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Comment by filleduchaos | Hacker News Reader

A bit of a tangent, but this sort of music actually makes it near impossible for me to concentrate.

Instead, I have what I call "loop songs", which are selected favourite tracks that span a range of genres from fairly heavy metal to Afrobeats. When I want to focus I pick a loop song and set it to repeat (the ideal volume varies per song, but is typically moderately loud). I can't explain how or why but it settles my brain far, far better than any white noise or "chill" playlist I've tried.

It's also a point of humour with my friends because they're horrified that I listen to the same song hundreds of times over a couple of days, while I'm perplexed that they can actually get tired of listening to a song to the point of disliking it.

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That makes sense to me and I think it's the principle being mantras, repetition gets someone into a state of trance.

Although I don't know if I would be able to loop just one song, I do repeat albums that I like. So I put a few albums that I like and have listened to many, _many_ times, on queue. Already knowing the songs makes my brain settle (or at least reduces the cognitive(?) load a lot), and sometimes I even discovered "new sounds".

I have a very similar progress, but my favorite loop-genre to work with is grindcore. Highly recommend Magrudergrind: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLB290E30AC7EEFAFB. I have listened to this album many hundreds of times by now.

Tried it, definetly can't concentrate with grindcore.

Same.

My personal theory is the predictability allows you to tune it out, making it invisible to your conscious brain.

Based on my half-baked understanding of Jeff Hawkin's theory that our brains are wired to notice differences.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Intelligence

Me too. It might be caused by the crackling sound, the dominant instruments being melodic instrument in midtones/treble, or the amount of highpass filter applied to the music. It might relate with the frequency you're comfortable with (for example, I'm not really comfortable with the frequency of typewriter or the voice of my project manager near deadline :p)

I loop GTA V soundtracks for driving, the curation seems to be optimized for it https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2YYOp3xA7HcgZQ5hhRJuK1?si=...

While I loop meshuggah's whole album for working. The polyrhythmical barrage of riff is cathartic.

I do the same, but the reason, as I’ve thought about it, is that it is of course a song I like, with a nice groove, and when I press Repeat for hours, the effect is that whenever I have a momentary lull or break in my work, what I hear is a snippet of this music that I like, and I can groove with it for a second or a few minutes, it isn’t something new that will grab my attention away from my work. So it isn’t even background music because I’m not listening to it in the background. It is music to keep me on track when those brief lulls arrive (like waiting for something to compile, or upload, or render).

I do this sometimes with a single song, but I've found much more success with entire soundtracks from video games, especially Nintendo games, though mostly for nostalgia reasons. The different songs add just enough variety that I don't get bored, but usually the entire soundtrack has a consistent volume, style, and often mood. Plus these songs very rarely have any distracting vocals.

I'm musical in general, having grown up doing various band activities, so there's always a song playing upstairs. Having something external to listen to simply allows me to switch tracks.

Me too! I can't have it too loud though. But same song, on loop for an hour or so. I think the feeling of the headphones over my ears acts as an unconscious trigger to concentrate too.

I used to listen to Bach's Musical Offering when studying for my qualifying exams. I think the repetition of the main theme through the piece contributed to my focus

I listen to the Nujabes homework edit songs for the same reason. They’re basically multi-hour long. seamlessly repeating cuts of a chill song.

Matt Mullenweg of Wordpress apparently listens to one Kanye song on repeat, up to 4 hours. I guess it works for him.

Which one? "African Americans in the capitol of France"? Personally I find hip hop/rap music rather hard to "relax" to.

Ni##as in Paris, is how it's spelled in the album

I thought writing that might be too hard for some of the softer users of HN. ;-)

Not sure I think it was “Monster”. But agreed. I can’t focus or relax when music with lyrics is playing never mind pop or rap music.

same! all about getting “in the zone”. I usually go for house/techno DJ mixes or some sort of cool drumming. lol tangent but you might like this digeridoo one... https://youtu.be/FHpTYVOWin4

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