A song that was constructed to reduce anxiety | Hacker News Reader

A song that was constructed to reduce anxiety

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Here are some ambient songs by Aphex Twin which I also find very calming.

Stone In Focus - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q86g1aop6a8

Rhubarb - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AWIqXzvX-U

Tha - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGC90fmf8gw

Avril 14th - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6dGAZTj8xA

Yes, these scratch my itch when im in the right mood. I also find Boards of Canada quite relaxing even though it is a dark nostalgic type with beats. I think repetition in general has different trance inducing effects on ones mood

Along the same line is Deepchord, a dub techno band I've been getting into lately.

Can't wait for the next BoC release though!

Wouldn't put Aphex Twin on as a playlist though, since he also has https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqayDnQ2wmw. Great video and music, but anything but anxiety reducing.

It can be anxiety reducing if you’re actively listening to it and enjoying it. If it’s in the background and your trying to do something else it will probably cause anxiety.

Another somewhat unsettling Aphex Twin song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p71GvWkLw9k

And the ultimate one ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J639xIdgzQU

(still remember zapping through the channels on our kitchen TV stumbling on it - about 20 years ago - it's so weird, you just don't forget that)

Surprised his Rubber Johnny video hasn't been mentioned yet. That's my nomination for ultimate anxiety inducing Aphex Twin work. It even includes an anxiety attack in the beginning.

Link: https://youtu.be/l6_0UIknW-A

true, that's a nice one

Surprised nobody's linked ventolin:

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

On the Aphex Twin's topic. An article about automatically generating or extending a very relaxing Aphex Twin song:

https://medium.com/@metalex9/generating-more-of-my-favorite-...

Brian Eno - Thursday Afternoon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZ6V8pH4HPY

Great piece, but I was listening to this as the first plane flew into the WTC.

Not affiliated, but just a fan: if you like this type of drone-type music, there are several variants on https://generative.fm

All the music is generated on your pc, not streamed

Thanks for that great link. Much more relaxing than the playlist in the article. (I wish it worked in FireFox, but hey, whatever.)

It's working in Firefox on Linux. You do need to allow some scripts from the author's third party domain though.

I was wondering what license a music generated like this would be under?

If it's generated on one's machine, maybe that person should hold copyright?

Maybe that doesn't make a lot of sense, but neither would it make sense for the programmer of the music generation software to hold copyright over a song they never heard of and which might have been generated using data from the PC owner's machine.

I'm also curious how copyright works here.

Some years ago I had developed an anxiety disorder.

That's why I think this article makes no sense.

I got anxious of the most stupid things. This was also triggered by some music. It doesn't matter if the music is calming. What matters is what is happening in your head.

It seems to be the trend to meditate or to listen to soothing music when you are anxious. But please: if you are really having issues with anxiety: go see the doctor.

I really have to agree with you. Anxiety is more than being anxious for a reason. Sometimes I will be sitting down perfectly content and all of a sudden my heartbeat will start racing for no reason and I start to panic and everything spirals out of control.

Try "The Anxiety and Phobia Workbook". It has some techniques for helping. I know that what helped me was just understanding that this is a physiological and psychological phenomena, a positive feedback loop.

I get that music can be calming but also agree, I've had the issue before and I've heard it called 'relaxation anxiety' or something. Like a baby trying to fight their sleep, when things feel too calm it can be unnerving and the body wants to fight it.

Well, that's a pretty standard ambient-ish soundscape bordering on ‘chill-out’, though thankfully not as cheesy as a whole lot of them.

For me, dub music (not dubstep) was the most astoundingly un-aggressive music. Back in the past, I ran Bill Laswell's compilations two times a day: on the morning subway to doze for twenty minutes, and when falling asleep at night. Not really a surprising quality, since the genre is essentially produced as ganja in musical form. Note that you won't hear half of the music if your speakers don't handle deep bass.

https://billlaswell.bandcamp.com/album/trojan-dub-massive-vo...

(Ever since the name-stealing dubstep occupied the web while having nothing to do with dub, I have to exclude it every time when searching for the latter.)

Even though the genre evolved decently into the 90s–2000s, with British and French bands like Alpha & Omega, Twilight Circus, High Tone, and Laswell & Jah Wobble's productions—I still find myself returning to simpler tunes when looking to drop out of the daily race.

