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>ideally albums I have heard many times before

I find this to be true also.

Additionally, I've noticed that during the planning stage music is less helpful/possibly distracting. However, once I've more or less decided what to do and am focused more on implementation music can help me focus.

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Music is distracting when you need to be creative, because your creative brain is effectively distracted by the music. I read about a study[1] recently that presented a programming problem to two groups; one group listened to music while they solved it and the other group had silence. While each group performed acceptably with regards to creating a solution that conformed to the spec, the music-listening group neglected to notice that a series of transformations in the problem spec turned out to result in no changes whatsoever. The group working in silence was able to make the connection and came up with a more efficient program.

[1] Sorry, can't find the source. Will update if I find it.

Pretty sure that study was mentioned in Peopleware, but didn't include a citation reference.

I believe you are correct.

I don't disagree with your point, but the 'study' is essentially an anecdote about two incidents, in which the difference could just as easily be about the group members involved; I think one cannot draw significant conclusions from it, as described.

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