
MusicForProgramming(); - seanplaice
http://musicforprogramming.net/
======
ctdonath
_Music possessing these qualities can often provide just the right amount of
interest to occupy the parts of your brain that would otherwise be left free
to wander and lead to distraction during your work._

Finally - someone who recognizes that there's a curious & busy part of the
brain which must be kept preoccupied during complex tasks, and mixes music
just for that purpose.

"Trance" music podcasts are a great approximation for this. (See "The Vocal
Trance", "Above & Beyond: Trance Around The World", "The Perfect Mix", "Push
The Night", "Perfecto Podcast", "The Sound of Trance", "Shakedown Podcast")

ETA: Alas, too many managers don't understand this; they think you're getting
distracted by the music, and can't comprehend that it is necessary to
facilitate focus.

~~~
emillon
> Finally - someone [...] mixes music just for that purpose.

DJ Bolivia has been quite known for his "Music to code by" mixes, I definitely
recommend them.

[http://djbolivia.blogspot.com/2011/04/music-to-code-by-
volum...](http://djbolivia.blogspot.com/2011/04/music-to-code-by-
volumes-1-3.html)

~~~
djbolivia
Emillon, thanks. Some of those Music To Code By mixes have a fair amount of
vocals though. I think nowadays, a lot of coders would prefer my weekly radio
show at www.chma.fm.

The drawback with the radio show is that each episode has a 25 to 60 second
promo tape at the intro, but after that it's all music, no advertising, and I
don't do voiceovers. I'd recommend episodes starting at about #070 - I was
still trying to find a groove in the first seventy, and I only stopped doing
an intro voiceover in the early 70's.

They're also on SoundCloud (I just archived them all starting a few weeks ago)
so you can skip around easily if you need to:
<http://www.soundcloud.com/djbolivia>

~~~
emillon
Nice, I'll check those out !

I listened to the first episodes but for some reason I preferred your former
mixes. Let's see how the latest episodes are doing :)

~~~
djbolivia
They are definitely a bit darker, more tech-house. I guess the style changes
within each show, but from show to show it's consistent. The first half of
each show is generally low-key tech-house, but then I start speeding it up a
small amount and using more "busy" progressive house tracks later in the
episode. But not many vocals in each. Some people will like these better (the
sound quality is also better), but some coders will definitely prefer the six
older "Music To Code" By mixes.

------
ben_straub
Made a Pandora station seeded from the artists in all the mixes.

<http://www.pandora.com/#!/stations/play/738121268334091862>

~~~
subbu
I really wish Pandora was in my country too. SSH tunneling is too expensive.

~~~
nzmsv
Little known fact: only the webapp part of Pandora is IP-restricted. The media
servers are open to the world. So as long as you can load the player through a
tunnel, the actual mp3s can go through your normal connection.

------
MetalMASK
This is definitely one of the areas that is to each his/her own.

I found (the majority of) trance music superficial and get quite easily bored
listening to them. Songs with lyrics messes with the language processing
module of the brain and I don't want that kind of distraction. So I listen to
classical, instrumental, OST and some techno (that are NOT tons of bass).

Example of songs I am listening to now:

Pierre Bensusan - Kourouts Nota (highly recommended)

Eric Johnson - Gem

Steffen Schackinger - On a rainy night

The Glitch Mob - Animus Vox

Klint - Diamond (OST from Snatch)

Mirwais - Disco Science (OST from Snatch)

Nathaniel Mechaly - Opéra (OST from Snatch)

...

In case anyone is interested, this is my playlist on Grooveshark:
[http://grooveshark.com/playlist/Sen+s+Music+For+Coding/66931...](http://grooveshark.com/playlist/Sen+s+Music+For+Coding/66931078)

Again, music snobbery is one of the worst topics of discussion (I certainly
don't want to invoke it), to each his/her own.

~~~
Hortinstein
good call on glitch mob, I would check out emancipator too

------
shearn89
My absolute favourite album to code to would actually be the Tron Legacy
soundtrack by Daft Punk, but I've also spent the last few years at uni
listening to <http://www.prettylightsmusic.com/> while I code: his albums are
all available for free/donation, and the genre is kind of down-tempo
electronic. There's the occaisonal vocal sample, but I've found it doesn't
distract me from work.

Endtroducing by DJ Shadow is also worth a listen, as although there's vocals,
they're generally calm. Example: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32X-ieCav-M>

~~~
kennywinker
I listen to the Tron Legacy soundtrack a few times a week. It's perfect for
getting shit done. Enough intensity to keep me focused, not enough to be
distracting.

