Music to Let you Concentrate | Hacker News Reader

Music to Let you Concentrate

focusatwill.com

335 pointsbiswajitsharma186 comments

Be careful. Music engages your creative hemisphere. This doesn't matter much if what you're doing is a simple, repetitive task. But if you're trying to design or program, it might kill your ability to "think outside the box" and invent creative solutions.

In my case, listening to music while programming has a very pronounced effect: I will spend 30 minutes crafting a function that will do something. The function will eventually work. And then I will stop listening to music and several minutes later notice that the function was entirely unnecessary, because I can make an architectural or data structure change instead and avoid writing the function altogether. This is something I am unable to do while listening to music.

Once I noticed this, I started being careful: I'd listen to music while configuring routers, but not when planning and designing the changes. You get the idea.

So, before you start listening to music while working, I'd advise you to check if your brain works the same way (the effect might not be exactly the same for everyone).

These days I mostly use natural sounds (the Naturespace app for iOS is great) and good headphones to mute background noise.

Music engages your creative hemisphere.

Do you have a source for this?

This precise statement is easily verified (just google it). But I thought I had a source for the "listening to music hampers your creative ability" statement, and I can't seem to find it.

You could reason that if you engage the brain with something, then it cannot do another thing at the same time. So if you engage the areas responsible for creative thought processes, these areas will not be available for other tasks.

Obviously this might not be the same for everyone, I'm just cautioning people and urging everyone to do some testing.

Another example is that many people (including myself) can't dictate, for the same reasons. In my case, whenever I use dictation, I later go back and re-read what I wrote and it is always disappointing. It seems the areas of my brain that process speech are also needed to form thoughts into sentences and I just can't do both well.

No, I don't think you can reason that. The brain is engaged in so many simultaneous activities that it is nearly impossible to count or even categorize them. Our understanding of how we think is very poor, and the brain very robust. Moreover, brains and minds are so variable that exception is the rule. Talking about what works for you and making something that helps you (and may help others) is great, but framing it with dubious extrapolations is, I think, misleading.

It's a matter of practice. I've seen quadriplegics do dictation just fine. You just have to train yourself to think a different way. This may not be an efficient use of your time. (I find that I can do dictation, but it takes much more effort than typing.)

Peopleware, Page 78, "Creative Space":

"During the 1960s, researchers at Cornell University conducted a series of tests on the effects of working with music. They polled a group of computer science students and divided the students into two groups, those who liked to have music in the background while they worked (studied) and those who did not. Then they put half of each group together in a silent room, and the other half of each group in a different room equipped with earphones and a musical selection.Participants in both rooms were given a Fortran programming problem to work out from specification. To no one's surprise, participants in the two rooms performed about the same in speed and accuracy of programming. As any kid who does his arithmetic homework with the music on knows, the part of the brain required for arithmetic and related logic is unbothered by music —there's another brain center that listens to the music. The Cornell experiment, however, contained a hidden wild card. The specification required that an output data stream be formed through a series of manipulations on numbers in the input data stream. For example, participants had to shift each number two digits to the left and then divide by one hundred and so on, perhaps completing a dozen operations in total. Although the specification never said it, the net effect of all the operations was that each output number was necessarily equal to its input number. Some people realized this and others did not. Of those who figured it out, the overwhelming majority came from the quiet room."

(I hope this still counts as fair-use)

The whole part "Creative Space" is longer than my excerpt, so if you have access to Peopleware I recommend reading all of it.

link:

http://javatroopers.com/Peopleware.html#Chapter_12

That is a very interesting comment. I think my brain works similarly. I will pay more attention to that.

If this is true, this is a brilliant comment!

my brian works the other way around: i cant be creative in silence. I need to listen to music but the music has to be without vocals. if there are vocals that i understand i to much focus on the vocals.

I talked about some other Coders about that. About 20 People. The strange thing was that 7 need music that pump them up like rock or something like that. 7 need relaxing/chillout music( iam in that group) and 6 of them need silence.

So i think there is no general way of what you can listen or not to.

I strongly agree with this. Even if it's only ambient music (mentioned here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5872706), I still use it only for situations involving mundane things like documentation. Otherwise I greatly prefer silence.

My SO though, is exactly the opposite. She just can't get any work done in silence, and needs relatively fast music with vocals. Although it does need to be music that she's already familiar with, otherwise she gets distracted by having to listen to the lyrics.

For me, 'white noise' - type sounds- sounds of rainfall, waves, etc. [1]- help me focus. I usually work with nothing, bu one day when working in a noisy environment I discovered that putting headphones on and listening to 'sound of nature' tracks worked very well. So well, in fact, that now when I get stuck or am just having trouble focusing for any reason I do this.

