

Pink noise: equal energy per octave (-3dB/octave)

Brown noise: spectrum of Brownian motion (-6dB/octave)

White and brown are easy to create mathematically.

My favorite among the ‘busy background sounds’ tracks is the relaxing military skirmish: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGgKdDCJx5o

Thank you for the playlist! I added it to my Gist posted below.

On a side note, I find it interesting how we buy noise cancellation headphones against airplane nose but also create playlist with these sounds.

I have been listening to a downloaded copy of freesound.org user "reinsamba"'s 30 minutes of thunder storms for years. Literally one track.

Probably half of the "flow" time I've had has been listening to that one track. Hundreds and hundreds of loops. I'm not sure if this is a recommendation of the track or condemnation of my sanity.

https://freesound.org/people/reinsamba/sounds/17085/ ?

Exactly that one, yes. Well, I can't view that URL from here, but that integer is in the MP3's filename. Case closed! There's a lady's / small persons's voice admonishing someone for make noise with what sounds like a screen door part way through. It's not in English that I can tell. Do let me know if you understand what they say. I'm assuming it's just "shut up, recording!"

There is a Reply All episode about something exactly like what you describe [1]. It's been a while since I've listened to it, but it's something about how making sounds like these is a whole business with resellers upon resellers. They dive into the process and try to track down the person who made a specific recording that also had some background noise that seemed particularly weird.

[1]:https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/mehrar

You need an account to download; here's some accounts: http://bugmenot.com/view/freesound.org

That's interesting. I use a similar trick, when there are distracting noises I put on white noise just loud enough to mask it. That then turns into the new baseline and I somehow experience it as silence.

Just enough slightly obscure things I both like and recognise to make me confident I'll find great new stuff. Cheers.

Restraining myself to join in with just a single recommendation - Jan Jelinek's 'Loop-Finding-Jazz-Records' is the record I always post on these kind of threads and it always seems to land well with this crowd. It is probably my favourite example of the genre, and the production is so textured and the instrumentation has so many subtle aspects, it holds up very well to multiple listens.

Alright, two recommendations - the first time I clocked a 14+HR session was when I was listening through Skinshape's discography (comfy, catchy, mellow indie)

+1 for Loop-Finding-Jazz-Records. Jan Jelinek's work as Farben is also really great for programming, very organic yet subtle techno.

This is cool, but what makes it "music for programming?" I'd say music for programming is whatever your favorite music is. Everyone has different tastes.

Speaking personally, I find somewhat ambient, low key, or atmospheric music without words to be most helpful when I program, which is not necessarily my favorite kind of music in general. This is just a huge library of those kinds of songs. I was a big fan and user of it when I first discovered it in 2013/2014.

As someone with a rather annoying tinnitus, silence freaks the shit out of me. To stay productive, I need music.

What kind of music I listen to really depends on my mood. It could be dubstep (Excision, Teminite, PsoGnar, to name a few out of my current dub playlist), various forms of metal (anywhere from After Forever to Xandria, In Flames, you name it); some times even Happy Hardcore / Handsup.

Generally, if I'm feeling well I prefer high BPM happy sounds, which -- together with some caffeinated drinks -- makes me incredibly productive. The darker my mood, the darker my taste of music gets, with also a few slower sounds. I can't really put numbers on my performance here, as on those days I prefer work that isn't easily evaluated performance-wise.

Have you ever tried identifying the frequency of your tinnitus and removing that range from your songs(aka notch filtering)? I heard over time it can lessen the effects.

If you play live music as a hobby, you're not exactly getting that. I've made bad decisions in the past; namely playing in an orchestra next to the drums without hearing protection. I can't undo that, and while it wasn't the cause of my tinnitus, it certainly didn't help.

Nowadays I wear in-ear monitoring on stage which helps quite a lot, protection-wise. I've recently read about a study (dunno if it was on hn) where they discovered that vibrations behind the ear lessend the volume of the tinnitus. I am so going to try that if I ever get my hands on such a device.

I still have a very good hearing overall (especially in the base region), so I should not complain.

