Ask HN: best music background to work? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: best music background to work?

14 pointscreonik13 comments

For example, I am finding I prefer not to listen to songs I know since I would try to follow the lyrics and that would take part of my brain and distract me.What's your favourite music when you code,design or work in general?

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Like many people, if I'm thinking and designing I prefer to have no music. If I'm doing these things in a noisy environment I may listen to some rain recordings such as [1].

When I'm coding I mainly listen to classical music. The problem is that I need to listen to things I know very well or I'll get distracted, so I end up listening to the same compositions over and over again, to the annoyment of my wife ;-)

These days the compositions I list the most while coding are:

- Beethoven String Quartets, for instance [2] (I really like the fugato at 5:00 ;-)

- Mahler Symphonies, for example [3]

- Ravel music

- Some Monteverdi madrigals [4]

I like to use headphones, either a Sennheiser PX 200 [5] or a Sennheiser HD-280 PRO [6].

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvRv-243Cmk

[2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55PIXCQgEfE

[3] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkoeH5BtLyQ

[4] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkDyNzPUQbo

[5] http://www.amazon.com/Sennheiser-PX-200-II-Headphones/dp/B00...

[6] http://www.amazon.com/Sennheiser-HD-280-Pro-Headphones/dp/B0...

Thanks.I am switching to classical music and works much better. Right now I am listening to Yo-Yo Ma and Ennio Morricone playing Moses and Marco Polo Theme. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssoQbusZ7os. It's beautiful (when not interrupted by Spotify ads!)

I've tried white noise, Naturespace, Kap Slap mixes, Pop mixes, Gregorian, etc.

I've found that I am pretty productive in a cafe these days, so I started listening to tracks of cafe background noise when I work from home recently, such as "People Talking in Coffee Shop" by Finnolia Productions [1].

Might write more about this if it works well enough.

[1] iTunes affiliate link: http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/click?id=dE0y3GuqVK4&...

I usually listen to one of the Music for Programming[1] mixes, and when I'm in the mood for more ambient music I listen to Brian Eno.

[1] http://musicforprogramming.net/

I did not it. Thanks for the link.

Depends on your work. For instance, if you have a good software design a web application, you can code it with heavy metal music because listing metal music with programming is improving the velocity of coding.

You are right. As I listen to a lot of classical music, I realize I am thinking better but also slowing down too much. Thanks

Best site I could find was created by a fellow HN follower :)

http://www.getworkdonemusic.com/#

I listen to it everyday and never get bored :)

I usually listen to slow tempo piano jazz or rainymood.com

There are a couple threads on this already.

turntable.fm's "Ambient Chillout & Trip Hop" room is usually quite good.

I usually just go on 8tracks and listen to the first 'coding' or 'programming' playlist that shows up.

Depends on the mood I'm in. From slow piano/classic to techno.

soma.fm - Mission Control, Space station or Drone Zone

di.fm - Chillout, Minimal or Ambient

bassdrive.com (liquid dnb)

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