I had a colleague that liked to hear Christmas songs while programming, ANY type of music as long as it was Christmas-y. Very odd, but the dude was amazing at programming, so...
I'm not a huge fan of Christmas music in general, but A Charlie Brown Christmas by Vince Guaraldi is one of the only albums I will put on repeat while coding.
I've put hundreds of hours into a Hayley Westenra Christmas album. I liked it for coding because it was generally happy music but it didn't take any mental cycles away from me thinking about code. For other catchy tunes, I generally find myself singing along, which distracts me from work. But Christmas music is just background noise....
Some good stuff on here at first glance. I often go to movie soundtracks when coding, and I see some nice selections from Uncut Gems artist Daniel Lopatin.
I switch between doom metal albums like Bongripper’s Satan Worshiping Doom and random YouTube videos with titles along the lines of “mind numbing adhd focus music 10hrs”
I was doing soundcloud via the paid Daftcloud App Store app. But switched mostly to the poorly promoted but growing "Dj Mixed" collection of edm on Apple Music.
A couple of my go-tos are Solar Fields and Infected Mushroom. Both are electronic; former is calm/ambient focus, latter is energetic/driving focus. Both have huuuge discographies that you can just put on shuffle
Solar Fields actually did the Mirror's Edge game soundtracks too, if you've played those. Really nice mix of ambient, almost meditative sounds. Often there's a super long, repetitive, pulsing buildup to a brief higher-energy section at the end of a track
Infected Mushroom is a wild mix of heavy Israeli dance-electronica, trance, and even rock, with a dash of metal here and there
For more Psybient in the vein of Solar Fields, it's also worth checking out releases on Ultimae Records (which is the label for some Solar Fields releases). Some of their artists which go well for programming IMO are Scann-Tec, MIKTEK, and Aes Dana.
I particularly like Carbon Based Lifeforms in this vein as well. I assembled a psybient-oriented coding playlist from a bunch of stuff I’ve enjoyed listening to while in the zone over the years, it’s full of Ultimae Records tracks: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2ceXFEO7blxDBa5uhgazyf?si=...
I went through a period of listening to zelda soundtracks + rain/storm sounds for hours every day at work. It was very calming and there wasn't much to focus on, which let me focus on my work. Video game soundtracks in general can be excellent programming music because they can be looped infinitely and are designed to be in the background of some other task.
Zelda & Chill by GameChops is a good one. GameChops has a lot of other lo-fi video game soundtrack covers that are great for programming, in my experience
I agree! I often listen to music from World of warcraft when coding. I get in a similar grinding mindset I had when I played back in the days. Helps me focus a lot!
My goto right now is https://www.twitch.tv/sgqfmfunk, which streams video game OSTs from the 80's and 90's -- mostly relatively obscure games, including a lot of music from consoles/home computers that used Yamaha's FM chips.
Anyway, I listed to https://rainwave.cc all the time. Video game music with 5 different channels (no ads!). It's great (although there are a few songs with vocals, which I don't like. Not on the chiptune channel though ;)).
As a massive house-head and someone who's been involved in the electronic music scene to varying degrees for two decades, I actually find it extremely difficult to listen to music while writing code, because all I actually do is listen to the music, rather than work.
Hah, I feel like I'm kinda in the same boat. As a result, I've got a playlist full of "broken in" songs that I've heard 25+ times and sound boring to me. I still find it a little distracting with songs that have vocal tracks, but for the most part it has brought Squarepusher and Venetian Snares back to my active rotation, which makes me a happy camper (coder?)
Lol, it's nice to find like-minded people out there. While my initial post commented on electronic music in particular, I feel the need to re-iterate my point with respect to other genres. I'm a huge fan of Romantic-era piano (Chopin, Liszt, Rachmaninoff, Saint-Säens, etc.), and would find it impossible to do basically anything other than listen should I hear these pieces.
I would say the opposite, most "good" house music, or house that is considered tasteful, doesn't have lyrics. It may have some voice samples, but nothing too distracting. There are obviously many exceptions to this rule, but you can generally consider most house music to be instrumental.
> most "good" house music, or house that is considered tasteful, doesn't have lyrics.
I agree.
> but you can generally consider most house music to be instrumental.
If an instrumental is music without words at all (not even in voice samples), as far as I've experienced, Techno instrumentals are far more common; House instrumentals have always seemed somewhat rare.
I've been a house head since the 90s, and I would definitely not describe most house music as instrumental. Classic house frequently had vocals, in both the Chicago and especially NYC/NJ (garage house) styles. Most subsequent subgenres of house followed suit, whether using vocal samples or singing.
Instrumentals are a bit more common in melodic house, progressive house, etc but even then there's still a lot of non-instrumental tracks.