I'm also partial to Fuck Buttons - Tarot Sport when I want something weirder,
and DRMHLLR when I want something less electronic.

------
mstevens
I used to find <http://musicforhackers.com/> the perfect background to coding,
but they're down, and I've never worked out another source of the sort of
stuff they played.

~~~
kennywinker
All my upvotes. I started listening to this 15min ago and it's been 100%
perfect so far. Thanks!

------
mark_h
My go-to artist is Zoe Keating (layered cello, and on bandcamp as an added
bonus: <http://music.zoekeating.com/>). She's also quite interesting to
follow: she's heavily into twitter, and is quite open about her profits,
dealings with labels, etc.

Otherwise though, vocal-less trance is usually pretty effective. I love all
the recommendations these threads bring up -- thanks everyone!

~~~
damncabbage
This is wonderful; thank you for the link. Just bought the download. :)

I've recently been hooked on 41 Strings, a short vocal-less composition by
Nick Zinner (of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs). He's performed it live in a bunch of
places, but it's available for download here:
[http://www.thecreatorsproject.com/blog/download-nick-
zinners...](http://www.thecreatorsproject.com/blog/download-nick-
zinners-i41-stringsi-and-watch-making-of-video)

~~~
mark_h
I just got around to checking that out; thanks!

------
astral303
Atmospheric drum'n'bass is where it is at for coding. Warm lushness, yet
rhythms that will help you keep your mental cadence up.

Here are two mixes you should DL & listen to:

[http://archives.bassdrivearchive.com/1%20-%20Monday/Atmosphe...](http://archives.bassdrivearchive.com/1%20-%20Monday/Atmospheric%20Chamber%20-%20Indigo%20Sync/2011/%5B2011.05.02%5D%20Atmospheric%20Chamber%20-%20Indigo%20Sync.mp3)

[http://archives.bassdrivearchive.com/4%20-%20Thursday/Scenic...](http://archives.bassdrivearchive.com/4%20-%20Thursday/Scenic%20and%20Advisory%20Show%20-%20Scenic%20and%20Advisory/2011/%5B2011.12.22%5D%20Scenic%20and%20Advisory%20Show%20-%20Scenic%20and%20Advisory.mp3)

Lush atmospherics, low-slung 29-38hz basslines, rock out to either full-time
at 175bpm or half-time at 87bpm, depending on your mood.

~~~
astral303
And on a more upbeat, liquid sunshine note, for those who want to go
faster/harder:
[http://archives.bassdrivearchive.com/1%20-%20Monday/Atmosphe...](http://archives.bassdrivearchive.com/1%20-%20Monday/Atmospheric%20Chamber%20-%20Indigo%20Sync/%5B2012.01.16%5D%20Atmospheric%20Chamber%20-%20Indigo%20Sync%20%5BSpecial%20Guest%20Soundsurfer%5D.mp3)
(Bjork remix at the end kills it)

------
m_for_monkey
If you use background music only for noise cancellation (crying babies,
reconstruction works etc.), I recommend <http://www.simplynoise.com/>. It's
not as distracting as even the most minimalistic trance.

~~~
ineedtosleep
Ah nice. Definitely bookmarking this. Also related, I started using rainymood,
fireplace and jazz loops found on a reddit thread from a while back [1]. After
using different combinations of the 3, I've found that sometimes music doesn't
cut it, and a simple fireplace/rain loop helps me work better.

[1]
[http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/ca4bl/time_to_ge...](http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/ca4bl/time_to_get_classy/))

~~~
m_for_monkey
These are great, too. I can't stand the water sounds, though. After a few
minutes I feel an urge to urinate :).

------
upthedale
Whilst not music, I find listening to <http://www.rainymood.com> to be great
for concentrating. It's a 30 minute sample of a rain storm.