IMO Sun Araw later grokked quite well that dub can be more trippy than ‘psychedelic’ genres. And Hype Williams are excellent bearers of this torch, though not in the sub-bass range.

https://sunaraw.bandcamp.com/track/horse-steppin-3

https://youtube.com/watch?v=YMwsmam5X4Q, https://youtube.com/watch?v=rHCYKkU8jto

Ah, and in regard to ‘classical’ music, I'm a big fan of Swingle Singers' renditions of Mozart, from ‘A Cappella Amadeus’. They're magical for me somehow: I was able to have their songs on both alarm clock and ringtone, for years, without coming to hate them. This is while being cold to both ‘classical music’ and acappella in general.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dLWdHh39p0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0e06TWt4jvg

I mean heck even dubsteps original releases (Skream’s Midnight Request Line for example) retains the non-aggressiveness. Bro-step ruined it all haha

Agreed, the music from the original british dubstep scene had a lot more in common with dub music than what became popular dubstep. It was mostly heavy bass ran through a low pass filter with the frequency cutoff set up to an oscillator giving it that wobbly wubbing sound.

Dub music itself was actually more popular with the british audience than jamaican audience. Producers like Mad Professor and Scientist and even King Tubby made their dub records specifically to release in England.

The stereo stuff going on is super distracting for me :v

The sound effects sound like Ross' music (from Friends):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERy-99vXxnM

I mean, Ross just needed to lay down some groove. He was getting the hang of it at the end.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUzcKlgy_a4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_p3Rx0t0jiw

Perhaps you would prefer Lee Perry's artisanal cow impressions on 'Cow Thief Skank':

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

Sun Araw is great, definitely my favourite on the Hotline Miami soundtrack, which has lots of other awesome tracks.

The other quite famous track of his is https://sunaraw.bandcamp.com/track/deep-cover-2 also from the HM soundtrack

The thing is, pretty much everyone knows the two tracks from ‘Hotline Miami’, but Sun Araw has plenty of other heady stuff on the early EPs.

E.g. ‘Canopy’ here https://sunaraw.bandcamp.com/album/boat-trip

All of ‘Heavy Deeds’: https://sunaraw.bandcamp.com/album/heavy-deeds

and ‘On Patrol’, which is full of this deep sound: https://sunaraw.bandcamp.com/album/on-patrol

‘Off Duty’ and ‘Sun Ark’ too.

Stallones later switched to guitar noodling and more spacey compositions, which aren't so groovy—though also interesting sometimes.

He also made an album ‘Icon Give Thank’ with M. Geddes Gengras and The Congos, which is pretty much Sun Araw plus actual dub: https://youtube.com/watch?v=HWvqL-pbH2U

Btw, funny thing: despite dub being basically packaged tune-out, reggae MCs constantly went on about their ‘war’ against the plight of the black man and the Babylon and about how they're more macho than everyone else in the business. So much so that ragga jungle artist names and compilations were full of military terminology, and the MCing fit right in with breakcore as ‘raggacore’.

Consider this example, which I'm even somewhat uncomfortable sharing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEJ6JVBUBmk

> For me, dub music (not dubstep) was the most astoundingly un-aggressive music.

Agreed! I feel myself relaxing every time i hear the opening notes of this track - Harry Mudie and King Tubby's 'Full Dose Of Dub':

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcpoD5gmvhY

My anxiety is triggered by things like blood, heart rate, being made conscious of automatic processes in the body.

So any sort of "this slows your heart" type of beat will actually increase my anxiety. I can't even listen to this track.

I was in this situation for more than a decade up until a few years ago. Was diagnosed with General Anxiety Disorder (GAD). I used to have panic attacks after discovering my heart wasn't beating at the resting rate according to Wikipedia, or when my skin felt a little dry and I thought I was having a heart failure. But once I started taking antidepressants, it almost completely went away (in addition to other techniques to take my mind off of myself when needed).

Are you in your 20s by any chance? that's when i started to get paranoid about all that stuff, and then it faded.

Clearly these guys have never heard of Sigur Ros. Go listen to Svefn-g-englar and tell me you aren’t chill as a cucumber.

Sigur Ros is like magic. Bon Iver almost has that same effect. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8T0cHQb39GY

I’ve seen Sigur Ros live twice. The first time was great, but the venue wasn’t very good. The second time was at the Fox Theater in Atlanta a few years ago. To say it was a powerful experience is a huge understatement. Those guys somehow channel something much larger than themselves. There are really no words to describe it.