I completely agree with the sibling comment that instrumentals are far more common in techno.
I often listen to aliceffekt while working on side projects, while at $dayjob I like music I either know already, is chill (think lo-fi hip hop), or City Pop/jrock mixes.
The tracklist for the latest mix (episode 64 by Strepsil @ time of post) is packed with some absolutely fantastic music. Thank you for sharing, I can't wait to dive into more of this.
#55 is 20 Jazz Funk Greats, and I thought it was suggesting that (industrial noise group) Throbbing Gristle would be good programming music. However, it just looks like that's just the name of a blog that they used to find the music.
I go for thrash metal, with earplugs then over the ear headphones turned up enough to get through the earplugs at a comfortable volume. That blocks any exterior sound, is complex enough that I don't get bored, but doesn't have anything hook-y enough that it pulls my attention away from the task.
I just quickly scrolled through my collection and here are some random, but fantastic instrumental albums I've used while "in the zone":
- Miles Davis: In a Silent Way
- Brian Eno: Ambient 4: On Land
- Godspeed You! Black Emperor: F♯ A♯ ∞ (one of my favourite albums. listen with your best headphones. HD650s are good)
- Aphex Twin: Selected Ambient Works Volume II
- Mozart: Requiem (my first proper introduction to classical. I was absolutely blown away)
- Boards of Canada - Music Has the Right to Children
- Sun O))): Black One (extremely experimental doom metal. the musicality of it is questionable at times but it's fantastic to study to)
- Sleep: Jerusalem (occasional vocals but trust me they're not distracting)
- Tim Hecker: Harmony in Ultraviolet
- Bill Evans: Sunday at the Village Vanguard
The worst part about these sorts of things is that 30 seconds after posting I'll remember all the awesome albums I forgot and kick myself for it.
Music for airports is my favorite ambient Eno. I have this part of my brain that notices odd (to me) choices, and some of his ambient stuff has sounds/patterns that break me out of the zone, but music for airports works as intended. Love Eno, and I think this is a "me" problem, rather than an issue with his work.
Unless I need a sense of urgency, random recordings of bird songs (especially mockingbirds) are my go-to for background noise for work.
Outside of music critics, I don't see him talked about much at all. I love his work as a producer for John Cale, David Bowie, and the Talking Heads in particular. Iirc he also worked on the two Iggy Pop records (the Idiot and Lust for Life) that Bowie produced. I also like his solo (non-ambient) work and work with Roxie Music, but the style of singing isn't my favorite. I know he didn't do vocals for Roxie, but the style of singing is similar to me.
He had a great conversation with Rick Rubin on the Broken Record podcast.
> - Sleep: Jerusalem (occasional vocals but trust me they're not distracting)
I'm sure you're probably aware, but for posterity, Jerusalem is the cut down version that the record label released when they didn't know what to do with a 63 minute long song. Dopesmoker is the full song, along with Sonic Titan or Holy Mountain depending on which release you're listening to.
Thanks! You have a really interesting taste in music I think. I just skimmed through every album.
I saved the album from: Tim Hecker, Sunn 0))), Boards of Canada, Aphex Twin and Brian Eno
With Mozart and Bill Evans I am familiar.
The Godspeed You! album I found not as straigt forward and distinct as I like my music. But don't take this as proper critique. Even though I hear lots of music, I have no 'intellectual' base to say anything substential about music else than wether it clicks with me or not. For some music I think I get the (an) 'idea' and other music just feels all over the place and I can't get hold of the (an) general idea.
Sleep: Jerusalem I didn't found on spotify. Seems like a very generic name... Are you sure this is the full name of artist and album?
If you have more to share, I'm happy to listen to just a bit more. Don't you go over board, I have other things to do as well ;)
As other have pointed out, there's also a near-identical release called Dopesmoker, but it's all one long track so a bit less convenient.
They also have a 2018 release called The Sciences which is pretty damn good too.
Some other albums:
- Antônio Carlos Jobim - Wave (bossa nova is one of the most underrated genres I reckon)
- Jon Hopkins - Singularity (ambient electronic)
- Electric Wizard - Dopethrone (doom metal. similar to Sleep)
- Sigur Rós - Ágætis_byrjun (there are vocals but they're Icelandic)
- Chopin - The Complete Nocturnes (I've got a double-album of Roger Woodward playing them)
- J Dilla - Donuts (instrumental hip hop)
I've tried to cover as many genres as possible to pique people's interest in branching out (you'd be surprised by what you enjoy when you give it a chance). Happy to give even more recommendations - I'm a music nut haha.
I enjoy listening to synth-y, mostly instrumental, music while working. I ended up making this site after I got tired of searching for mixes on YouTube: https://synthwave.live/
Edit: I forgot to mention, the design of this site is amazing. Love the monospaced type and use of color. The interactions are perfect.
