"... two out of three of people like to listen to music while they work, study or read but it’s difficult to find and manage music that consistently works well for this purpose."
Precisely! I like to listen to ambient music when working and constantly trying to find new music for this purpose is quite a hassle.
last.fm is great for this. Type in an artist/genre you like and for the next few hours while you work, you will discover plenty of new ones as their radio service works by molding a 'radio service' to your taste.
That is absolutely amazing. I am so in love with Carbon Based Lfieforms right now.
I'm terrible at music genres myself, but I am a huge fan of Bonobo's music. It's classified as trip-hop - no idea if that falls under this category.
Bonobo - Black Sands http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTjF2_-bneM the entire album is amazing
76:14 by Global Communication is an undisputed classic of the genre, however you might find it distracting because it's so good.
And of course there's Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works 85-92, which should go without saying really. Again, you might not be able to work because it's such a good record. Also, it's not ambient in the sense of having no beats. If you've never heard it before you should probably just stop working right now and listen to it. Also he did a SAW vol. 2 album which is more beatless, but it's not as good.
You can't go wrong with Future Sound of London. It's a bit dystopian, but utterly amazing stuff.
The "minimalist" (he hates that word) work of composer Steve Reich is also very good for zoning out. All the other people in the modern "ambient" genre are ripping him off to some extent or another. I suggest starting with Electric Counterpoint.
EDIT - some more:
Hecq - 0000
Almost anything by The Orb, especially The Orb's Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld. Make sure you get the proper UK version not the cut down US release.
I don't find it surprising, especially for someone that is already a musical prodigy. I remember dreaming of beautiful melodies as a kid, but lacking musical talent, I was unable to play them on a musical instrument. Thus, the melodies were just stuck in my head and usually forgotten shortly after waking up.
The thing is, RDJ is legendary for self-mythologising. As a result of this, everyone else mythologises him too. He's obsessed with messing with his fans' heads. He has openly stated in interviews that he lies about himself all the time.
To be fair he could have written that stuff as a teenager. But then maybe he also owns one of Kraftwerk's original vocoders, modified to produce output in Cornish.
Apparently he also has a lookalike that walks around at his shows to divert the attention of fans.
Should point out that it's Lifeforms by FSOL that you should be listening to. The later stuff isn't so ambient. Whatever that means.
Listening to it again now. Classic. Here they are in full effect back when that album was recorded. The CGI is all them as well. It's all very demoscene. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__tAx6-Fo6g
Those were the days. And to be fair looking at tumblr now, they've kinda made good on their promise.
http://di.fm is great for electronic music, they've got plenty of channels. Try also searching youtube, and if you find anything you like, use the "youtube mix", it's automatically generated but usually contains a lot of similar songs.
Yes yes! I'm a fan of Metallica but I can only listen Kill'em'All while programming. Either that or repetitive ambient/instrumental/chill-out without vocals.
I use all songs available on Spotify by In Flames. It's mostly melodic and rhythmic, usually upbeat, and the vocals and the higher spectrum percussion drown out ambient discussions without being very thought-provoking in themselves.
Hello there metal fans, I enjoy tuning in people's MDM broadcasts on Grooveshark. With suggestions its a nice mix of background music you don't have to manage and occasional song that you would like to hear.
Big fan of SomaFM for work. They have some great xmas stations that come out in December, if you like. SomaFM did stress me out a bit with their constant requests for donations. They made it sound like they were being shut down any day, yet they're still here. I donated, by the way. Didn't stop the cries for help though.
This is a great little service. I have a "concentrate" playlist in spotify that tries to fill this need with classical music, but I listen to it in the background so much that even with a fairly long playlist I get tired of hearing the same songs. Will definitely be trying this out.
Agreed and same. I have a playlist on my phone for just trance which gets listened to whenever I'm working or even exercising.
I noticed something really interesting - your pace adjusts to the beat. For example, I took my headphones off to take a call and I was in awe at the speed of the beat, which only 2 minutes ago sounded fairly regular and not as fast.
