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Ask HN: What music makes you a productive programmer?

7 points by tidykiwi ↗ HN
What music is good for being productive while coding?

Also, do you think that listening to the same album a lot puts you in the same state of mind and makes it difficult to think outside the square?

22 comments

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plant42
I tend to listen to the radio, that way I don't have to make a concious decision about what to listen to other than the channel.

I don't mind the adverts and the channels I listen to have no-repeat workday playlists.

Services like spotify or wimp are interesting but for me, they require to much focus whilst I'm coding whereas the radio is simpler.

zerosore
Trance. Put on a 5 hour set, and youre good to go.
zerosore
btw, this set by Gareth Emery is amazing

http://www.dropbeatsnotbombs.com/2011/11/tatw-400-live-sets-...

vyrotek
+1 for Gareth Emery. I couldn't help leave a comment since I'm literally listening to his latest podcast at the moment. :)

(For those unfamiliar: http://www.garethemery.com/podcast/podcast_182/)

tonteldoos
No link available, but if you like Gareth Emery, you should really look into Protoculture. He features quite often on Armin's ASOT sets :)
fjordan
A Turntable.fm room that won't kick me for inactivity. Usually one of the house/trance/electro rooms.
tonteldoos
Internet radio, typically DI (Digitally Imported). Minimal adverts, and the various trance stations play looooong sets.

Can't say that listening to the same album has ever made it difficult to think outside of a square. In fact, I used to listen to albums that I knew I was productive on whenever I needed to be productive, regardless of what I was busy with.

I find though, that music generally helps to get me through the mechanical motions of doing something that I know what/how to do - coding, documentation, etc. If I need to think about what to do or how to do it first, pure silence (circumaural Sennheisers) works best.

steventruong
Probably not the answer you're looking for but I work best in silence (or rather, the sound of tapping keyboards). I know others strongly prefer music but I zone out anyway so eventually I don't even hear music (or am cognitively aware of it rather). I like the computer lab scenario where its just a bunch of background tapping keyboards at most.
tjr
Most consistently, I find that light classical (Bach, Brahms, etc.) helps me to focus on my work.

But more interestingly, many days it's as if there is some particular "song of the day" that my mind wants to hear, and if I can determine an adequate song of the day, I can get very focused listening to that one song over and over all day. There doesn't seem to be any particular rhyme or reason to selecting such a song, and I'll poke around in my music library until I find something that works.

Does listening to the same thing over and over hinder creative thinking? For me, I think it enhances it.

It doesn't help me every day, but ever since I first heard it circa 1998, Electric Light Orchestra's "Mr. Blue Sky" has helped me to focus on many occasions. Some of my best work has been done while listening to that song...

Bizarrely, a couple of years ago I was required to do some overnight systems testing, and as I struggled to stay awake, I found myself listening repeatedly to the "Snow Miser" song from the old Rankin & Bass stop-motion Christmas special. I am at a loss to explain why that helped me to focus, or why I even thought to listen to that song in the first place...

kmanlives
I understand the "song of the day" concept. I'm a musician (trumpeter), so often classical or jazz distracts me too much. Instrumental rock and/or electronic music seems to work well. I've actually found one specific instrumental track that has been my go to track for years - The Brazilian by the band Genesis. When I'm focused and coding, I can listen to that track for days on end.

I have often wondered why it seems to help so much, but I am not going to complain.

hoi
Generically speaking, people are easily distracted by the human voice. Therefore anything that has no vocals should lead to less distraction and more focus. This doesn't affect ability, only focus.

Personally, I go for breakbeat, old skool trance (Germanic Trance circa 1990-96), Experimental Techno.

bkyan
For me, the human voice doesn't distract me, as long as I don't understand the language.
mvasilkov
Mostly metal and/or japanese otokei doujin (like IOSYS).

And yes, listening to the same thing puts me in likely the same mood.

c250d07
As long as it doesn't have words, I listen to any genre of music that fits my mood. Sometimes white noise does the trick as well.

Somewhat related: I've found audio of rain, wind, chimes, rivers, but never any ambient people noise--i.e. groups walking around on the street and talking in the distance.

PeterisP
a) no lyrics b) or lyrics that I've known by heart for 10+years and that anyway don't matter much to me (no emotional attachment).

Everything else is distracting. Apocalyptica is a favorite for coding, but anything that fits (a)/(b) would do.

reason
I'm not sure if I'm in the minority here, but I just cannot have music pumping into my ears when I'm trying to focus. I do a lot of self-talking when I'm trying to learn or work out a problem; so if I just can't hear my 'head voice', I can't get a single thing done.
keiferski
The soundtrack for The Social Network by Reznor and Ross is my staple. It's all instrumental with a good beat, and gets me in the entrepreneurial mindset.

Hand Covers Bruise: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SBNCYkSceU

In Motion: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yczul_609Gg&feature=relat...

Outside of that, anything techno-trance or industrial works. I definitely don't like too many voices, it's distracting.

hacker_jumper
+1 for The Social Network. Also stuff by Hans Zimmer (Inception, Pirates of the Caribbean & Dark Knight).
bkyan
In addition to PsyTrance, foreign language songs where I don't understand the language work for me. I've been liking the darker Megurine Luka stuff, recently. http://beta.mindcast.com/ui/rokglvdz88hh (The Japanese songs are on the left...)
daniel-cussen
Classic rock and shitty pop. All kinds of classic rock, but only certain, catchy pop songs can do the trick. I can completely ignore lyrics, they've never been a problem.

And I agree, a given album will put me in the same mentality every time.