It got me through my Master's dissertation, where I had it on loop for hours
at a time.

Fiddler tells me you can currently grab the mp3 from here
<http://173.193.205.68/audio/RainyMood.mp3> (this was especially useful for
the times I wanted to be disconnected from the internet to focus on work).

~~~
meow
Most of the time it helps me sink into deep sleep :)

~~~
Nathandim
Yep, add an extra point of help for those suffering with tinnitus (like me)
and the site is suddenly made of gold.

------
j45
Somafm.com has a few channels with few drums or vocals

9 beet stretch might be of interest to anyone wanting something long
noise/dronescapes

------
mw63214
from <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2715066>

"If someone integrated a contextual playlist generator into a web-IDE and
changed the music based on length of current session, degree of nesting or
other complexity values, time of day based on location, etc..., I think it
would be a much appreciated feature."

------
lignuist
Jan Jelinek's music is great for programming. At least for me. :)

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jKqVswlAZ0&feature=relat...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jKqVswlAZ0&feature=related)

~~~
brownegg
Make sure to check out his LP under the name Gramm.

first track: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kHEu50uq3w>

~~~
lignuist
Was my coding soundtrack for years. :) Actually I couldn't find a less
distracting album yet. Just a little more than silence.

------
saturdaysaint
I wish these were compiled in a Soundcloud - something mobile-friendly that
lets you skip around in a mix without downloading the thing. And the hosting
is pretty slow.

~~~
djtriptych
Hosting seems pretty borked at the moment.

And yeah would be great to be able to preview some of this without downloading
a 100MB+ file...

~~~
LearnYouALisp
Agreed, I didn't want to waste a hundred megabytes of the owner's bandwidth
(plus the time to download) just to sample the file, so I pasted the link into
a media player to stream it. However, it was not able to jump ahead in the
program I used (Media Player Classic).

~~~
_grrr
I made this a while back <http://www.soundcloudwall.com/>

------
droctopu5
I used to be able to dev to any kind of music or talk, but it's gotten harder
as I've gotten older. Sometimes I try to pick music that culturally matches
the web site I'm working on.

\- Classical: sometimes pleasant, but can be too dramatic. \- Hard electronic
(dance, club, dubstep): too distracting

Minimal or ambient techno tends to be way to go when I'm trying to focus on
something, but need something to keep that part of my mind occupied. Soma.FM
and Digitally Imported have the best streaming stations for that, IMHO.

<http://somafm.com/spacestation/> <http://somafm.com/dronezone/>
<http://www.di.fm/minimal> <http://www.di.fm/chillout>

------
udp
I think the site is starting to creak under the strain. Perhaps a torrent of
the MP3s would be a good idea?

~~~
manveru
I only have one, but it's quite nice.

magnet:?xt=urn:btih:RT5HIT44ZRQPNZOBCP7WAWXC4X5XT43D&dn=music_for_programming_4-com_truise.mp3&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.openbittorrent.com%3A80%2Fannounce

~~~
manveru
And here's a list of all so far for future reference, seems like the site is
doing fine for now though.

magnet:?xt=urn:btih:LKY6JNYEXZZ3DNXJGMQANRQRC65DEDMS&dn=music_for_programming_1-datassette.mp3&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.openbittorrent.com%3A80%2Fannounce

magnet:?xt=urn:btih:YQN3QLRTSAYWBWT3BHOVJJHHSWBYOQIJ&dn=music_for_programming_2-sunjammer.mp3&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.openbittorrent.com%3A80%2Fannounce

magnet:?xt=urn:btih:UE3W6G6R5XQ5A6RV4HU74LCUIFJWMXRK&dn=music_for_programming_3-datassette.mp3&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.openbittorrent.com%3A80%2Fannounce

magnet:?xt=urn:btih:RT5HIT44ZRQPNZOBCP7WAWXC4X5XT43D&dn=music_for_programming_4-com_truise.mp3&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.openbittorrent.com%3A80%2Fannounce

------
turbolent
<http://www.limbikfreq.com/> <http://somafm.com/>

------
paulnasca
Few years ago I wrote an extreme time stretching software (
<http://hypermammut.sourceforge.net/paulstretch/> ). You can use it to get a
nice audio ambiance from any music or sound.