[1] I think this is called 'brown noise' these days.

> [1] I think this is called 'brown noise' these days.

Yikes. What terrible branding!

"Green noise" is better, sort of honest, and obvious.

They are engineering terms, not marketing terms. The 'colors' are to give you an analogy of sound frequencies in the spectrum: White is a blend of all (audio) frequencies with equal intensities; with pink noise, the intensity falls off at higher frequencies (1/f), and with brown noise the intensity falls off faster at higher frequencies (1/f^2).

Yep. More detail (with samples) here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colors_of_noise

Sorry, I actually knew that -- I spent a few years of my life building production studios and doing audible spectrum tests.

Cheap humor though, I apologize.

Brown noise helps me concentrate a fair bit. Personally, I've got SimplyNoise generating brown noise in oscillation mode which sounds a bit like waves.

White and brown noises are slightly different.

You could check them out here http://simplynoise.com/

Excellent link! And the terms are explained, too.

EDIT: I just clicked the link 'simply rain' on that site- that is more like what I listen to.

I use:

  sox -r 48000 -n -d synth pink

with noise canceling headphones and a relatively low volume.

I also tend to listen to:

  sox -n -d synth sine %-5 sine %-14 vol 0.5

...but everyone else seems to think it's incredibly annoying.

    play --show-progress -c 2 --null synth 01:00 brownnoise \
    reverb 19 vol 0dB bass 6 treble -3 repeat 558

Adjust bass and treble to match your headphones.

It sounds like a big waterfall, or like a continuous wave crash. And it's stereo. :)

EDIT: Or this:

    play --show-progress -c 2 --null synth brownnoise \
    reverb bass 6 treble -3 echos 0.8 0.9 1000 0.3 1800 0.25

The one with echos is a bit softer and more natural-sounding.

Stupid question: Is it necessary to play something through a pair of noise canceling headphones if you just want to "cancel noise" with them?

Not with the ones I'm familiar with (Bose QC-15). You have to turn the headphones on to engage the 'active' noise cancellation, but you don't have to be listening to anything. In fact, you can unplug the cable from the ear piece completely and still hear (not hear?) the effect.

These days, I tend to listen to this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXtimhT-ff4

I have a music composition and conducting background, so any kind of music ends up distracting me at some level.

> I still use it only for situations involving mundane things like documentation.

I'm sorry, documentation requires less concentration?

I find (I hypothesize) that because I'm doing something which balances the hemispheres more (and requires me to get inside the head of my user) music doesn't work for documentation, it's too distracting. Programming yes, ambient works well, but writing...

I second this, writing good documentation is harder than writing code. I can do both with music I already know, however, but I will sometime go for a walk or a cigarette, both help a lot.

For me, at least, that's true. But then, I've written a lot of words in my life.

Now, I will plan the documentation away from music, and I'll edit it away from a computer, but music gives you a "permission to suck" and just get words on the paper. Once you have words on the paper, you have something that can be molded.

I absolutely can't handle lyrics. I think you're right. Those of us who remember using gopher protocol probably grew up listening to radio hits even if we bought the tape or CD, so it was known and in its own way monotonous. But served the purpose of drowning out my brothers or roommate.

Now I don't own a TV and rarely listen to radio, and my tastes have dramasticly broadened, so I almost never listen to the same song more than a handful of times. I find lyrics are a show stopper. Even overly ambitious classical, jazz, electronica trips me up.

Here's a playlist I've been listening to for a while, seeded by, of all things, gopro surf videos, which has become my go-to study set, usually fed in with Bose QC-15s

http://open.spotify.com/user/grep2grok/playlist/1NcLBwixEKqQ...

You like your trip-hop.

More suggestions for you based on what I see in your playlist: Zero 7, Nujabes, Little People, Ludique. Followed you on spotify :)

I am curious why something engaging your creative brain would prevent you from being creative - I would think it would do the opposite? *edit: Did you mean to say it "can kill your ability to think outside the box"?

I presume the idea is that with music engaging that portion of the brain, it's not able to work on other things that require creativity. It's essentially burning cycles that could be used for something else (and I know that's a horrible analogy).

Kind of like how (for me, at least!) it's nearly impossible to effectively read and have a conversation at the same time as they are using the same language part?

Depends on the music.

Most pop or classical music demands your attention; you'll pay good money to go to a concert where you sit in a chair and pay attention for a prolonged period. Dance/trance/techno provides high energy as a driver of activity, not a focus; you'll go to an event (dance) to focus on the activity, with the music as background motivation. Hence I listen to trance podcasts, getting the push and occupying a busy-but-unrelated-to-programming part of my brain, while also drowning out background noise (factory, sales guy on phone at next desk, ...).