> Have you ever tried identifying the frequency of your tinnitus

I have but since I don't have perfect pitch, I'm not getting anywhere. Plus it seems like the frequency has a certain amount of smear which might be hampering things even more.

I would love to try notch filtering but without the key frequencies, I'm doomed (although the tinnitus stuff on mynoise.net does help knock it down for short periods).

> This is cool, but what makes it "music for programming?"

Marketing. /s

It's about music to put you in focus, not make you sleepy, and not distract you, not about music one personally likes to listen to as a music fan.

Some kinds work better for this than others.

> Everyone has different tastes.

Yep. And perfectly illustrated by many of the comments being about what works for them. in particular.

Sometimes I even listen to talk programs and don't lose pace (depending on the task). The horror.

I can't listen to music I normally listen to. Anything with (English) words that is too slow or too fast.

I love Raggae but it's terrible for programming. It's too chill and wordy.

I can't imagine listening to music with lyrics while programing. For me ambient soundscapes, psy-chill, psy trance, atmospheric DNB, chiptunes, soundtracks or lo-fi are the best choice...

Personally, I like to listen to electronic DJ mixes because a) the music flows together nicely (by design) and b) repetition paces me and gives something for my ADD brain to latch on to (like rapidly bouncing your leg) and c) I don’t get preoccupied trying to DJ for myself.

Here are some sources I like:

Boiler Room (all EDM/dance genres)—https://m.youtube.com/user/brtvofficial/videos?view=0&sort=p...

Anjunadeep (deep house)—https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOftnzGIKwJB1h6ErEcFJTO...

I agree with you. Good DJ mixes build up the energy. It does help me get my brain in a rhythm that enters into a flow state. BBC's Essential Mix do put some good mixes, as well as Diplo and Friends.

Some tracks:

* Dimension Essential Mix (DnB): https://soundcloud.com/dimension_uk/essential-mix

* Nicolas Jaar Essential Mix (Various): https://soundcloud.com/otherpeoplerecords/csp06-nicolas-jaar...

* Mano Le Tough Essential Mix (House): https://soundcloud.com/manoletough/essential-mix

* Charlotte De Witte Essential Mix (Techno): https://soundcloud.com/charlottedewitte-essentialmix2018-02-...

* Diplo Burning Man 2019 (EDM): https://soundcloud.com/diplo/diplo-burning-man-cloud-art-car and https://soundcloud.com/diplo/diplo-burning-man-tetrix-art-ca...

Here's another great Boiler Room mix, from Nightmares on Wax, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q692lHFaLVM.

Soundcloud has an endless supply of great music to listen to while working. There's a podcast from the Netherlands known as "Deep Electronics" that has gotten my attention recently. Give the latest episode, #257, a try: https://soundcloud.com/deep_electronic

I found The Social Network soundtrack works decent for me. Of course I also like Retrowave/Synthwave and Eurobeat. They may not be the "best" for concentration and working, but I like them and they seem to help.

Yes, The Social Network soundtrack is my favorite to put me in hacker-takes-over-the-world mood. I also like the Tron Legacy soundtrack. If I'm in a lighter but still productive mood, jazz: The Bad Plus, Brad Mehldau, and Eddie Higgins Trio Christmas album.

DOOM soundtrack and Mr Robot soundtrack work really, really well for me.

I wonder if there is some sort of placebo-like effect that quite a few programmers tend to like this music that was used in a movie glorifying someone like them.

My requirements for programming music is what got me first into electro-swing. Since thing I have expanded from there. Lots of stuff from RJD2, C2C, Bonobo.

Here is my playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6yHQaBX599OnGlojw5aDTB?si=...

It's good for driving long distances too. But otherwise, my musical taste is totally different.

"music for programming" with me is Pink Floyd. Anyone with me?

Yeah but I've listened to all of their stuff so many times. I really enjoy listening to new stuff when I work so it doesn't distract me with memories.

For ambient stuff which is not distracting I usually search for "liquid drum and bass" mixes on youtube.

