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Ask HN: What music do you listen to at work?

8 points by wyuenho ↗ HN
Startup life, especially during the early days, can be lonely at times. Your emotions go like the roller coasters with every hit and miss. You are constantly chained at the desk, your parents don't understand what you do. Your girlfriend dumps you for not being able to spend more quality time with her and your friends think you are crazy. I found the only remedy is to listen to music that reminds me the good and poignant times in life. My productivity can literally jump 5x to 10x.

What music do you guys listen to at work?

16 comments

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mirkules
During times that require high concentration (like programming), I listen to drum and bass. I find its repetitive nature combined with high energy resembles something like auditory caffeine without the crash afterwards.

Music with words or highly technical music (like jazz or prog) distracts me too much because of my musical background - I want to listen to every intonation, play the notes over in my head, try to figure out the scales, etc. But technical music is perfect during tasks that require only motor skills, like soldering or writing documents (rock, metal, sometimes jazz)

wyuenho
I have no music background, but I totally agree with you. In fact, I've been looping Stereophonics' Stone for about 500 times in the past 2 weeks.
mirkules
I usually just put on internet radio like bassdrive.com or jungletrain.net

A coworker recently pointed me towards a band called Pendulum - it's pretty cool

ayers
Pendulum is indeed a great band to code to. They have a lot of songs that get me in the mood("zone") to hammer out some code.
knowledgesale
May I recommend here a specific album that goes along your lines in terms of repetitive nature and intense rhythm pattern, of high quality and definetely works caffeine-like for me?

It is Toi Doi, Creative Commons licensed and is available for download at http://www.ektoplazm.com/2011/toi-doi-mother-pitch

mirkules
Thanks. It's a little dance-y, but pretty good (can't argue with that price either :)

I will throw one back at you: Fantastic Plastic Machine. Pretty interesting mixing -- I would describe it as a Japanese version of Fatboy Slim.

dmc
Instrumental music, like Pelican, God Is An Astronaut, Japanese Telecom and some Classical music for coding.
EgeBamyasi
Thanks for pointing out Japanese Telecom.
evanw
Lately I've been listening to a lot of Turntable.fm's "Coding Soundtrack" station: http://turntable.fm/coding_soundtrack3

Otherwise, I enjoy things like Trent Reznor/NIN's instrumental stuff (like The Social Network soundtrack), TRON soundtrack by Daft Punk, or anything by Ratatat.

BillSaysThis
Preferably uptempo stuff from among Springsteen, U2, Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe, Allmans, Beatles, Beach Boys, Little Steven, Bebop Deluxe and Jeff Beck with the occasional Girl Talk and ELP.
EgeBamyasi
I find that a lot of Krautrock, especially the more psycadelic and/or electronic flavour is perfect for programming. Try Can, Cluster, Klaus Schulze, Kraftwerk and German Oak.

Also, less chaotic Free Improvisation and Free Jazz works very well for me as long as Ive heard the work before. Try NVP(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeRkH7amPl8&feature=relat...) and Ornette Colemans Town Hall, 1962

aniketpant
I would be different from the rest. I play rock when I am passing time, but when it comes to hardcore coding, my background music is Metalcore.

It gives me a kick and my work speeds up :P

ethank
When I'm coding I listen to movie soundtracks. When I'm doing emails its usually vintage punk music. When I'm in a really really bad mood its really really fast punk.

The Lost soundtracks are really good for coding actually.