Two recommendations:

Stars of the Lid - The Tired Sounds of Stars of the Lid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaSi7Gut7xM shop link: https://boomkat.com/artists/stars-of-the-lid

Thomas Köner - Daikan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICcK6Li5OfM shop link: https://boomkat.com/products/daikan

(disclosure: no affiliation with boomkat or the artists, i just love the music & think it is worth supporting)

A song that is designed to relax people? Isn't that like, half of all music? It probably works for most people, but it's not exactly a novel claim to say that music can calm people.

I'm surprised nobody mentions Brian Eno. He was a pioneer in ambient music and contributed to a lot of other genres. Look him up if you never heard of him.

Yes. His first "Ambient" release, "Music for Airports", back in 1978 was designed to induce a calming effect. It is very effective as I can testify since I've been using it for decades now to sleep.

The fact that it doesn't appear on the list by the researches cited in this article suggests a grave oversight.

Music for Airports was also the first in a series by Eno designed to take advantage of his "ambient speaker technigue" wherein you take a third speaker, in addition to the stereo pair, place it behind the listener, and connect it's two terminals to the two + (positive) terminals each channel on your amplifier.

Call it poor man's quadraphonic. It basically sends side information (or any signal not present on the other channel such as an instrument panned all the way to one side) to this third speaker.

It sounds great.

I first heard "Deep Blue Day" on the soundtrack for "Trainspotting", and was immediately a fan. I subsequently heard "Force Marker" on the "Heat" soundtrack and was amazed to discover it was by the same musician. "Music For Airports" is a classic.

Some of Bach is very soothing, especially the Mass in B Minor, like this Donna Nobis Pacem from it: https://youtu.be/v8yOP9EUIY8

The song is here:

https://youtu.be/j3X7vhvqi_E

Song with similar intro, much more effective at reducing anxiety - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vddl9TK5RqU

The intro is definitely anxiety-inducing, though the rest of the song is super chill.

That's gonna give me a panic attack.

Sibling's Pink Floyd works. Or here's one from my stack--the louder I play it, the more peaceful I feel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwPnvYiCVfA

I'm with you on both counts.

I like fast music without lyrics. Lyrics are distracting when I'm coding.

If they are songs I know well, lyrics don't bother me. If it is a new song I find it hard to concentrate because I'm busy listening.

Same. Even without lyrics, familiar tracks are the best for zoning, for me.

I note that "Canzonetta Sull'aria" is Number 9 on the list. Much more my cup of tea, especially when both it becomes a duet. The opera it comes from, The Marriage of Figaro, is one of my all time favourites. To me the secret sauce is that, even though the Opera is a "Opera Buffa" (comic opera), and indeed has all the element of sitcom: mistaken identities, life altering discoveries, disguises, people hiding under chairs, broken flower-pots, and yet some of the aria's, such as Sull'aria, are poignant and heartbreaking. Consider, for example, "Dove sono i bei momenti" (Where are all those beautiful moments), where the countess yearns for the time when she and the count fell in love. If you want to see what I mean, listen to Rene Fleming (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_7Fr8Z-rFQ) - the aria starts at about 1:57. Stunning.

/second the Sull’aria. It’s possibly the most beautiful duet ever composed [1]. Shawshank Redemption had a memorable tribute to it [2].

As for the overall opera Le Nozze di Figaro, there’s a good scene in Amadeus where Salieri praises it [3].

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

[2]:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzuM2XTnpSA

[3]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTfiboMetpY

https://moss.garden is an ambient radio I listen to as a backdrop.

Anxiety has a couple of different meanings. There's the everyday use of the word, and I guess calming music would help with that. I like Phillip Glass (which a lot of people find surprising for calming music) or Max Richter's Sleep.

But if anxiety interferes with your day to day life and causes significant distress it might be an anxiety disorder. There are a few different things under the class of anxiety disorder so I'm not going to list symptoms. Luckily, often they've very treatable. Current advice is to start with psycho-education, then step up to a talking therapy (and cognitive behaviour therapy has a good evidence base, it's short and should be affordable), and if that's not working to step up to a combination of meds and a more intensive talking therapy.

Anxiety disorders cause many years of life lost to disability, and they can be really distressing for people.

the absolute and ultimate soothing "song" for me is the one I found in the sleepa Android app (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.relaxio.sl...). You have to open the "meditation" section and activate the sound represented by three stones on top of another.

I'm not affiliated with that app in any way.

I've been listening to this sound several orders of magnitude longer than any other sound or song. It's absolutely mesmerizing. There's something very specific about I just can't find anywhere else. It's a simple layering of very simple melodies.

If you have something similar to suggest I'm interested!

If you like this kind of thing, there's a whole radio station of drone-type music with barely-there beats here: https://somafm.com/dronezone/

I've listened to and enjoyed it , and i still feel dubious about the claim.

