

Ask HN: What music makes you a productive programmer? - tidykiwi

What music is good for being productive while coding?<p>Also, do you think that listening to the same album a lot puts you in the same state of mind and makes it difficult to think outside the square?
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tjr
Most consistently, I find that light classical (Bach, Brahms, etc.) helps me
to focus on my work.

But more interestingly, many days it's as if there is some particular "song of
the day" that my mind wants to hear, and if I can determine an adequate song
of the day, I can get _very_ focused listening to that one song over and over
all day. There doesn't seem to be any particular rhyme or reason to selecting
such a song, and I'll poke around in my music library until I find something
that works.

Does listening to the same thing over and over hinder creative thinking? For
me, I think it enhances it.

It doesn't help me every day, but ever since I first heard it circa 1998,
Electric Light Orchestra's "Mr. Blue Sky" has helped me to focus on many
occasions. Some of my best work has been done while listening to that song...

Bizarrely, a couple of years ago I was required to do some overnight systems
testing, and as I struggled to stay awake, I found myself listening repeatedly
to the "Snow Miser" song from the old Rankin & Bass stop-motion Christmas
special. I am at a loss to explain why that helped me to focus, or why I even
thought to listen to that song in the first place...

~~~
kmanlives
I understand the "song of the day" concept. I'm a musician (trumpeter), so
often classical or jazz distracts me too much. Instrumental rock and/or
electronic music seems to work well. I've actually found one specific
instrumental track that has been my go to track for _years_ \- The Brazilian
by the band Genesis. When I'm focused and coding, I can listen to that track
for days on end.

I have often wondered why it seems to help so much, but I am not going to
complain.

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steventruong
Probably not the answer you're looking for but I work best in silence (or
rather, the sound of tapping keyboards). I know others strongly prefer music
but I zone out anyway so eventually I don't even hear music (or am cognitively
aware of it rather). I like the computer lab scenario where its just a bunch
of background tapping keyboards at most.

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hoi
Generically speaking, people are easily distracted by the human voice.
Therefore anything that has no vocals should lead to less distraction and more
focus. This doesn't affect ability, only focus.

Personally, I go for breakbeat, old skool trance (Germanic Trance circa
1990-96), Experimental Techno.

~~~
bkyan
For me, the human voice doesn't distract me, as long as I don't understand the
language.

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tonteldoos
Internet radio, typically DI (Digitally Imported). Minimal adverts, and the
various trance stations play looooong sets.

Can't say that listening to the same album has ever made it difficult to think
outside of a square. In fact, I used to listen to albums that I knew I was
productive on whenever I needed to be productive, regardless of what I was
busy with.

I find though, that music generally helps to get me through the mechanical
motions of doing something that I know what/how to do - coding, documentation,
etc. If I need to think about what to do or how to do it first, pure silence
(circumaural Sennheisers) works best.

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keiferski
The soundtrack for _The Social Network_ by Reznor and Ross is my staple. It's
all instrumental with a good beat, and gets me in the entrepreneurial mindset.

Hand Covers Bruise: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SBNCYkSceU>

In Motion:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yczul_609Gg&feature=relat...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yczul_609Gg&feature=related)

Outside of that, anything techno-trance or industrial works. I definitely
don't like too many voices, it's distracting.

~~~
hacker_jumper
+1 for The Social Network. Also stuff by Hans Zimmer (Inception, Pirates of
the Caribbean & Dark Knight).

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zerosore
Trance. Put on a 5 hour set, and youre good to go.

~~~
zerosore
btw, this set by Gareth Emery is amazing

[http://www.dropbeatsnotbombs.com/2011/11/tatw-400-live-
sets-...](http://www.dropbeatsnotbombs.com/2011/11/tatw-400-live-sets-
tracklist-downloads/#)

~~~
vyrotek
+1 for Gareth Emery. I couldn't help leave a comment since I'm literally
listening to his latest podcast at the moment. :)

(For those unfamiliar: <http://www.garethemery.com/podcast/podcast_182/>)

~~~
tonteldoos
No link available, but if you like Gareth Emery, you should really look into
Protoculture. He features quite often on Armin's ASOT sets :)

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plant42
I tend to listen to the radio, that way I don't have to make a concious
decision about what to listen to other than the channel.

I don't mind the adverts and the channels I listen to have no-repeat workday
playlists.

Services like spotify or wimp are interesting but for me, they require to much
focus whilst I'm coding whereas the radio is simpler.

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bkyan
In addition to PsyTrance, foreign language songs where I don't understand the
language work for me. I've been liking the darker Megurine Luka stuff,
recently. <http://beta.mindcast.com/ui/rokglvdz88hh> (The Japanese songs are
on the left...)

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c250d07
As long as it doesn't have words, I listen to any genre of music that fits my
mood. Sometimes white noise does the trick as well.

Somewhat related: I've found audio of rain, wind, chimes, rivers, but never
any ambient people noise--i.e. groups walking around on the street and talking
in the distance.

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reason
I'm not sure if I'm in the minority here, but I just _cannot_ have music
pumping into my ears when I'm trying to focus. I do a lot of self-talking when
I'm trying to learn or work out a problem; so if I just can't hear my 'head
voice', I can't get a single thing done.

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fjordan
A Turntable.fm room that won't kick me for inactivity. Usually one of the
house/trance/electro rooms.

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daniel-cussen
Classic rock and shitty pop. All kinds of classic rock, but only certain,
catchy pop songs can do the trick. I can completely ignore lyrics, they've
never been a problem.

And I agree, a given album will put me in the same mentality every time.

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PeterisP
a) no lyrics b) or lyrics that I've known by heart for 10+years and that
anyway don't matter much to me (no emotional attachment).

Everything else is distracting. Apocalyptica is a favorite for coding, but
anything that fits (a)/(b) would do.

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whichdan
Anything on Ninja Tune.

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mvasilkov
Mostly metal and/or japanese otokei doujin (like IOSYS).

And yes, listening to the same thing puts me in likely the same mood.