~~~
farnsworth
I remember when paulstretch was making the rounds a year or two ago and I
still find it fascinating- just want to say thanks!

------
djtriptych
I pretty much just play Trent Reznor when I don't feel like putting together a
playlist.

I've also really enjoyed listening to motorik rhythms lately. Something about
that beat makes me feel like I'm constantly moving forward. Stereolab are the
modern masters...

------
jianshen
Side question: why do you think so many coders prefer electronic music to be
productive?

Based on the comments here, electronic music (whether it's ambient, trance or
dubstep) appears to be the assumed genre.

~~~
ctdonath
1\. As vishaldpatel notes, the pattern resembles meditative mantras. However
the mind reacts to religious chanting, "trance" resembles that and invokes
similar focus to the exclusion of other distractions. Indeed, we call the
music "trance" for a reason.

2\. The music does not demand attention to itself. Most other music is created
with a "drop what your doing and pay attention to ME" sense, and we go to
concerts and pay good money to listen to such music for what it is as the
center of our attention at that time. Dance music derived from ambient origins
creates a beautiful backdrop to something else, driving away other
distractions and setting a pleasant environment for whatever we really want to
do; most of it is created for, well, dancing - but the style where the focus
is on self & moment, not on music or others & events.

In our culture, very little else combines to create this audio backdrop
combining meditation and high energy. Most instruments demand the musician(s)
focus on a full performance, and hence expect (hope?) the audience to give
similar attention - the antithesis of what we're looking for here. Even
"minimalist" acoustic[ish] music like Philip Glass & Steve Reich, which
resembles "trance", requires an intense single-performance effort & focus of
the performers, giving the implication to the audience that similar focus
should return the favor.

Electronic music allows lots of free-running loops, zero-effort samples,
edited-to-perfection sequences, and time-unconstrained editing after the fact
- to wit, it's not created live, not intended for live performance, and the
artist has no attitude of "I'm not utterly focused on perfect end-to-end
performance of this, so I don't expect utter focus of the audience". Acoustic
meditative music heads this way, but involves the performer in the focused
activity; music isn't an ingrained part/consequence of coding.

Upshot: electronic music lends itself to creating coding-productive music.
We'd like such music from other sources, but nothing else lends itself to
producing such high-energy long-run content without demanding the listener's
attention.

~~~
technomancy
> The music does not demand attention to itself.

Interesting that the reasons given here mostly also apply to game soundtracks
as well, which is mostly what I listen to while coding. (Overclocked Remix has
some great compilations if you are looking.)

I suspect game soundtracks differ from film soundtracks in that they're the
backdrop to something that's still interactive, but I'm not sure how that
comes into play.

------
tobiasSoftware
One of my favorite CDs for coding: Ecco the Dolphin. I'm not making it up, the
CD by Spencer Nilsen is amazing, just perfect to code to. Also, the song
"Water Ruins" from the video game Jet Force Gemini and anything by Opus III is
excellent as well. Then there's "Just Hold On" by Jillian Aversa, and Super
Metroid remixes on OCRemix, "Kindred," "Avien," and "Solitude." And I have
dozens of trance CDs for coding too.

------
DrCatbox
Alpha and Omega (dub) and is the music I code by, repetitions, echos and
reverb, the groove just takes you forward in your code. Example:
<http://grooveshark.com/s/Chantig/41T4IJ?src=5>
<http://grooveshark.com/s/Higher+Than+High/2JhKQT?src=5>

------
richardk
Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works?

~~~
nlawalker
This is what I came here to say.

I just started trying to improve my focus with isolating earbuds (haven't
invested in noise cancelling cans yet) and rainymood.com. I heard the term
"ambient" recently and decided to give it a try on Pandora, and got Lichen
(#19) from Vol. 2 as the first track. I picked up both albums from Amazon soon
after. Having no previous connection to electronic music at all and only
knowing Aphex Twin from "Come to Daddy" and "Windowlicker" (not my thing), I
was pleasantly surprised.

Some of it's a little dark and/or tweaky, but most of it is great to have on
while working, and it covers a range of upbeat/downbeat without ever getting
into "dance beats", which don't help me at all.

------
glfomfn
For me they are two 'states'. When i am doing something 'tough/complicated/new
etc' that needs 100% of my attention i need complete silence, no music, no
sounds, nothing. When that's not the case (95% of time) i am fine with any
kind of music, my taste goes from dubstep to classical and based on the mood i
am fine to listen to anything.