For me, the key is to not listen to new music whilst trying to do creative work. If I'm listening to an album that I have been listening to for the last 6 months, it can be the perfect foil to the incredibly noisy open plan offices I have worked in for the last 15 years of my career (managers, for goodness sake please stop making open plan offices!)

Nothing beats the overriding hum of a server room though - Pure white noise at loud enough volumes that you can't talk easily with other people. Stick some ear plugs in to dampen the volume a little, and you're set to go.

I think it depends on the type of music you listen to. For example, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uCL1_YcRwk is always able to get me to stop thinking about other things and concentrate on the task at hand. I notice I do much, much better on exams when I listen to music (esp. jazz) while I'm studying; perhaps it blocks out all other thoughts, focusing my attention on the core material that is really required for maximum productivity and retention.

I've noticed the same effect but kind of the other way around. When I'm doing programming that requires thinking outside the box and creativity, music is ANNOYING and disruptive.

I love listening to music while pixel juggling UI's or fixing bugs but as soon as I start working on a scheduling algorithm or something similar I have to turn the music off.

I prefer silence, but since the open-plan fad holds sway here, I've found rain to be the most effective substitute. The best rain track I've found so far is 57 at http://archive.org/details/Sounds_of_Nature_Collection

Thanks for posting this. I needed a reminder of the great stuff lurking in the Internet Archive's "stacks".

This is super cool. Thank you! I have to admit I don't get the joke about crickets...

This is a fantastic collection. Thanks for sharing this!

Check out gordon hempton: http://soundtracker.com/ He makes fantastic binaural nature recordings. The advantage of binaural recordings is that they have an amazing feeling of "space" so that you forget that you are wearing headphones and that you aren't sitting in a forest. I've made some of my own as well. https://soundcloud.com/moultano

Very nice — I'm working to your Fall Creek right now (my code's compiling). Do you use a commercial dummy head or something less costly?

I salivated over a dummy head for years until I found this: http://3diosound.com/ All of these were recorded with the original model of it.

When exposed to noise for prolonged periods of time, sometime in the middle noise becomes silence. You don't feel there is noise, unless some turns it off or increases/decreases a little.

Its called conditioning the mind.

Its a bit like the right pane in eclipse, In years I never remember using it even once, yet its absence will irritate me.

Ever get that feeling sometimes when you are surrounded by people in a noisy place and yet after sometime sort of don't even feel that is disturbance.

There are some great hour-long ambient recordings at http://whitenoisemp3s.com

Personally, I frequently switch between music and silence. Putting on some music stokes my motivation and productivity, getting me started on a task. As soon as I hit a problem that requires more brainpower, I hit pause to let myself think—just like turning down the music in your car so you can parallel park.

>Be careful. Music engages your creative hemisphere. This doesn't matter much if what you're doing is a simple, repetitive task. But if you're trying to design or program, it might kill your ability to "think outside the box" and invent creative solutions.

Studies might suggest so, but irl programmings have been creating very cool stuff with music blazing from the speakers.

From Notch to JZW.

I've always found myself to be most productive when listening to repetitive electronic music - it motivates but also doesn't distract you too much.

Check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUAAVUKk6Fc - it's rather seedy and excellent in it's own right. Two Lone Swordsmen is okay, too.

Another good one is soundtracks - personally I like futuristic stuff (Deus Ex: HR soundtrack, or Mass Effect, or Person of Interest), as they are designed not to detract from the point of focus.

Lastly, luvstep/liquid dubstep type things are quite vapid but listen-able.

> I've always found myself to be most productive when listening to repetitive electronic music - it motivates but also doesn't distract you too much.

Yup, goa-trance for me :)

Music with a lot of lyrics is most distracting to me, though I've found it also depends on the particular way the vocals are mixed/mastered, on some albums they're much harder to ignore than others. Lyrics in my native tongue (Dutch) are hardest to ignore, but even music in a foreign language I don't understand at all (say, the xxx rottweiler hundar, Icelandic hiphop) is more distracting than something (almost) purely instrumental.

If you like goa and whatnot, these folks have some good free tracks scattered across different electronic genres:

http://www.ektoplazm.com/

Thanks, I am already aware :) Two recent finds on that site I've been listening to a lot are Mindsphere - Inner Cyclone (old school melodic goa) and Pavel Svimba - Space Babuska (real crazy, poppy psy, reminds of Haltya, some great mixing/mastering, way too distracting for this thread though :) ).

