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Comment by machinehermiter | Hacker News Reader

I am experimenting with trying to go in the opposite direction and not listen to music at all. I mean this in the sense of actively trying to get music out of my life completely.

I can't listen to music and sleep or do anything even vaguely productive. It just takes over. It feels more like an addiction to music than something that adds value to my life.

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I'm a big advocate of what might be called mindful or active music listening. Listen to music in the same way that you would watch an interesting movie or read a novel. It's actually kind of bizarre that such a rich artform is so often relegated to background accompaniment for some other task. At first it might feel as though you're wasting time if you're 'only' listening to music without your eyes/hands engaged in something, but I find that goes away if you are actively engaged in the musical narrative.

I have been like this all my life (39 years). When I was a kid my dad used to play us some children LPs. My brother and I sat down to listen to those stories.

As I grew up, I kept actively listening to music, (both classica/baroque that my dad played on CDs or heavy metal music I loved). Same thing happened with TV/movies.

Nowadays, my wife loves to turn on the TV when we are eating just as "background noise" but darn I find it difficult to focus on eaeting/table-conversation vs whatever is in the TV. For me music and TV have always been mindful activities.

>It's actually kind of bizarre that such a rich artform is so often relegated to background accompaniment for some other task

This is so true, and also sad. I used to go to the Gewandhaus Leipzig in Germany to listen to live classical music concert. The appreciation of richness of a lot of music is being lost.

We tend to go more and more towards the opposite though, as it's common to watch netflix and do something else, or listen to a podcast or an audiobook while doing pretty engaging activities like driving or sports. So I don't think it's solely a music thing, it's perhaps just a bit older because the radio has been around for longer than podcasts or youtube. And I can't do most of those things myself (multi-task with artistic stuff).

I'm mostly like you in that I prefer actively listening to things (especially when searching for new things). But revisiting known things without searching for more can also offer different feelings, like a sense of comfort or some mental priming for a mood while you're doing something else. It's two different ways to listen to music for two different kinds of experiences.

I've found this is the only thing that works when I have a melody stuck in my head. Actively listening to it tends to fix it up fairly quickly.

As a hobbyist musician, music is often too distracting while I'm coding because I am actively enjoying the nuances of the song. Though, if it's a song I've heard several times already, that can work.

I found for myself that it stops being distracting and becomes helpful if I drop the volume low enough to stop vibing to the music

I mostly just listen to rain sounds, its super relaxing and it doesn't distract me as much as when "a good song" comes along. Though its a bit odd when its sunny, but it works.

mynoise.net is amazing

The iPhone app just led to me catching up on a lot of sleep despite being in a noisy hotel room. Being able to EQ the white noise to fine tune it to block specific ambient noises is a game-changing feature.

I don't believe Music really aids concentration. Maybe it encourages the worker to stay in the office and work, because it makes the environment more enjoyable overall, and at the cost of less concentration - in my opinion. It is like adding sugar to swallow a bitter medicine

I love Music and art, while I realize it doesn't contribute anything practical to my life. Rather, it is the very thing I live for.

For me, if I cut out music with words, it’s useful; music with words destroys my productivity

One thing that works for me there is music in a language I don't speak. Sure I'll recognise words and will sing along, but I have no idea what I'm saying anyway so its actually not that distracting.

Yes. Foreign language is great for this.

MC Solaar, Amadou and Mariam, some k-pop (last played was (G)I-DLE), Onda Vaga… that’s all I can think off off the top of my head.

I think I would rather die than stop listening to music in any context

I never listen to music while I code.

I've tried it, many times, but it never works.

I don't even like sound-masking headphones.

I've never been a passive music listener. As a child I found muzak in supermarkets and lifts and radio stations in people's cars to be borderline insane. Why would you permit your mind to be occupied by such noise? I found it troubling that nobody shared my perspective.

Later I read in to Buddhism and IIRC it has the same take, essentially if you allow yourself to be subsumed by senses you are displaying laziness. Not denying the aesthetics, these days I am less intellectual and can tolerate some music but it's still pretty grating. I find I can listen to a given piece of music with lyrics precisely once or twice, after which it is intolerable. Music without lyrics or with foreign language lyrics have better staying power, but it's still weak.

I explained to my child this week (while putting on some lute music as a contrast to Chinese string instruments) that in the past there was no recorded music and all music was experienced live. This is often forgotten.

Now as ever, I tend to program in silence.

I definitely have a similar thing. Often I’ll listen to music, and then it sort of replaces my usual thought stream, so instead of thinking clearly and consciously, I’m just sort of on autopilot singing a song to myself in my head. I don’t mind that sometimes, but it’s not productive.

Try dark ambient, e.g., the Lustmord station on Pandora

Fills the silence, stimulates, but can't hold your attention

Soundtrack music that you get in movies is designed not to compete with whatever is on screen. I would drop anything with lyrics as that will demand attention from your brain.

Video game soundtracks are much the same. I code to the final fantasy soundtracks

Yep, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross have a lot of good albums that were used for soundtracks that are great for coding.

I noticed that when I play league of legends [very competitive game]

I play way worse when I listen to music than when I turn this off

unfortunely this thing is so addictive that I struggle to not listen to anything when working

Impact of music on people is interesting topic I guess

e.g how it affects risk taking - like you know, when there's some more "spiky" "crazier" song like from Disturbed, then I'd say it increases the likehood of taking risk

This is one of the strangest things I've ever heard. I understand it, but wouldn't you rather spend time deliberately enjoying something you enjoy rather than stamp it out in the name of raw output?

I personally can't imagine what life would be like without music

Not every moment of life needs to be productive.

What kind of music?

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