Also article is 3 years old.

I remember hearing Underworld's "Please Help Me" years and years ago, and it's now my go-to song for reproducing the effects this article mentions. Another good one by Underworld is "Toobee". Happy to have another track to add to that collection.

"Please Help Me"- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AliwSLa0ebA "Toobee"- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjdVi20fCDI

Well I’m sorry it’s apparently not working for other folks, but I felt substantially calmer after listening to the song. My wife on the other hand didn’t like it at all. Thanks to whomever posted it.

I have anxiety problems and Ligts Out Asia band was always helpful https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsXy9ATlb_o

Also Max Richter <3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVN1B-tUpgs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmQmepDPg6I

Here's a song that never fails to calm me down: https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ

Nicely played, sir

I couldn't dig it - but I like the article and idea. Other readers: what are some of your favorite chill background tracks? I'm on Hippie Sabotage lately.

I wouldn't call this background music. In fact, I'd say it works best when you give it your full attention with eyes closed. Nevertheless, 'Music for 18 Musicians' is a go-to when I need to simmer down.

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

Steve Reich and that particular piece are awesome. I'm not quite sure how "relaxing" his music is for me, but it can definitely induce trance-like states, and in general it's just good music.

I also like this rendition of Piano Counterpoint: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LM4t2Kvpv0Y

If you like Steve Reich, I'd also recommend Oneohtrix Point Never - R Plus Seven (and all his other albums pretty much).

'R Plus Seven' got major play from me when it came out! :)

I think the 'trance-like state' is what I find relaxing. It's basically meditation. I've been listening to the ECM recording since I posted that, and I'm realizing that's not my preferred recording. I really like the recording done by the Grand Valley State University New Music Ensemble: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xzyzgqEk5U&list=PLkqUzfbYHJ...

Also, this version by Rough Fields, which uses non-standard instrumentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DULIr7kskM8&list=PL21HssoFMq...

I unironically enjoy listening to this 16-second loop on repeat for 50 minutes: https://youtu.be/8snzt-umd0g

More recently, Haircuts for Men: https://youtu.be/XZUiPCGjej8

I enjoy this a lot and from time to time I recharge my batteries to it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RFunvF0mDw

Well, there's the ‘Relaxing war sounds’: https://youtube.com/watch?v=bGgKdDCJx5o

I have a coding / focus Spotify playlist of tracks that keep me focused and in the zone without being distracting. Contains a lot of ambient, deep instrumental house and ambient dub techno: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/28W4UPjme9kuIxMKjdlSMx?si=...

I wonder if they measured some other music too. I'm pretty sure listening to something like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36Y_ztEW1NE will do equally good or better job in reducing anxiety.

Why not listen to sounds that are both great and calming instead of just calming.

Doesn't really do it for me.

The 'Early Riser' tune on my iPhone, which I use to wake up in the morning, is the only alarm sound I have had in my entire life that doesn't strike doom into my heart. I can go back through ringtones or alarm sounds I've used for the last 10-15 years and every one more or less triggers panic even to this day but that one.

I find it very interesting how either more people are anxious and scared this go disaster, or we're just talking about it more.

I don't remember there being this much discussion about reducing anxiety in past crises.

I'm also not one to get anxious by this kind of stuff, much more hyped to take on the increased stakes. So it's been a lot of DOOM OST for me.

Rip and Tear baby.

I've seen this headline so often in so many forums that I think that this is a streaming scam.

Is this actually a real study? Why don't they link to the paper? Mindlab International calls itself a "neuromarketing" group...this reads more like an advertisement than a report on a real scientific study.

Does anyone have a copy of the research paper?

Also does anyone else find the organisation who sponsored the research (Mindlab) to be creepy?

https://themindlab.co.uk/

:/ I’m terrified of drones so this didn’t work.

what a bunch of baloney

hey

The song in the clickbait title is “Weightless” by Marconi Union.

We've debaited the title above.

What was the original?

That of the article.

I actually feel more anxious listening to this song. The low synthesizer in background sounds like something is about to happen.

I see what you're saying about the synth, but what really makes me anxious is how the bass drum fades in and out.

It's at a steady ~60 beats/minute, but at about 1 minute 30 seconds, it starts to get quiet, at points becoming inaudible, and the song goes from "this has a definite rhythm" feel to a "this doesn't have a definite rhythm" (or "I'm not sure") feeling. Then it keeps going away and coming back again.

Definitely don't listen to Disintegration Loops then.

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