This site shows that it is in fact possible to offer great quality music online for free & legal download. I'm frankly amazed actually, just how it can be. These producers must love their craft so much.

  | Deus Ex: HR soundtrack

I went through a phase where I would just listen to the closing credits theme on loop.

Another electronic / soundtrack that I have spent a lot of time with is the Tron Legacy soundtrack.

Oh, Tron Legacy OST is the thing! You could also try Doctor Who soundtrack from season 5 and 6, it can do wonders, but sometimes you have to skip at track or two (as they are just too good and make you drop everything you are doing and listen) Bastion OST is nice too!

I've made a playlist I use with no vocals and mostly repetative electronic music. I think it works pretty well. If you have Spotify you can check it out here: http://open.spotify.com/user/simeng/playlist/0xtZDVR5XpfKGLs...

True, http://www.deepmix.eu/ fits exactly to my audio DNA. Someone said, it's the sound of travelling bits.

*its own right

"... two out of three of people like to listen to music while they work, study or read but it’s difficult to find and manage music that consistently works well for this purpose."

Precisely! I like to listen to ambient music when working and constantly trying to find new music for this purpose is quite a hassle.

last.fm is great for this. Type in an artist/genre you like and for the next few hours while you work, you will discover plenty of new ones as their radio service works by molding a 'radio service' to your taste.

Sadly, last.fm radio isn't available on most parts of the world anymore.

I made a playlist generator application for Spotify a while ago that uses the last.fm API:

http://unop.co.uk/dev/spotify-playlist-generator/

I'd be interested to know if it works everywhere. It still works in the UK.

EDIT: Source code: https://github.com/jpsingleton/Spotify-Playlist-Generator

Can you recommend a Top 5 ambient albums for working?

EDIT: Thanks for all the suggestions!

You'd find some great suggestions in these past two discussions. [1] [2]

I also picked up a Grooveshark playlist from someone (but can't rememeber where I got it from) that works really well: http://grooveshark.com/#!/playlist/Ambient/54561881

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3547694

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3900711

My favorite ambient artist these days is Lucette Bourdin: http://relaxedmachinery.com/earthmantra/artist-detail.php?id...

Also of interest is StilllStream, an ambient radio station: http://stillstream.com/

I can recommend Top 2: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pearl_(album) http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Plateaux_of_Mirror

Try Ambient Nights - http://www.ambient-nights.org/

About 60 album length mixes

Recently found this guy: http://soundcloud.com/s1gnsofl1fe Pretty nice. Also the french label ultimae releases some amazing stuff: http://ultimae.com/

Carbon Based Lifeforms and H.U.V.A. Network are fantastic for focus:

http://www.last.fm/music/Carbon+Based+Lifeforms

http://www.last.fm/music/H.U.V.A.+Network

Other artists on Ultimae are also worth a try.

That is absolutely amazing. I am so in love with Carbon Based Lfieforms right now.

I'm terrible at music genres myself, but I am a huge fan of Bonobo's music. It's classified as trip-hop - no idea if that falls under this category. Bonobo - Black Sands http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTjF2_-bneM the entire album is amazing

He just released a new album not long ago: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62Z4ibZFA6c&list=PLXEYOK9pTAB...

Also in a similar vein — Bluetech:

http://www.last.fm/music/Bluetech

76:14 by Global Communication is an undisputed classic of the genre, however you might find it distracting because it's so good.

And of course there's Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works 85-92, which should go without saying really. Again, you might not be able to work because it's such a good record. Also, it's not ambient in the sense of having no beats. If you've never heard it before you should probably just stop working right now and listen to it. Also he did a SAW vol. 2 album which is more beatless, but it's not as good.

You can't go wrong with Future Sound of London. It's a bit dystopian, but utterly amazing stuff.

The "minimalist" (he hates that word) work of composer Steve Reich is also very good for zoning out. All the other people in the modern "ambient" genre are ripping him off to some extent or another. I suggest starting with Electric Counterpoint.

EDIT - some more:

Hecq - 0000

Almost anything by The Orb, especially The Orb's Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld. Make sure you get the proper UK version not the cut down US release.

Portico Quartet by Portico Quartet

All the Boards of Canada stuff

Another vote for SAW (and SAW Vol 2) as great ambient productivity music.

Also I'm a big fan of M83 Digital Shades Vol 1 for this purpose.

Thank you for suggesting Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works. I'd never heard of this before. Loving it :)

Fun fact: if you believe the title, he wrote some of the tracks when he was 14 years old.

Personally I don't believe it for a second.

I don't find it surprising, especially for someone that is already a musical prodigy. I remember dreaming of beautiful melodies as a kid, but lacking musical talent, I was unable to play them on a musical instrument. Thus, the melodies were just stuck in my head and usually forgotten shortly after waking up.