~~~
BurnZeZ
I cannot agree more. Often it makes me wish there was some type of
program/device that plays music based on concentration levels.

What happens when I start getting into something complicated, is that I
_notice_ the music. Until this point, it's just kind of in the background. It
feels like my brain's saying, "Not enough CPU to play music _and_ work on this
problem. Please eliminate the problem."

------
pizza
<http://comtruise.com/kc/> More Com Truise mixes

~~~
badhairday
I love Com Truise. Ether Drift is definitely one of their best songs:
<http://open.spotify.com/track/2Z6CFvujnkDyPgsNn7zBAh>

------
gtrak
I found the links to what was up:
[http://d2cb4q5pwp3op.cloudfront.net/music_for_programming_1-...](http://d2cb4q5pwp3op.cloudfront.net/music_for_programming_1-datassette.mp3)
[http://d2cb4q5pwp3op.cloudfront.net/music_for_programming_2-...](http://d2cb4q5pwp3op.cloudfront.net/music_for_programming_2-sunjammer.mp3)
[http://d2cb4q5pwp3op.cloudfront.net/music_for_programming_3-...](http://d2cb4q5pwp3op.cloudfront.net/music_for_programming_3-datassette.mp3)
[http://d2cb4q5pwp3op.cloudfront.net/music_for_programming_4-...](http://d2cb4q5pwp3op.cloudfront.net/music_for_programming_4-com_truise.mp3)

------
domador
Got a "bandwidth exceeded" error message. Too bad.

------
vishaldpatel
Buddhists often chant mantras to stay in meditation. I suspect that a steady
beat / rhythm has a lot more to do with concentrating than any specific genre.
It gets the rest of our minds jogging along with the thing we're trying to
achieve.

------
ciroduran
509 Bandwidth Limit Exceeded :-(

Guess the hacker news-dotting did it. Care to torrent the files? :-)

------
xxpor
I find that music with no lyrics is most helpful.

Stuff like a lot of post rock, such as Explosions in the Sky or Godspeed You!
Black Emperor. Another option is Math Rock like Battles (I am actually
listening to Gloss Drop right now).

~~~
oceanician
Snap. Though I think I may have accidentally tranced out my co-workers in the
past with this music.

------
Rotor
Personally I enjoy minimal electronic music while coding. It fits nicely into
the background while still sounding interesting.

This site has some good minimal mixes <http://deepmix.eu/>

------
paragraft
I've found the drone music this guy does fantastic for zoning in while coding:
<http://zacbentz.bandcamp.com/>

Particularly of note is his 8 hour album "Field Recordings from the Edge of
Hell" [http://zacbentz.bandcamp.com/album/field-recordings-from-
the...](http://zacbentz.bandcamp.com/album/field-recordings-from-the-edge-of-
hell) . It's my go-to when I need to sit down and concentrate.

------
jentulman
I was recently pointed to <http://block.fm/> as I like to go with some beats
to work with and they have some great Dnb and electronica shows. Usually I
can't cope with any words, lyrics in the song or presenters on a show, but if
I can't understand the words, in this case because I speak no Japanese, it's
not a problem and sometimes it's nice to have voices (outside my head) as part
of the white noise.

~~~
jcromartie
Indeed, the presenters on DnB shows are usually really hard to understand.
"Big ups to cheesy grifter in tha gleebow huppa dig walla shim bam to ya fo
keepin it real ya". I have no idea what they are saying. Since it's
_supposedly_ English, my mind has to try and parse it. Very distracting.