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Solar Fields actually did the Mirror's Edge game soundtracks too, if you've played those. Really nice mix of ambient, almost meditative sounds. Often there's a super long, repetitive, pulsing buildup to a brief higher-energy section at the end of a track
Infected Mushroom is a wild mix of heavy Israeli dance-electronica, trance, and even rock, with a dash of metal here and there
If you're interested, there seems to be 2 acts called Asura, one is a metal band. I'm talking about the other one. :D
Infected Mushroom were one of my favourite psy trance acts back in the day. I've seen them live a couple times, both excellent performances!
I would also recommend works by 0edit (Ed Harrison) who did the NeoTokyo soundtrack. Listen to the FLAC version for the full experience. [1]
I like to balance electronic with instrumental. Journey OST works really well.
You may also like The Silk Road Ensemble & Yo-Yo Ma. [2]
And, of course, Miles Davis.
[1] https://www.0edit.com/
[2] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=29dfRYifyOU
I particularly like "Blue Valley": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUn9SYdPF4A
YouTube sometimes recommends "Velocity 2x" and "Hacknet" OSTs after this.
Recently I frequently just play this Space Ambient playlist: https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLuqZTQ_5gsppMEJWlJo...
This is a nice channel for wow music: https://www.youtube.com/c/Meisio
Anyway, I listed to https://rainwave.cc all the time. Video game music with 5 different channels (no ads!). It's great (although there are a few songs with vocals, which I don't like. Not on the chiptune channel though ;)).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiGKxCAg_0o&list=PL0B80EA34D...
https://rainymood.com/
As such, when I feel the need to put my headphones on to drown out external noise, I prefer listening to musique d'ameublement (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Furniture_music)
I agree.
> but you can generally consider most house music to be instrumental.
If an instrumental is music without words at all (not even in voice samples), as far as I've experienced, Techno instrumentals are far more common; House instrumentals have always seemed somewhat rare.
Instrumentals are a bit more common in melodic house, progressive house, etc but even then there's still a lot of non-instrumental tracks.
I completely agree with the sibling comment that instrumentals are far more common in techno.
Love the website apperance!
1. https://telefon-tel-aviv.bandcamp.com/album/fahrenheit-fair-...
Second Woman is another project by the same guy, a bit more frenetic and experimental, but very cool.
If i drink coffee, I like listening to psytrance while programming.
If I'm sober (no coffee/caffeine), i like psychadelic/prog rock.
This Laidback Drum & Bass playlist[1] gets a regular run out.
1: https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=RDCLAK5uy_mhouxvxL06...
Some I'd recommend:
* Ambient 1: Music for Airports
* Ambient 2: Plateaux of Mirror
* The Pearl
* Thursday Afternoon
* Discreet Music
If you like any of those, there's lots more to explore. I don't care for all Eno's ambient works, but I really enjoy some of it.
Unless I need a sense of urgency, random recordings of bird songs (especially mockingbirds) are my go-to for background noise for work.
But maybe I exist in strange circles.
He had a great conversation with Rick Rubin on the Broken Record podcast.
You may also be interested in the piece NPR did on Matt Pike a while back: https://www.npr.org/2022/05/19/1080581581/can-matt-pike-face...
I saved the album from: Tim Hecker, Sunn 0))), Boards of Canada, Aphex Twin and Brian Eno
With Mozart and Bill Evans I am familiar.
The Godspeed You! album I found not as straigt forward and distinct as I like my music. But don't take this as proper critique. Even though I hear lots of music, I have no 'intellectual' base to say anything substential about music else than wether it clicks with me or not. For some music I think I get the (an) 'idea' and other music just feels all over the place and I can't get hold of the (an) general idea.
Sleep: Jerusalem I didn't found on spotify. Seems like a very generic name... Are you sure this is the full name of artist and album?
If you have more to share, I'm happy to listen to just a bit more. Don't you go over board, I have other things to do as well ;)
Look for "Sleep - Dopesmoker". It’s the re-release of the same thing.
The better GY!BE album for working/studying is Luciferian Towers.
As other have pointed out, there's also a near-identical release called Dopesmoker, but it's all one long track so a bit less convenient.
They also have a 2018 release called The Sciences which is pretty damn good too.
Some other albums:
I've tried to cover as many genres as possible to pique people's interest in branching out (you'd be surprised by what you enjoy when you give it a chance). Happy to give even more recommendations - I'm a music nut haha.As in, I can listen to Zelda soundtrack or I can listen to CHON while working, but I cannot listen to anything in between
Edit: I forgot to mention, the design of this site is amazing. Love the monospaced type and use of color. The interactions are perfect.