The thing is, RDJ is legendary for self-mythologising. As a result of this, everyone else mythologises him too. He's obsessed with messing with his fans' heads. He has openly stated in interviews that he lies about himself all the time.

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/electronic-music-instruments-...

To be fair he could have written that stuff as a teenager. But then maybe he also owns one of Kraftwerk's original vocoders, modified to produce output in Cornish.

Apparently he also has a lookalike that walks around at his shows to divert the attention of fans.

Etc etc.

Thank you very much for your suggestions!

I've bundled them together in a Grooveshark playlist: http://grooveshark.com/#!/playlist/Work+Ambient/87531575

Should point out that it's Lifeforms by FSOL that you should be listening to. The later stuff isn't so ambient. Whatever that means.

Listening to it again now. Classic. Here they are in full effect back when that album was recorded. The CGI is all them as well. It's all very demoscene. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__tAx6-Fo6g

Those were the days. And to be fair looking at tumblr now, they've kinda made good on their promise.

http://di.fm is great for electronic music, they've got plenty of channels. Try also searching youtube, and if you find anything you like, use the "youtube mix", it's automatically generated but usually contains a lot of similar songs.

My suggestions:

Billow Observatory - Billow Observatory

Nuojuva - Valot Kaukaa

Global Underground 24/7 - Danny Howells (Day Disc)

Willits + Sakamoto - Ancient Future

Nils Frahm - Felt

Bersarin Quartet - II

The World on Higher Downs - Land Patterns

Adding another suggestion, a little late:

Helios (Keith Kenniff, aka Goldmund) - Caesura

Check out Emancipator: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCSN4DLG6Ng&list=PL7669BCCE53...

Trip-hop.

Thrash metal for me, no idea why it works for me but it does. Oddly enough I'm not really a fan of it while I'm not working.

Yes yes! I'm a fan of Metallica but I can only listen Kill'em'All while programming. Either that or repetitive ambient/instrumental/chill-out without vocals.

Kill 'Em All works well for me too. I know all the other songs far too well to not listen to them and try to sing along in my head.

I use all songs available on Spotify by In Flames. It's mostly melodic and rhythmic, usually upbeat, and the vocals and the higher spectrum percussion drown out ambient discussions without being very thought-provoking in themselves.

Same here! Dark tranquility and Omnium Gatherum works great for me as well!

Listening to New World Shadows right now

Hello there metal fans, I enjoy tuning in people's MDM broadcasts on Grooveshark. With suggestions its a nice mix of background music you don't have to manage and occasional song that you would like to hear.

Great stuff!

Look at some of the SomaFM radio stations...high quality ad-free streams across a variety of genres including ambient

Yes, http://somafm.com/, is the "bomb".

Big fan of SomaFM for work. They have some great xmas stations that come out in December, if you like. SomaFM did stress me out a bit with their constant requests for donations. They made it sound like they were being shut down any day, yet they're still here. I donated, by the way. Didn't stop the cries for help though.

DI.fm has a pretty good ambient station

To concentrate, I use computer game soundtracks (e.g. from Humble Bundle; particularly the one with Eufloria and Waking Mars), and to drown out voices of coworkers whose volume dial got lost in the laundry, text-heavy music in a language I don't understand (alternating between Czech hip-hop and Finnish hummpa).

I regularly the Fez soundtrack by Disasterpeace, and musicforprogramming();[0] has quite a few ones (esp. 06 and 08) that "just work" with my brain and make me zoom right into the zone in seconds. Also, This Binary Universe by BT.

[0]: http://musicforprogramming.net/?c=manifesto

Yay for musicforprogramming. I listen to their mixes quite frequently.

I wish they'd do a 24 hour mix that omitts vocals and sharp sounds altogether, that'd pretty much be the best ambient music I could imagine.

Agreed. (The Sims 1 Build Mode Tracks/Skyrim OST/Skyrim Atmospheres CD) + RainyMood. Done and Done.

On the advice of coffitivity, I've turned to human environments for ambient noise. I've been blessed with library access to the BBC sound effects library. http://www.sound-ideas.com/sound-effects/bbc-41-60-cds-sound... Some are the typical sfx fare, but the latter half is of city streets from around the world.

Have you tried Boodler, a soundscape generator?

http://boodler.org/

SoundTransit http://turbulence.org/soundtransit/index.html has interesting field recordings all under the CC BY 2.0 license. If you "Book a Transit," it compiles an mp3 of several different field recordings, taking you from city to city. You can also search the database or just browse the collection.

The flight booking metaphor makes it very inviting to play around. Thanks for sharing.