~~~
jentulman
:) I feel I should point you in the direction of the Hospital records podcast,
in case you haven't found it <http://www.hospitalrecords.com/broadcast/>. The
usual presenter is the label boss Tony Coleman, and a nicer man you'll be hard
pressed to find. No posing, no cheese, no slang and a constant positive
attitude. Plus it's an absolutely superb label.

------
zavulon
Instrumental classical mix works best for me. I put on Mozart or Beethoven
radio on last.fm and just skip all the stuff with words (i.e. opera)

------
pork
Wow, you're really asking for a lawsuit aren't you? I mean, MP3s available for
download for free on a simple HTML website? What is this, 1998?

~~~
angersock
Or maybe it's more important to help your fellow programmers than worry about
stupid legal shit?

------
oceanician
Personally I find music without vocals, or very familiar music in the
background to be useful. Blocks out the occasional car going past. Post-rock
is really good unless it sends you into a trance haha.

Actually hate working with headphones on now. Similarly using music I love to
block out noisey work environments doesn't work. (Well, noisey work
environments just don't work do they!).

FWIW: I'm on last.fm as rock666

------
ggwicz
Matt Mullenweg's method (at least, that's where I first heard it) of playing
one song on repeat really works for me.

I like short, simple songs. Something like a song off CYNE's album Evolution
Fight works really well. For example:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rP2ISUThbcQ&feature=youtu...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rP2ISUThbcQ&feature=youtube_gdata_player)

------
dmoo
I've an Icelandic kick going on at the moment, some really great music coming
out of there.

Try Johan johannsson <http://www.ausersmanual.org/stage/> which is good but
also with extra hacker kudos given the topic

Also Olafur Arnalds <http://olafurarnalds.com/multimedia/>

------
moondowner
Reading through the comments, I'm glad that there are people on HN who know
what good music is - from Trance and Ambient to Dubstep and what not.

And I want to say that Com Truise's album Galactic Melt is one of the best
albums for me for 2011. It gets even better if you combine it with Daft Punk's
TRON OST and put those two on shuffle.

------
kapranoff
I will add my 5 cents with a mention of Qawwali music and specifically works
of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. See, for example,
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mustt_Mustt>. This is not just a ticket to the
zone for me, more like a teleport :)

------
jvoorhis
I was playing Alva Noto + Ryuichi Sakamoto when a contractor came for an on-
site and he remarked on how it was good "design music". He mentioned he
preferred ambient music whilst doing cognitively intensive work. When doing
something rote, rock, pop or metal was a good choice.

------
eLobato
Ludovico Einaudi and Max Richter put me in the mood quite nicely. Mozart, the
three tenors, and similar stuff also work (but most of the time not as good as
the former artists).

Nonetheless that's rara avis among my coworkers, anyone else listening to
similar stuff while coding?

~~~
lautis
I sometimes listen to ambient-ish classical music while coding. Ólafur Arnalds
and Jóhann Jóhannsson have been recently on my list.

------
jff
I typically just listen to my rockabilly/psychobilly station, I can't handle
the trance/techno/ambient/whatever music everybody else seems to advocate. A
good Reverend Horton Heat track has a good beat and fast pace too, it's just a
lot more fun for me.

------
tucosan
OK, the site seems down. I managed to download half a mix until i got
timeouts. If anyone managed to download those track, a mirror somewhere else,
or a torrent would be really nice. Anyone care to provide us with a mirror?

------
vyrotek
_As a general rule, we're looking for 1 hour long noise/dronescapes with no
(or very few) drums or vocals.

Happy coding / knitting / drawing / running / painting / writing / baking
cakes!_

Apparently this should really be called "MusicToGetThingsDone" :)

------
coopersloan
Groove Salad has always been one of my favorite streams for coding. Lots of
down-tempo stuff, tasteful choices: <http://somafm.com/groovesalad/>

------
mutewinter
I wrote a blog post about this a while back, I'll just leave that right here.

<http://pileofturtles.com/2010/12/music-for-programming/>

------
blob8108
I really like DJ Shadow for this kind of thing. Try "Midnight in a Perfect
World": <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmzHRGoKca0>

------
jonursenbach
Would love it if there were Spotify playlist links for these.

~~~
oe
I searched for the artists of episode 1 in Spotify. Only ~1/3 of them could be
found and often the specific songs were not there.

------
AlexCP
I always listen to <http://designers.mx/> when I work, lots of great mixes and
a nice way to discover new genre.

------
mvalente
Ulrich Schnauss, System 7, Man With No Name, Art of Trance, Dimension 5, Jean
Michel Jarre, Tangerine Dream, Astral Projection, Kraftwerk, VNV Nation...