Pink Floyd is for life, it is not restricted to programming.

Since we're all sharing coding playlists here, happy to share mine as well:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2hLUvezSiJ2TpmSQq27IQI?si=...

This is a ~21hr mix I use basically daily when getting into flow - I love it. It's mostly high-energy electronic, some electro-swing, and I'm sure a whole bunch of other genres I'm not equipped to describe (not a music nerd).

Almost all of the music has been discovered through using Spotify Radio, Pandora, etc. and saving the songs I really liked / helped me keep the groove going.

It might or might not work for you, but always happy to share. Also - feedback welcome! If you like this and there's some other stuff I'm missing out on, lmk :)

To inspire others who were kids in the 80s/90s: My current favourite programming music is old Commodore Amiga game and demoscene music. (Lots and lots of tunes can be found on Youtube of course.)

Hey! That's absolutely awesome. My current favorite coding music is something similar, a style called "Synthwave / Retrowave" that draws heavily from 80s/90s chiptune music, but made with a bit more modern instruments and techniques.

There's tons of hour+ mixes on YouTube. Just a random one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qk1nnAHI1mI

Yes, I know Synthwave, and you're right, it's close and also, for me at least, super compatible with programming. Thanks for the link, will check it out. :)

My favourite album from that genre is Lazerhawk - Redline. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpDn4-Na5co

I've found that the best music for programming is the one you listened to when you were younger and could focus much better.

For me that would be anything that I listened to during the all-nighters I pulled throughout college and the background noise in Star Trek TNG.

As a side note if you're working remotely and having trouble focusing on long calls, I recommend Tibetan signing bowls:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujyu7tkyxtw

They nicely fill in the gaps in the conversation.

I shared this Gist with radio stations, playlists, collections, albums, … before: https://gist.github.com/z3to/3ad6458674afb2e308e1bbf88166987... Mostly ambient, drone, (neo-)classical, dub, minimal techno, deep house, micro house, downtempo, slo-mo house, ketapop, schneckno, jetlagdisco, post-rock, lowfi hip hop…

I found my favourite style for coding without thinking [1] is progressive rock/metal.

My favourite bands of the moment are Haken, Devin Townsend, Liquid Tension Experiment, Steven Wilson (et al). Also aptly named is French band The Algorithm. Want more extreme ? Try Pryapisme. More Jazz/fusion-y ? Nova Collective.

[1] as opposed to thinking without coding, which usually comes first and requires complete silence, paper and pen.

I'm not familiar with any of these musicians, so I'm going to have to check them out. Thanks!

I was lucky enough to score a second-hand set of Deutche Grammophon's Complete Beethoven Edition at an estate sale, and I like to crank up the piano sonatas when coding (and save the symphonies for consensual sex and ultraviolence). When I'm not rocking out to the Ludwig van, I've got some other stuff I like to play while coding:

* Thank You Scientist: Maps of Non-Existent Places and Terraformer

* Starfarer: Voyagers

* Marcus Miller: Renaissance

* Betamaxx: Plug And Play

* Hiromi Uehara with Trio Project: Voice

* Hiromi Uehara: Spectrum

* Liquid Tension Experiment

* Joe Satriani: Surfing with the Alien, The Extremist, Crystal Planet, Black Swans and Wormhole Wizards, Unstoppable Momemtum

* Galneryus: The Flag of Punishment, Advance to the Fall, and Beyond the End of Despair

* Therion: Vovin, Deggial, Secret of the Runes, Lemuria, Sirius B, Gothic Kabbalah

* Judas Priest: Sad Wings of Destiny, Sin After Sin, Stained Class

> and save the symphonies for consensual sex...

mmkay, thats nice, but what do you listen to for non-consentual sex?

he was making a reference to A Clockwork Orange...bit of the ol' Ludwig Van.

referring to how the character murders people or has threesomes in the film to a symphony.

I might be an arsehole, but I'm not a rapist. If the other people aren't into it, then I'm out of there.