(Now if I could get Firefox for Android to download a .mp3 link to local SD card...)

Nice service. When I'm coding Trance, mainly Armin van Buuren, works best for me.

Agreed and same. I have a playlist on my phone for just trance which gets listened to whenever I'm working or even exercising.

I noticed something really interesting - your pace adjusts to the beat. For example, I took my headphones off to take a call and I was in awe at the speed of the beat, which only 2 minutes ago sounded fairly regular and not as fast.

Agreed.

When I was working for my math exams, having to learn dozens of demonstrations by heart, I have a playlist composed of 6 hours of remixes of satisfaction, by Benni Benassi. Amazing how 6 hours can look like 30 minutes when you listen to the same, repititive music :).

Yep, Trance works for me as well. I use di.fm/trance.

Same here, house is nice as well. You can fine a lot of 2 hours mixes on soundcloud as well as a state of trance on spotify

Yup, trance and house for me, definitely. Trance and house are like productivity crack. I listen to trance when I'm working and house when I'm working out.

Wow. This seems like a great and interesting product...

But it also seems like the kind of thing any programmer with a decent music collection could throw together as an MVP in a couple of weekends (ignoring music distribution rights, of course).

But it's got quite the large team of people behind it -- I'm very curious to see if this can monetize well. It just seems like such a "niche" product -- like it should be just another channel on Pandora, instead of a whole company in its own right. Seeing that margins on music streaming are generally already so low, I wish I could see their monetization strategy...

I use 25-min "pomodoro" mixes from there http://tech.no.com/

Nice, thanks for sharing!

Also progressive house mixes from https://soundcloud.com/cid-inc and https://soundcloud.com/mystic-mind

Once upon a time Red Alert (1), one of first RTS games, won Game Music of the Year award from multiple magazines.

I was initially a bit puzzled by it: there's nothing in the music that immediately jumps at you as great. It's nice, it resembles Nine Inch Nails in some places, that's it. But then I noticed I can listen to it for extended lengths of time without problem. It's relatively subtle, and it grows on you. It doesn't resemble the "epic" movie-style soundtracks that are so common these days.

And I guess that's the point... ? Game music, especially in replayable games like RTS, need to be good in the long run or it inevitably ends up being turned off in game settings. "Epic" music makes good first impression, and in trailers, but it's short-sighted in the long run.

I'm arguing along these lines on Age of Wonders 3 forums (upcoming fantasy TBS game similar to Heroes of Might and Magic), but without success.

Slight off-topic, but reminded me of this:

http://dustincurtis.com/how-mr-q-manufactured-emotion.html

The SimCity4 soundtrack is really awesome for just hacking away at things. I think that the Red Alert soundtrack is one of the best "get shit done" albums I've had in my box for a while, even with the amazingly cheesy synths and 90s style. The Descent and System Shock 2 soundtracks were very much in this vein (SS1 was procedurally generated, so it's hit or miss).

I think the big trick is that game music is meant to get you thinking and active, but not distract you.

Red Alert 1 amazingly cheesy ? Really ?

Frank Klepacki - "Mechanical Man" (C&C 1) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ap6QaDBZJwM

C&C 1 tracks had vocals unit they figured out it conflicted with the announcer.

Doesn't work for me, i can't concentrate with this music.. I'm not sure if this will even work for a broader range or people because music is so much subjective..

For me it totally depends on the mood what music i can work best with, but usually it's some electronic house music where i can concentrate best.

Justin Bieber slowed down by 800% makes for some nice ambient noise.

Someone should assemble a collection of lame pop music that sounds awesome when piped through Paul's Stretch.

Would listen.

For the lazy, here's the song mentioned: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QspuCt1FM9M

This was created using paulstretch [1], a program to transform normal audio using extreme stretches. I've tried it on a few songs I liked and it does really an excellent jobs of creating extremely fluid ambiances.

The triple parentheses on the first video is a nod to Sunn O))) [2], an American drone / noise / ambient metal band which features super long songs with droning saturated guitars (playing on vintage cranked up to 11 Sunn Model T amps) and usually no drums. One of my favorite songs from them and perhaps one of the best introduction to their music for the non-initiated is titled Alice [3], though perhaps it's not as representative of their music as, say, Ra at Dusk [4]. (Sunn O))) was heavily influenced by the pioneer drone metal band Earth, and their mindblowing album Earth²: special low frequency version [5]).

[1] http://hypermammut.sourceforge.net/paulstretch

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunn_%28band%29

[3] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8Djdi6z0m8

[4] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buA_xDQQg74

[5] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ls1OYn_xGzM

Minor detail someone might not know: a part of the Inception soundtrack (which is also great ambient) was made with that technique. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVkQ0C4qDvM

Those who have seen the movie and its plot device will know why this is a brilliant idea on so many levels.