When I was working for my math exams, having to learn dozens of demonstrations by heart, I have a playlist composed of 6 hours of remixes of satisfaction, by Benni Benassi.
Amazing how 6 hours can look like 30 minutes when you listen to the same, repititive music :).
Yup, trance and house for me, definitely. Trance and house are like productivity crack. I listen to trance when I'm working and house when I'm working out.
On the advice of coffitivity, I've turned to human environments for ambient noise. I've been blessed with library access to the BBC sound effects library. http://www.sound-ideas.com/sound-effects/bbc-41-60-cds-sound... Some are the typical sfx fare, but the latter half is of city streets from around the world.
SoundTransit http://turbulence.org/soundtransit/index.html has interesting field recordings all under the CC BY 2.0 license. If you "Book a Transit," it compiles an mp3 of several different field recordings, taking you from city to city. You can also search the database or just browse the collection.
To concentrate, I use computer game soundtracks (e.g. from Humble Bundle; particularly the one with Eufloria and Waking Mars), and to drown out voices of coworkers whose volume dial got lost in the laundry, text-heavy music in a language I don't understand (alternating between Czech hip-hop and Finnish hummpa).
I regularly the Fez soundtrack by Disasterpeace, and musicforprogramming();[0] has quite a few ones (esp. 06 and 08) that "just work" with my brain and make me zoom right into the zone in seconds. Also, This Binary Universe by BT.
I'm deeply in love with Zoe Keating's work. She's a cellist who composes and records her own music, building compositions using a looper. It's beautiful stuff, and I find it perfect for coding.
I think this is one of the few perks not beeing a English native speaker: I do understand lyrics if I concentrate but otherwise I hear the voice just as another instrument.
So I can listen to nearly any music for progrmaming. One of my favourites is Origin - Antithesis. But really everything works.
This was created using paulstretch [1], a program to transform normal audio using extreme stretches. I've tried it on a few songs I liked and it does really an excellent jobs of creating extremely fluid ambiances.
The triple parentheses on the first video is a nod to Sunn O))) [2], an American drone / noise / ambient metal band which features super long songs with droning saturated guitars (playing on vintage cranked up to 11 Sunn Model T amps) and usually no drums. One of my favorite songs from them and perhaps one of the best introduction to their music for the non-initiated is titled Alice [3], though perhaps it's not as representative of their music as, say, Ra at Dusk [4]. (Sunn O))) was heavily influenced by the pioneer drone metal band Earth, and their mindblowing album Earth²: special low frequency version [5]).
Minor detail someone might not know: a part of the Inception soundtrack (which is also great ambient) was made with that technique. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVkQ0C4qDvM
Those who have seen the movie and its plot device will know why this is a brilliant idea on so many levels.
190 comments
[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 217 ms ] threadPrecisely! I like to listen to ambient music when working and constantly trying to find new music for this purpose is quite a hassle.
http://unop.co.uk/dev/spotify-playlist-generator/
I'd be interested to know if it works everywhere. It still works in the UK.
EDIT: Source code: https://github.com/jpsingleton/Spotify-Playlist-Generator
EDIT: Thanks for all the suggestions!
I also picked up a Grooveshark playlist from someone (but can't rememeber where I got it from) that works really well: http://grooveshark.com/#!/playlist/Ambient/54561881
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3547694
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3900711
Also of interest is StilllStream, an ambient radio station: http://stillstream.com/
About 60 album length mixes
http://www.last.fm/music/Carbon+Based+Lifeforms
http://www.last.fm/music/H.U.V.A.+Network
Other artists on Ultimae are also worth a try.
I'm terrible at music genres myself, but I am a huge fan of Bonobo's music. It's classified as trip-hop - no idea if that falls under this category. Bonobo - Black Sands http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTjF2_-bneM the entire album is amazing
He just released a new album not long ago: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62Z4ibZFA6c&list=PLXEYOK9pTAB...
http://www.last.fm/music/Bluetech
And of course there's Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works 85-92, which should go without saying really. Again, you might not be able to work because it's such a good record. Also, it's not ambient in the sense of having no beats. If you've never heard it before you should probably just stop working right now and listen to it. Also he did a SAW vol. 2 album which is more beatless, but it's not as good.