Brain.fm works quite well in my case. It's not distracting and it doesn't sound like pure white noise either.

The app is a bit clunky though.

I use Brain.fm daily. I love it.

I also switch to Soma.fm and Di.fm when needed.

Brain.fm owner is a crook.

He lured me into buying an annual subscription with the promise that he would convert it to a lifetime subscription (which was available at some point). So I bough the annual subscription and from that moment I never had any more replies from him...

I sent a dummy question from another email address to see if he was simply ignoring me and I received a reply immediately.

So I downloaded the music I liked there (it's almost always repeating anyway), using a video/music grabber, and then cancelled my account.

Hey, sorry about that, don't know how or why that happened but I'll fix it. My email's in my profile, I'll make sure it gets taken care of.

Hainbach, whose website is linked to so he might have created this, has a really cool youtube channel where he repurposes old engineering equipment to make music. Heres one of my favorites https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19KbrTpgiEM

Reading these comments, I’m fascinated by how people listen to things and what makes them focus or lose focus. Us humans are a strange creature.

I’ll give my input. This is my go to focus sound: http://youtube.com/watch?v=dWjKZbkcYdA

I have been fine-tuning my "Code Time" music for over a decade that is conducive of getting and staying in the flow. An eclectic mix of ambient, tango, jazz, techno, progressive with a hint of trans.

Pandora: https://pandora.app.link/nKUbxNb4m2.

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/71xXPTrKmQ72TpLZSV1DAU

Google Music: https://play.google.com/music/playlist/AMaBXynw1A1Qs30Ii8AKR...

Rock and Roll while coding: yes! Electronica, synth, chill, film soundtrack: yes!

Bach? No! Bach stops me in my tracks and I'm forced to devote my attention. Mozart? I'm apparently allergic to bad performances because unless the performance is perfect, the music... fails.

Beethoven? Yes! Not sure why, though.

I tend to listen to psytrance, a while back on another music related programming thread on HN, someone posted this great guide to psytrance http://psytranceguide.com/

I don’t listen to music anymore during work since silence is really rare nowadays.

Some good stuff I play(ed): - Terrence Dixon - from the far future - Omar S and Shadow Ray - OASIS COLLABORATING - Aphex Twin - Ambient - Brian Eno ambient albums - Musik von Harmonia

Only thing I can really listen to is drone or ambient. Mostly stuff from cryo chamber that is on the dark side of ambient/score type music. Classical and electronic music has a lot of nuances that draw me away from it.

I kinda like the music but it's so damn ominous that it takes me out of my focus sometimes and makes me question why I am listening to such depressing music. I'm not sure this beats simple upbeat lofi for me.

Potato potahto. When I need to GSD it's thrash metal (Slayer, etc) or RATM.

Does anyone happen to know if there's a name for the "theme" that this site seems to be emulating in its terminal-esque design? It looks sorta like Monokai but with a really nice dark teal background.

solarized dark perhaps

https://ethanschoonover.com/solarized/

Be sure to check out the "[Enterprise Mode]" in lower left corner :-)

http://datassette.net/content/datashat-businessfunk.mp3 sounds like it ought to be in a 70s porno.

I have a subscription to Focus@Will and listen to either their “Focus Spa” or “Ambient” channels and don’t like the others. But for me it really does help me focus on a day when my head’s all over the place.

When I'm doing items such as math or programming - I listen to upbeat pop music that can get me moving. It's as if my fingers are dancing or writing away to the beat. When I used to take math exams, all I could remember in my head as I took the exam was the songs that were playing as I was practicing and I might even hum along. In fact, it might even be the case that I have one song just stuck in my head on repeat.

However, when I need all of my mental energy to think architecture, understand or formulate a plan of action, music is distracting.

Not a well known artist but I really like programming to FILMMAKER

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUau3wleuXc

I've also found some of the selections on https://generative.fm/ to be very nice background music for working.

The author's introduction to generative music article (https://medium.com/@metalex9/introduction-to-generative-musi...) is also very interesting.