Just curious - what is your disdain for pop music?

"We are not an entertainment company – we are a productivity tool company. We provide a new additional service you use to get stuff done better."

Yes! This is exactly the kind of music service I've been looking for when I'm working.

To each his/her own music needed to concentrate. The ambient sounds help me to get stuff done in the mornings, as a wake up :) During long coding-nights I'd rather go for Tech-house livesets that can be found all over soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/tags/tech-house

I think this is one of the few perks not beeing a English native speaker: I do understand lyrics if I concentrate but otherwise I hear the voice just as another instrument.

So I can listen to nearly any music for progrmaming. One of my favourites is Origin - Antithesis. But really everything works.

I'm a big fan of electronic music and the craft of DJing, and my favorite type of music to listen to while coding is UK Bass and its various subgenres. For this, I get my fix from the online "pirate-style" radio station, http://sub.fm, which has live DJs and an IRC chatroom where you can chat with the DJ and other fans. It's really great.

Note that this type of music is different from more mainstream (and American) dubstep—it has a deeper, more ambient quality to it. Great coding music.

Recently, I've also discovered a similar radio station for ambient music: http://stillstream.com/

http://www.getworkdonemusic.com/

Link was posted on here a while back but is still the go to solution for me. Pretty well curated list of trance style stuff. Also has a fast and slow option.

I somehow find techno and trans music to be quite distracting, this playlist however is an absolute godsend. "http://8tracks.com/tachedroof/the-only-study-mix-you-will-ev...

Comprised of classical music scores from some of the best movies, it creates the perfect ambience for coding, which stays out of your way, yet soothes and calms you while enhancing your productivity. Can't get enough of this mix.

You mean: http://8tracks.com/tachedroof/the-only-study-mix-you-will-ev...

The quote got included in your link

Yo-Yo Ma - Bach, Cello Suites https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHzfD6XLK7Q

I've had really good luck with certain kinds of minimalist music. In particular, Simeon Ten Holt's "Canto Ostinato" seems to actively help me focus: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDCsOL2vBJc Most performances are well over an hour, so a nice little side benefit is that you don't have to spend much time picking and changing music.

I like the idea but right now I have no connectivity on this app.

So far I've been using raining.fm because chamber music sometimes slows down and quiets so I can hear my co-workers.

My goal is to shut out what everyone is saying, but not the fact that they're talking. So far raining.fm has been perfect, but the only small downside is that when you take the headphones off it feels like you stepped out of a space shuttle or something.

I have a "music for programming" spotify playlist for anyone interested: http://open.spotify.com/user/thoyt/playlist/2AUYxFDAi6MdOPtg...

I tend to think I do my best work in silence, but for repetitive or boring tasks it's great to have a lovely soundtrack.

Interesting. I've seen a few similar submissions here that play ambient/focus music. To me, a product or service like this has to provide enough goodies to sway me from the convenience of a simple Spotify playlist, seeing as that is the go-to choice for many.

If you can strike a balance between creating helpful productivity customization and keeping it simple, something like this could really takeoff.

I noticed a while ago that some music needs active listening[1], while other kinds[2] don't distract me.

1 - Rock, various kinds of progressive music, anything with nontrivial melody

2 - ambient, more monotonous music, music with uniform volume

I'd love to say I've started dividing my music collection according to this criteria - but I've been too lazy so far. Sorry about that. I'll try once again.

Have been using this for about two months now. Never really listened to music while working before, for some reason it always ended up distracting me (the kind of music I like anyway).

But with this, I can actually concentrate just fine. Can't really tell if it helps, but at least it's nice music that doesn't get in the way, good enough for me :)

I need something that my brain isn't going to try to follow along with, like late 60's/early 70's jazz.

In spotify, the "Exam Study Classical Music…" playlist is good to know: http://open.spotify.com/user/127564522/playlist/0CwzkFXVbEK6...

It's different for everyone and you should try out different things. For me, a 2 disc collection of Willie Nelson helps the most since it is a moderate tempo and I have heard it so many times that it is not distracting. Also, when the 2 CDs are done, I know that I should stand up and stretch.

This is a great little service. I have a "concentrate" playlist in spotify that tries to fill this need with classical music, but I listen to it in the background so much that even with a fairly long playlist I get tired of hearing the same songs. Will definitely be trying this out.

For concentrating, I'm a big fan of Brian Eno's ambient albums like Ambient 1: Music for Airports.

