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MusicForProgramming();

411 points| seanplaice | 14 years ago |musicforprogramming.net | reply

180 comments

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[+] ctdonath|14 years ago|reply
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.

[+] Arjuna|14 years ago|reply
This is a super netlabel for the trance listener: http://www.ektoplazm.com

All of their music is released under a Creative Commons license for non-commercial purposes. They offer a wide variety of trance genres, including Goa, Progressive, Psychedelic, Uplifting, etc. Plus, all music can be downloaded in FLAC, WAV and MP3 formats.

[+] msutherl|14 years ago|reply
As a DJ/producer, I have a professional obligation to loathe trance music, but I can't deny that it's just the perfect thing for programming.

Some of my favorite balearic stuff:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdhIwGZxtLA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTODkLro8gs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-p_Ihm95KQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyTRd8A7pm8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cl2SOwjx5Vc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=surw1-iXmR0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsEY0OLv_Y4

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

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXb0y9yws4c

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQsEOUArwJA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtCOxFvDCFo

[+] Tossrock|14 years ago|reply
For a quick intro, just tune to di.fm's trance channel. They have a lot of great trance radio shows; Global DJ Broadcast with Markus Schulz, A State of Trance with Armin Van Buuren, the aforementioned Trance Around The World, Global Trance Grooves with John 00 Fleming, etc.

For easily downloadable podcasts, Sander van Doorn's Identity (although he's leaning more electro these days), The Gareth Emery Podcast, and Global Trance Grooves are good ones.

[+] jasonkostempski|14 years ago|reply
Trance/Ambient stuff drives me nuts. For the longest time it jaded my view of electronic music because I thought it defined it. I prefer faster beats, well structured complex melodies a la Skrillex http://soundcloud.com/skrillex/sets. The first few listens might be a little distracting but once I know the songs I find myself typing like I'm playing the song with my keyboard.
[+] kellishaver|14 years ago|reply
I realized today that I've been listening to the same playlist 203 songs for about a year now. It usually plays all day long. I'm kind of bored with it when I'm actually paying attention to it and want to listen to music, but it's great for programming. The songs are so well known to me at this point that I don't really consciously think about them. My brain just kind of sings along without me while I write code.
[+] xxpor|14 years ago|reply
What kind of manager doen't let you listen to music?
[+] jonstjohn|14 years ago|reply
"there's a curious & busy part of the brain which must be kept preoccupied during complex tasks" this is so true - I've found, besides listening to music, I can actual half-listen to lectures/talks while I program, and concentrate considerably better than in quiet. Counter-intuitive but works really well.
[+] joejohnson|14 years ago|reply
I couldn't agree more about the Trance podcasts. It's great that these podcasts have no breaks (mixing each song into the next). Music like that with a good beat and lots of crescendos/decrescendos can be ideal for tuning out everything around me and staying focused for a long period of time.
[+] bengl3rt|14 years ago|reply
Anything by Alva Noto + Ryuichi Sakamoto puts me all the way in the zone.
[+] demallien|14 years ago|reply
I personally am a big fan of a couple of the radio stations in the 'Ambient' section in iTunes. A big shout out for DroneZone, although anything from SomaFM is pretty good.
[+] varunsrin|14 years ago|reply
I find progressive trance great music to work to - some great artists in this genre are Ace Ventura, Gaudium, Lish, Zen Mechanics & Space Buddha.
[+] NARKOZ|14 years ago|reply
Yes, these podcasts are like Mozart. There are no many words in them, so they're not distracting.
[+] MetalMASK|14 years ago|reply
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...

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|14 years ago|reply
good call on glitch mob, I would check out emancipator too
[+] shearn89|14 years ago|reply
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|14 years ago|reply
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.

[+] morsch|14 years ago|reply
The Tron Legacy OST is always fun, but it's even better when you listen to it doing something suitably epic, because many tracks sound so unapologetically grand. Perfect sound track for handing in an important paper and doing mountain climbing. Or doing mock epic things: feel like Batman while chopping onions.

Some of the tracks from the remix album are also pretty cool.

[+] alinajaf|14 years ago|reply
Try the Tron Legacy: Reconfigured soundtrack (mixes of the original). Same level of epic but better to program to IMO.
[+] mstevens|14 years ago|reply
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.
[+] mark_h|14 years ago|reply
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!

[+] maular|14 years ago|reply
Wow, she's great. Thanks for the recommendation!
[+] meow|14 years ago|reply
Wow, all her tracks are so soul soothing...
[+] m_for_monkey|14 years ago|reply
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|14 years ago|reply
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...)

[+] upthedale|14 years ago|reply
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).

[+] bobwebb|14 years ago|reply
Oh wow, this is brilliant. I had heard of rainy mood before, but I'm so grateful you've found an mp3 of it. This is going to be on my mp3 player all the time now.
[+] meow|14 years ago|reply
Most of the time it helps me sink into deep sleep :)
[+] j45|14 years ago|reply
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|14 years ago|reply
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."

[+] saturdaysaint|14 years ago|reply
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|14 years ago|reply
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...

[+] droctopu5|14 years ago|reply
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|14 years ago|reply
I think the site is starting to creak under the strain. Perhaps a torrent of the MP3s would be a good idea?
[+] djtriptych|14 years ago|reply
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|14 years ago|reply
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.

[+] tobiasSoftware|14 years ago|reply
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.