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Ask HN: Music while coding

102 points by qixxiq ↗ HN
I often find it challenging to get into the zone without background music (although don't notice if it fades out later)

I'm always looking to find new music and interested to know what fellow hackers are listening to?

178 comments

[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 231 ms ] thread
qixxiq
I enjoy trance a lot, mainly Pendulum at the moment. Their latest album is amazing. The Prodigy is up there too.

The Killers / Linkin Park / Muse in a different mood.

Mighty Mighty Bosstones / Boo! for a third mood

I've got a 100 Greatest Guitar Solo's album which also serves me well.

alexdias
I wouldn't consider Pendulum as trance, though. They started as Drum and Bass, but seem to have gone a bit further away from the genre, into something more mainstream (which has worked out very well for them, their newest album is indeed amazing).

As for trance, I'd recommend listening to something from a few years ago. A friend of mine (registered here actually), advised me to listen to Tiesto's In Concert 2003. On his words, it's one of those sets that once you start listening, you just can't stop.

PS: Also, Tiesto's In Search Of Sunrise 6 has a beginning that I just love: the sound of sea slowly transitioning to trance. You can listen to it on youtube, on a video with the first two tracks from ISOS6.

flatline
Tiesto's stuff is good, Deadmau5 is also good if you want something a little more upbeat.
mullr
* Perfume / GAME

* YMCK / FAMILY GENESIS

* Parliament / Mothership Connection

* Anything I know inside and out and can sing along with without thinking

silverj
Sarah Brightman's "Symphony" album.

Swallow The Sun "New Moon", "Hope" or "The Morning Never Came".

Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova "The Swell Season".

Deftones "White Pony".

The music has to be (at least for me) the slower kind. For some reason, fast-paced or brutal-sounding music tends to distract me from doing the work (and I'll just enjoy the music instead).

drx
* Bach, Mozart, Beethoven (get a complete works so it doesn't bore you after a while. There are many gems which are not known by the general public, like the famous BWV 565, etc.)

* Chiptunes (I recommend maktone and dubmood)

* Daft Punk, Ratatat

* Anything I know by heart -- I won't be distracted by the lyrics. This also works if you don't understand the lyrics

tkahn6
Wow that's exactly what I listen to. It's a good combination isn't it, electronica and classical?
drx
Indeed. Can you list yours that I haven't listed already? One can never have enough.

Edit: also, yeah. I thought my combo was pretty rare.

ErrantX
I mix heavy metal and classical. Which usually raises eyebrows.
albertzeyer
Same here (sometimes). Or even some mixed genre bands. You know Apocalyptica? There are also some similar bands (don't remember names right now, check out via Lastfm or so).
philwelch
It's actually a pretty popular mix, I've gathered. They are very similar styles of music in many ways.
tkahn6
Justice, Digitalism, and Hypnotic Brass Ensemble

Hypnotic Brass Ensemble isn't strictly electronica but their music is really cool (no words too). http://vimeo.com/1418890

I have a Ratatat station and Justice station on Pandora which I've tuned individually over the past year.

drx
Great.

I'm pretty much an omnivore when it comes to music... I'll listen to anything I like; there's hip-hop, movie/game scores, pop, rock, etc. in my playlists.

daeken
When Miles Davis released his album Sketches of Spain (brilliant, if you haven't heard it), there was a huge controversy over whether or not it was "real jazz". He did an interview shortly thereafter, where he was asked what genre he'd put it into. His response was brilliant: "It's music, and I like it."

I couldn't describe my own standpoint on what music I like any better than he did. While there are many genres in which I dislike the vast majority of the content, I'll give anything a shot and won't let a silly label stand in the way of liking something. I'm glad to see so many people on here feel the same; it always makes me cry on the inside to see listeners box themselves in.

elblanco
I've found that Baroque composers work far better for me than older or newer work.
ronaldj
Russian Circles

Pelican

Explosions in the Sky

Thrice

MGMT

robryan
I'm usually get a new album or discover a new band, play them a whole heap then slowly burn out on them and move on. Have a heap of music but usually a couple of albums/ artists are being played a lot.

At the moment listening to the new soilwork album a fair bit, something I've been mixing it up with recently is the music from X-Ray Dog, all epic orchestra style music from films.

adelgado
Mostly music that doesn't have (much) lyrics. Specifically, some Infected Mushroom, Skazi, general psytrance radios on the web. Also some Moby, Fatboy Slim... But the best is definitely psytrance. Good psy music makes conducts your thoughts. You alsa have to know what to chose.
bphogan
Gosh yes. Infected Mushroom - increasing my productivity since 2003. Their music is interesting enough that I still haven't tired of it yet.
pizzaman
same with me, everything with lyrics distracts me.

I listen to soma.fm "drone zone", mellow film scores such as revolutionary road, american beauty, monster. Or tycho "past is prologue" is also played a lot...

a discussion on stackoverflow: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/14987/audio-while-program...

chronomex
Some time ago I got out of the habit of collecting music. These days I listen to one of three or four internet radio stations, depending on mood. (I have a shellscript `listen` which is basically mplayer and a case statement.)