~~~
mvalente
Here's a Grooveshark playlist
<http://grooveshark.com/playlist/Music+For+Coding/66934126>

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draggnar
That Com Truise mix is nice. Also check out his Komputer Cast 4 part set
<http://comtruise.com/kc/>

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simondlr
Com Truise is great. Discovered him last year. I'm a sucker for ambient lo-fi
stuff.

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koudelka
I'm amazed that nobody has mentioned Hybrid yet:
<http://www.hybridsoundsystem.com>

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fady
nice. thanks for the mixes. i use "boards of canada" pandora station to
accomplish the same idea. you get a lot of down tempo, ambient styles.

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larrytheliquid
dj finny's dnb mixes have been sustaining me for years:
<http://www.mixcloud.com/finny/>

i can't handle the monotony of trance, and dubstep can be a bit too much. a
lot of dnb also tends to be repetitive, but finny keeps things lively enough
for you to pay attention to code

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datassette
<http://musicforprogramming.net/> now has an RSS feed

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Thangorodrim
The site is unresponsive, but I wanted to recommend:

Philip Glass symphonies Wagner's The Ring ( unless you speak German ) Slayer

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abruzzi
The stuff that works best for me is the Phillip Glass early crossover stuff
(i.e. post-Einstein.) Things like Glasspieces, Dancepieces, 1000 Airplanes on
the Roof, The Photographer, and the three *qatsi films. They're minimal enough
not to intrude on the foreground, but also not as harsh and "difficult" as the
early stuff like large chunks of Einstein (except the knee plays) and Music in
12 Parts.

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sil3ntmac
My favorite album to listen to while I code is probably Blockhead's "The Music
Scene." Gets the blood pumping.

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k_bx
<http://www.kievbass.com/podcasts/> works for me

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davemarchevsky
This site has some really diverse mixes, thanks!

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joshaidan
I think the site might be going a bit slow for me. Is there a mirror?

~~~
ecaron
I reached out to @datassette to see if he'd let us host the MP3s for him on
Cloudfront, so fingers crossed!

~~~
ecaron
The mirror of #4 is up:
[http://d2cb4q5pwp3op.cloudfront.net/music_for_programming_4-...](http://d2cb4q5pwp3op.cloudfront.net/music_for_programming_4-com_truise.mp3)

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BasDirks
I love listening to Paul Kalkbrenner while programming.

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potomak
I was unconsciously searching for this for a while!

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eslaught
What is the license for this music?

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mrinterweb
I can't concentrate on programming because my brain can't ignore how bad the
music is.

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robomartin
Pink Floyd Mozart Bach

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leeoniya
i usually stream psytrance, works well for some reason :)

~~~
stdgy
I went through a long Shpongle phase about a year and half ago. Great coding
music, if you don't mind the heavy psychedelic feel.

~~~
burke
Same story here. I wish there was more music that sounded like them.
Particularly more music that sounded like Dorset Perception.

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eisbaw
Röyksopp is #1!!!

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bellbind
Wrong in so many ways.. I don't know where to start.

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Void_
ETN.fm guys.

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pnmahoney
daft punk, daft punk, daft punk.

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gtrak
account suspended whaaa???

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Karn
Some of my favourites:

Michael Brook - Err: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcyQISCPTTs> Michael
Brook - Ultramarine: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITFyP9b7ius> Michael
Brook - Several Times II: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RK-oVQaTg_4> Cliff
Martinez - Helicopter: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogDj3uXLP7w> Hammock -
Maybe they will sing for us tomorrow:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6kKjyHrXMw>

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hk_kh
Too comments. Nevertheless, I want to share, High Tone, that's all
<http://www.hightone.org> (fuck dubstep, let the old people stick to dub)

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leon_
this music is the suxx0r. goa trance > all

