Live data from Hacker News

Music for Programming

musicforprogramming.net

221–230 of 448 posts

Re: Music for Programming

#222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chain Reaction Records FTW https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUWXoGTMePo&list=PLB851A38A6... If you want it more boring even than that you could go for some drone music from the likes of Thomas Köner or Celer, or Gas. Beyond that lies field recording.

Reactor Room is great too! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lMim6e6SCM

I don't listen to much electronic music. Compared to real instruments, which usually have a lot of softening qualities, the high part of the spectrum (the calabash?) sounds extremely harsh and trebly, to the point of painful.

Re: Music for Programming

#224
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Multiple Soma FM recommendations in the thread. That's great to see. I pay for a monthly "subscription", because it's one of those things that, if it disappeared tomorrow, would be upsetting and impossible to replace. I use it daily.

Yes, extremely happy that it's available to those of us outside of EU|US unlike that other popular music service appearing on this thread. Yes; tunnel, VPN. But why?

you might also like http://oem-radio.org/

Re: Music for Programming

#225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reactor Room is great too! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lMim6e6SCM

I don't listen to much electronic music. Compared to real instruments, which usually have a lot of softening qualities, the high part of the spectrum (the calabash?) sounds extremely harsh and trebly, to the point of painful.

That's a modern trend, due to the loudness-war arms race: brightness in that 2-5k area is perceived as loudness and clarity. Also it helps things pop through on the tiny speakers in laptops and mobile devices. Some speakers and headphones have their own bump in this region to increase perceived clarity and sparkle, so things can get very harsh and brittle very quickly.

"EDM" is particularly guilty of this.

EDIT: also this may be bothering you excessively if you're listening on a system lacking in sub bass: in electronic music, the crack of the snare is often set to balance the (often enormous) boom of the kick, so if you're not hearing the bottom of the kick the snare might stick out way too much.

Re: Music for Programming

#226
post #17

I have two rules when I’m listening to music while programming: 1. My favourite genres are K-Pop and Industrial – it helps that they are also very energetic genres — and my rule is that I can only listen to them while programming. Helps to really put me in the “you’re working now” space (thanks to Julian Shapiro for this tip) 2. I pick one song and repeat it for the entire day, sometimes for several days in a row. I’…

my wife finds it odd I listen to 90's Ministry/Nine Inch Nails to focus :)

also Underworld's Second Toughest on the Infants album is always my go to music.

Re: Music for Programming

#228
post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great phrasing of the feeling. I started listening to e-books, fiction, after finding that my programming thoughts don't really intersect my verbal thoughts. The benefit being I don't get distracted reading anything else because my speech center is already occupied. The only time I have to pause the music is during a planning session where I do have internal dialogue. ATTN paki123: I can't reply to your comment but y…

Holy shit, I do this too. Is there a resource(besides adderall) that can help me deal with this and understand this better?

I "vouched" for your comment as it was showing up dead for some reason...

I can second sosuke, addforums.com was a great resource. I haven't been there for a long time though.

Re: Music for Programming

#229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a musician, I can guess this works on a base level because I like "white noise" type things too when working - specifically the laundry. If I have laundry going, I can focus and write / work on clay / draw with attention that music just simply won't allow for some reason. I guess what I'm inferring is that Focus is probably more aligned with white noise than an actual music listening experience.

I tend to always keep a fan running for the same reason. Even when the weather doesn’t make it necessary – I just put in a corner of the room facing against the walls. Its noise helps. With music, instead, the less I know a piece the more attention it draws. I can’t work with background music for this reason. But Brain.fm barely has this effect on me, curiously.

I guess the difference is that music for listening is intended to capture attention, whereas music for focus should direct attention to where you want.

Re: Music for Programming

#230
I've been listening to Spotify's "Beats to think to" playlist for writing — so much that it has completely skewed all of my other Spotify music recommendations. Obviously, it doesn't completely prevent distractions, as evidenced by reading HackerNews instead of working. ;)

Going to try Brain.fm based on this thread though.

Post reply on HN