My current favorites: loads of ETN.fm and evolved.fm, a good deal of bassdrive.com, with a bit of UnitedBreaks.fm for variety.

tomedme
I'm very much in love with my 'Global Underground' series; Nick Warren, Dave Seaman are favourites.
ohwaitnvm
I focus on whatever I'm currently doing really well to Tool and Daft Punk, so mostly them. The music definitely fades into the background, and could probably just as well not be playing, though.
oreilly
Classical if I'm doing a long task, Creed / Alter Bridge or similar for a lot of little programming tasks.
freshfey
Quantic is really cool for the trip/hip hop loving people looking for no lyrics songs.

RJD2 is one of my favorite as well but I end up singing along the songs most of the times :)

AlexMuir
Soma.fm: groove salad and Secret Agent. I'm in a good routine when they're on. Just like supermarkets with buying music, they tell my brain it's coding time.
jsulak
I like that: "they tell my brain it's coding time." It's more important to me I think to have the same music than specific music.

I use ephiphany radio (http://www.epiphanyradio.org/) and Joey Fehrenbach radio on Pandora. They are what tells my brain it's coding time.

AlexMuir
I'm trying Epiphany now, thanks.
ThomPete
Telefon Telaviv is probably some of the best working music I have ever had. Also Sigür Ros is creating beautiful unobtrusive soundscapes.
capedape
Good choices. Sometimes I like stuff like Gas, Deep Chord or Basic Channel (dubby techno) others Post Rock that's been mentioned, but usually like very calm loopy atmospheric stuff like Harold Budd, William Basinski, Tim Hecker, Ryan Teague, the pop ambient series.

I can't listen to anything with words.

126
Massive Attack Portishead
mrtron
Massive Attack discography is my current working music.
leftnode
Absolutely, Collected is a great collection of their best work, and Mezzanine is great as well.

Surprisingly, another piece of music that's great to listen to is the soundtrack from the movie Mr. Brooks with Kevin Costner. It's great for coding.

This guy did the soundtrack: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramin_Djawadi

cake
I am disapointed by their last album (Heligoland) some of the best new songs are missing (All I want,..).
fatbot
It depends on my mood at the time, but i will always listen to Beck, Tool, Color haze & Red hot chili peppers
Spoutingshite
I listen to various stuff, but at least once a month I listen to Tubular Bells from Mike Oldfield...a pure classic!
elblanco
And an absolutely stunning musical work. The number of great themes in that music is amazing. It's a shame, I've never felt that his later work ever really explored and expanded on those themes well.
pquerna
I use Digitally Imported: http://di.fm/

I hop around different radios, but probably too much EuroDance for most people's tastes, but it gets me into the zone

endual
It's freaking me out, but my tastes have totally changed over the years. It used to be The Dead Kennedy's and 70's punk, but lately it's minimalist modern classical, like Robert Rich or David Darling...
elblanco
Reich is somebody who I've been introduced to in the last couple weeks. I haven't tried him yet, but I find his work absolutely mind blowing...and exhausting to listen to. It's like a really great hike up a mountain, watching the scenery slowly change the entire way, then absolute exhaustion at the end of the climb.
spudlyo
Steve Reich is another Reich worth listening to. My work/concentration playlist has Music for 18 Muscians, Violin Phase, and Octet. All great minimalist pieces that are interesting enough to keep your mind engaged, but not too distracting.
elblanco
I was not aware there were two Reich's in minimalist music? Who's the other?
almost
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=716219 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=167076 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=132026 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=61831 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=769769 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=668138 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1209378
d0m
It's still interesting to read comments, find new artist and even get the opinion of new HN-ers.

Also, it's kind of contradictory since while this question is on the front page, lots of people upvote this tired-of-this-question-because-it-has-been-asked-already-10-times comment.

almost
I just assumed that if people are interested in reading this thread they'll also be interested in the large amount of previous posts asking the exact same thing.

Or maybe people just like telling others what music they like and aren't particularly interested in reading the same, I don't no.

babo
I prefer silence when my environment is not distracting but in a busy office AC/DC our similar music through headphone helps to concentrate.
keyle
FG dj radios - 4 radios. great house / deep house at any hour.
jonny_noog
I'm often preferring silence these days, but when I do feel like tunes, I like stuff that's doesn't tear my attention away from what I'm doing.

The Aphex Twin:

  Analogue Bubble Bath
  Analogue Bubble Bath 2
  Analogue Bubble Bath 3
  Analogue Bubble Bath 3.1
  Analogue Bubble Bath 4
  Analogue Bubble Bath 5
  Selected Ambient Works
Also, Trace Nico and Speedy J.
rwhitman
+1 for Speedy J haha, thought I was the only one. Old stuff like G-Spot especially
jonny_noog
Yeah, you're not the only one, but we seem pretty few and far between.