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Poll: Your preferred music for working?

10 points by dpkendal ↗ HN
What's your preferred music for working? (whatever you class as 'doing work', be that hacking or designing or just normal office/bureaucratic stuff)

This poll is entirely to judge opinions, not to find the 'best' music for working.

(Feel free to vote for more than one if you work with more then one kind of music.)

41 comments

[ 4.8 ms ] story [ 101 ms ] thread
technoslut
I listen to all those genres but it's always classical and at a relatively low volume. I never play Beethoven as his music is too emotional.
electrichead
Dubstep - just try it
kittxkat
I once read on the web (I think on HN?) that Dubstep was made for programmers. I agree.
rmccue
Personally, it's whatever I can listen to that I can't sing along to. That can either be something purely instrumental (most of Pendulum's songs, e.g.), something in a different language (Sigur Ros), or mashups (Girl Talk).
billybob
This. I program, which means using words (naming variables and methods, etc). If a song has words I can understand, it seems to distract the language part of my brain too much. So instrumental music works best for me.

Silence is the very best thing, but music is better than background conversation.

kittxkat
Agreed. That's why electronical music works best for me. It's music (with some kind of a beat), but mostly without big vocal parts.
loup-vaillant
Completely off topic.

I wanted to contact you about USSM (see your comment here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3025521 ). Could you please send me an e-mail (pick it from my web site), I'd like to know if you still have that compilation error with the latest USSM.

Wild guess about the cause: I forgot to include some dependencies in the makefile. In the meantime, I'll try to reproduce the problem.

[dead] pigoz
I generally work in silence. If there is chaos in the office I plug in my noise canceling earbuds and listen to soundtracks.
DieBuche
Nothing electronic to choose from?
cao825
Come on man - Electronica
toyg
I subscribe to the view that music hinders concentration more than it favours it. Your brain is forced to multitask, which is inherently more difficult than concentrating on one line of thought. However, I have seen it working in a pavlovian way, signaling to the brain that "it's time to work". This can be useful when conditioning people who struggle to concentrate for long periods.
technoslut
It has been shown that at the very least music can actually help you concentrate such as the 'Mozart effect'.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozart_effect

It's certainly not for everyone nor do I believe music should be played like you're having a party in your office for it to be effective.

wladimir
The problem is that in many cases you have to choose between assorted office/home background noises or music. In which case music (at least, known and predictable music) probably hinders concentration least.
toyg
I agree. I'm lucky enough to work in silent surroundings.
fratido
Minimal Techno. It is really weird that you ignored all electronical music styles.
fotbr
Another vote for EDM
mva
haha, no eletronic music in the list? Silly Americans ;-)

I vote for minimal techno

dmooray
I would not call them silly when the most voted options at this moment is classical music.
dpkendal
Plus, I'm British, not American. ;-)
mva
whoops, then you've been living in a different world ;-)
Valdemar
No electronic music, what?

I'd think programmers would listen to electronic music more than the average person... Kraftwerk, anyone? (in my ears right now)

mynegation
Like others pointed out - glaring omission of electronic music. I am a death metal fan, but for coding I prefer uplifiting trance.
[dead] fsvehla
There should be an option for White Noise.
peterhi
Electronica, drones and anime soundtracks
charlesdm
Electronic music; mostly trance.
iloveponies
soma.fm - Secret Agent, Groove Salad, Space Station.
rrival
+1 for Techno / Electronica (Chemical Brothers - Further, for example)
Havoc
For working (finance) - no music. For coding (casual) - Trance. Something like AvB. It helps me get into that flow state & when I'm there I block it out completely anyway.
manuscreationis
A mix of different types - anything with a fast beat and hard sounds
Amaan
Where's Alternative Rock? That's what I'm listening to most of the time. Sometimes it's Metal or just Rock. Sometimes it's nothing.
kittxkat
I LOVE to work with some light/easy on the ears electronical music in the background (mostly remixes and some dubstep tracks).

I recently discovered tammyszu's Youtube Channel[1] and usually kick some of her playlists on when I arrive at work. She has over 500 videos, so every time it's something new... And almost every video is just amazing and refreshingly different and works super-well for me for programming.

[1] http://www.youtube.com/user/tammyszu

dpkendal
Sorry to all who wanted to say Electronica. That option is now available. I knew I'd forget a genre.