You can't go wrong with Future Sound of London. It's a bit dystopian, but utterly amazing stuff.
The "minimalist" (he hates that word) work of composer Steve Reich is also very good for zoning out. All the other people in the modern "ambient" genre are ripping him off to some extent or another. I suggest starting with Electric Counterpoint.
EDIT - some more:
Hecq - 0000
Almost anything by The Orb, especially The Orb's Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld. Make sure you get the proper UK version not the cut down US release.
Portico Quartet by Portico Quartet
All the Boards of Canada stuff
Also I'm a big fan of M83 Digital Shades Vol 1 for this purpose.
Personally I don't believe it for a second.
http://www.gearslutz.com/board/electronic-music-instruments-...
To be fair he could have written that stuff as a teenager. But then maybe he also owns one of Kraftwerk's original vocoders, modified to produce output in Cornish.
Apparently he also has a lookalike that walks around at his shows to divert the attention of fans.
Etc etc.
I've bundled them together in a Grooveshark playlist: http://grooveshark.com/#!/playlist/Work+Ambient/87531575
Listening to it again now. Classic. Here they are in full effect back when that album was recorded. The CGI is all them as well. It's all very demoscene. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__tAx6-Fo6g
Those were the days. And to be fair looking at tumblr now, they've kinda made good on their promise.
Billow Observatory - Billow Observatory
Nuojuva - Valot Kaukaa
Global Underground 24/7 - Danny Howells (Day Disc)
Willits + Sakamoto - Ancient Future
Nils Frahm - Felt
Bersarin Quartet - II
The World on Higher Downs - Land Patterns
Helios (Keith Kenniff, aka Goldmund) - Caesura
Trip-hop.
I am not involved in developing this service.
I liked the fact that, there is a lot of science that has gone behind it.
I noticed something really interesting - your pace adjusts to the beat. For example, I took my headphones off to take a call and I was in awe at the speed of the beat, which only 2 minutes ago sounded fairly regular and not as fast.
When I was working for my math exams, having to learn dozens of demonstrations by heart, I have a playlist composed of 6 hours of remixes of satisfaction, by Benni Benassi. Amazing how 6 hours can look like 30 minutes when you listen to the same, repititive music :).
http://boodler.org/
(Now if I could get Firefox for Android to download a .mp3 link to local SD card...)
That's my work soundtrack of choice.
[0]: http://musicforprogramming.net/?c=manifesto
I wish they'd do a 24 hour mix that omitts vocals and sharp sounds altogether, that'd pretty much be the best ambient music I could imagine.
Yes! This is exactly the kind of music service I've been looking for when I'm working.
So I can listen to nearly any music for progrmaming. One of my favourites is Origin - Antithesis. But really everything works.
Someone should assemble a collection of lame pop music that sounds awesome when piped through Paul's Stretch.
Would listen.
This was created using paulstretch [1], a program to transform normal audio using extreme stretches. I've tried it on a few songs I liked and it does really an excellent jobs of creating extremely fluid ambiances.
The triple parentheses on the first video is a nod to Sunn O))) [2], an American drone / noise / ambient metal band which features super long songs with droning saturated guitars (playing on vintage cranked up to 11 Sunn Model T amps) and usually no drums. One of my favorite songs from them and perhaps one of the best introduction to their music for the non-initiated is titled Alice [3], though perhaps it's not as representative of their music as, say, Ra at Dusk [4]. (Sunn O))) was heavily influenced by the pioneer drone metal band Earth, and their mindblowing album Earth²: special low frequency version [5]).
[1] http://hypermammut.sourceforge.net/paulstretch
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunn_%28band%29
[3] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8Djdi6z0m8
[4] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buA_xDQQg74
[5] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ls1OYn_xGzM
Those who have seen the movie and its plot device will know why this is a brilliant idea on so many levels.