I like the idea of such ASCII GUI's for prototypes and internal IT oriented apps. It has a fun retro feel. Does anyone know of a JavaScript library for building such?

https://terminal.jcubic.pl/ is fairly good, but somewhat older and out of fashion.

You may be interested in https://kristopolous.github.io/BOOTSTRA.386/

I suggest working on ones weaknesses such as concentration.

I like to work with quite but share an open workspace. Learn to tune out distractions by focusing.

Key example last week had a staff retreat to a bowling alley. I don't much like bowling so fired up Lichess on my phone. Tons of noise, talking and pins falling all around me but I'd rather focus on the game at hand and tune out distractions.

I suspect decades of karate training has helped build my ability to focus myself as needed.

Paul Oakenfold - Ready Steady Go

Great for writing a hydra. A multi-headed worm to break an encryption and then sniff out latent digital footprints throughout an encrypted network.

This is a reference to the ridiculous scene from the 2001 movie Swordfish where Hugh Jackman is writing a program to hack into a bank network.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1Ds9CeG-VY

I had to look up the exact line. I just remembered it sounded great.

Would be great if there were also Spotify playlists. This way you could play/pause from the keyboard, find albums, related artists, skip tracks, etc.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7w33zSxzXN5blasm8mk6cc

If you like using your keyboard to browse the web, I'd like to introduce you to Tridactyl ( https://github.com/tridactyl/tridactyl ).

Seeburg 1000 - http://74.82.59.197:8351/stream

Super useful as background music.

I don't like listening to music while doing routine tasks where thing A needs to be plumbed to thing B and mistakes should be avoided.

However, when I need by subconscious to scan a vast non-verbal solution space, nothing is quite as good as energetic, information-dense jazz. It helps silence my inner verbal dialogue that just gets in the way.

Some or my mental wires may or may not have been repatched by my conservatory degree.

If you like this, Xra_ always has great ambient music on while coding Memory of a Broken Dimension on stream (that's even how I discovered a lot of artists, such as Kammarheit): https://www.twitch.tv/xra_/videos?filter=archives&sort=time

I think everyone has different tastes and making a catered list is neat, but probably only going to work for some people. And people have some pretty weird tastes.

For example, I've been listening to the original Resident Evil 3: Nemesis soundtrack on Spotify. Something about 90s survival horror video game themes made for a 16 bit, 24 channel sound chip really gets my fingers typing!

Kinda anecdotal, but what works for me is a mix of dark ambient and drone. Anything more intense gets me out of the flow. Relevant playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/62CD3gc39cVrOkUGelCRrZ?si=...

Great selection! I added your playlist to my Gist posted above.

I compiled my own. I'm not sure what this genre of music is but it's amazing. It's like downtempo ambience with no audible base.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5KmEKavq5Ux0IxY2d5VfyI?si=...

I've found that all these instrumental tracks don't work for me. They're too -- boring?

But I find it quite distracting if I don't have music on while coding, and I prefer music with lyrics, EDM/Pop/Rock types.

Rarely, when I've got to think a lot and basically hold huge complex flows in my head, I've found brain.fm to be the best.

I can get into such deep focus when listetning to postrock. I found this genre a year ago and it is soo good. I recommend this youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-wdveKCDbbjK0_rzR2XhVA

There's a guy who makes a playlist on Spotify called Programming with a coffee emoji, I listen to it so often I even found his Twitter or something and reached out to him to show appreciation. Turns out listening to Scandinavian Rock (melodic and lyrics I can't follow) is really good for productivity lol

Link for anyone interested: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2mtlhuFVOFMn6Ho3JmrLc2?si=...

Thankyou

This is great, nice job. I tend to like Dark Ambient for programming. Espeically Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross (Social Network soundtrack) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yydZbVoCbn0&t=1016s

If you haven't coded to Infected Mushroom, then you haven't lived. :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLWXSsYJoWY&feature=list_rela...

Too distracting, unnecessary high energy prevents to get in the zen mode.