I like listening to rain or even white (or pink or brown) noise:

http://www.rainymood.com/

http://whitenoisemeditation.bandcamp.com/

Boards of Canada pandora, gradually tuned for minor key ambient electronica.

That's my work soundtrack of choice.

A really nice site for pink noise (and fans, traffic, babbling, airplane cabins, waterfalls, rivers) is http://mynoise.net/noiseMachines.php

The creator is a signal processing engineer.

I've realized that it doesn't matter so much what I listen to but rather how much. The more often I hear a song / album whilst working the better it helps me to focus. For a while now this has been pink floyds pulse concert from 1994.

For me, songs without lyrics work best, doesn't matter if it is classical or instrumental techno like Nine Inch Nail's "Ghosts". Songs with vocals that I've heard a lot are better than songs with vocals that I've never heard before, presumably because my brain isn't trying as hard to process the words as it would be if I hadn't heard them as much... but songs with no vocals at all are the best for focus, IME.

For me it's all about headphones with a good bass response and a bit of deep dubstep :) http://www.youtube.com/deepervibrations

I tend to go with 12 Girls Band or movie soundtracks (Morricone, Horner, Williams).

I'm deeply in love with Zoe Keating's work. She's a cellist who composes and records her own music, building compositions using a looper. It's beautiful stuff, and I find it perfect for coding.

This works great for me if not used too frequently: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0EgzJ0KGxg

Wish there was a 8 hour version!

I use this channel http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCugb_j1Et8HRUpGiboLsPCw

Coffitivity works well for me, it's not music, it's ambient noise http://www.coffitivity.com/

+1 for coffitivity, I never imagined that a noise like this will help me focus until I started using it a few months back

But... isn't this exactly like the sound I'm trying to block (coworkers talking!) ? :)

[edit] I just read on their page that their theory is "It's pretty hard to be creative in a quiet space". So while I like the "hotel lobbby" feel for some kinds of work, I disagree that silence is bad.

OTOH, this might work for me because I can't parse engilsh that well.

No, coworkers walking is distracting because I can hear and understand what they are saying. My mind gets interested and will try to listen. For me it's the same with music that has pronounced lyrics.

Right, so the point is that there is enough people talking at the same time that it becomes noise..

This made me fall asleep.

I'm a little confused (though the service looks nice and works well). Do people not have their own music they prefer to listen to, or a dozen other ways to stream customized channels?

I'd like to recommend BlueMars as well, http://bluemars.org/

Although I wish the guy running it would add more music.

I feel bad for people who can't tolerate this sort of music but wordless energetic-yet-repetitive techno/trance/dubstep/etc seems to work great for me

The service looks awesome, will definitely be trying it out.

Also I love how the comments on this post have provided a plethora of new places to find music. Thanks everyone.

The best sound to help me concentrate would be some sort of ultrasonic repellent to keep people out of my office (unless absolutely necessary, of course!)

I was just testing the site like at 10:00AM and I just realize that I have been listening and coding with the "Up Tempo" station for about 40 min.

This is nice.

I like DroneZone from SomaFM. It's my go to music for loud neighbors or lots of distracting noise. Very calming and allows me to concentrate.

The mixes from Non-Collective are pretty good too.

http://noncollective.com/

http://www.radioparadise.com is pretty good for easy listening

I regularly go with Autechre "Perlence Subrange 6-36", Alva Noto's Xerox Vol. 1, Haliod Copies, Oval - "Systemisch"

"It appears you have no connectivity."

I presume you are blocking Flash.

Nah, happens quite a lot after some time of play.

Explosions in the Sky is my go to for this.

I think that music just tricks my brain into thinking that what I'm doing is cool though it almost never is.

The app layout is responsive and looks slick too. What framework (if any) did you use to build the UI?

Apologies, Just in case there has been any confusion. I just came across the Service, Liked it, Shared it here.

I am not involved in developing this service.

I liked the fact that, there is a lot of science that has gone behind it.

Thanks for posting this. Silence is preferable to music but music is preferable to other voices.

Board of Canada. Need I say more?

An extra s would be nice - Boards of Canada ;)

Nice to hear a Scottish band getting a shout though.

Indeed. For those that aren't aware, their new album just came out a few days ago as well.

Nice app but is the favicon a red tooth? This is bugging me more than it should.

No, https://www.focusatwill.com/favicon.ico

Noise, modal jazz. Anything with a simple pattern is distracting.

Doesn't work. I click on the buttons and nothing happens.

Loving the Up Tempo channel this morning. Nice work.

Dubstep and trance music usually do the job for me

From Serse? I thought it was Handel.

It is Handel. The Opera is Serse or Xerxes.

Music to let you concatenate.

I did not get how they handle intellectual property.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com