Although I like some Bach or similar while coding, I don't listen to music or even bring headphones anymore when at work as the temptation to listen to more distractive music is just too big. If it's too noisy at work I pull out party plugs and recently I ordered a 3M construction earcap.

High BPM music has a huge effect on me.

I have seen myself iterating a lot more during a session where I would listen to trance music instead of 2000s punk rock.

Is it the smaller amount of lyrics? I don't know, but I'm convinced I have observed a higher productivity when listening to high bpm music in the past 5 years.

High BPM music is fine for non-thinking tasks. If I have to actually debug a complicated issue it becomes counterproductive.

Agreed, though the effects can be detrimental when driving.

Have a look at https://www.steadymixes.com for 130BPM mixes and mashups to keep your pace moving.

I, like many others in this thread, have a difficult time listening to music while writing code or reading. One app that has worked wonders for me and boosts my focus is brain.fm. The rhythms and beats are steady and I've had some of my most productive sessions while listening to it.

surprised nobody has mentioned the freecodecamp radio yet, I really like listening to this on a very low volume. Mostly Lo-Fi music that doesn't take your attention away.

https://coderadio.freecodecamp.org/

Currently listening to this great Piano Chill playlist [1]

https://music.apple.com/de/playlist/piano-chill/pl.cb4d1c09a...

I listen to this while programming https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBVxMvATaFU&list=PLxSOsUnHsf...

I’m a huge fan of the artist NCS. (Noise cancelling silence). I haven’t listened to a song while working in several years, but do wear a pair of the latest Sony cans. I used to listen to similar content, soundtracks, etc, but found silence is where it’s at for me.

I've been wanting to build something like this since the last time I seen this posted here.

Eye of the Tiger. On repeat.

Can't tell whether troll or not. (the best kind)

I can't speak for the OP but I'm a bit weird in that I can play songs on repeat for days on end until I've totally memorized them.

Current one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpwjEBtoDRQ

This is really subjective. Classics of Rock like Pink Floyd works for me, but I'm not sure that it works for my mate who asked me to "stop the music". Lofi is a good option too.

Notwithstanding the music I find laying out a web page like this sexy

I've been listening to binaural beats lately at the recommendation of a few friends. It seems to work pretty well to drown out the office noise without distracting me.

Is there a mix among these that isn't so... dark? I tend to go for lighter tone colors/airier ambient works when I want to really engage.

I love this IDM playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6t93D5kmpPfeGwAm7VMej8

Not mixes, but I like BT's "These Hopeful Machines" and Oceanlab's "Sirens of the Sea" albums, too.

BT and Above and Beyond are my #1 and #2 favorite artists...

BT's new ambient album has been a fun listen while coding, but I'm always out for more music since I tend to listen constantly. Thanks for the link!

This has helped me write code as a sole developer in an open plan office of managers.

Unfortunately the corporate filter only lets the last few ones through.

I find I need energetic music, ambient styles tend to make me sleepy and drift.

Currently Insomnium is on rotation - ironic name given the above statement.

That website brought me ambient music. I listen to that style about everytime I have to think deeply. It became like a ritual.

I use this almost everyday (doing finance work, not coding). Really great tool to give an add mind a little more focused.

Try this: dark room so you can only see your screen, tiny bit of alcohol, tiny bit of coffee, instrumental music.

Whatever works. For me, it's The iDOLM@STER in general.

If I am already in the zone, metal works best.

clouddead, 0PN, Tim Hecker? These playlists are no joke.

Seriously. I'm stunned to see 0pn deep cuts like Heart Of A Champion. Speaking of which happy new release day!

Works with my media keys too. Nice work!

I prefer speedcore

favorites of mine:

* monolake / momentum

* Paul Kalkbrenner/ self

Paul Kalkbrenner is great! I met him in Toronto in a show and shook hands. Super down to earth guy. It's funny that I ended up living in Germany — he's from Berlin :)

cmd.to is also cool.

Also:

https://coderadio.freecodecamp.org/

https://9128.live/

https://dewtone.com/

Thank you for the links. I very much like all of them! I added your playlist to my Gist posted above.

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