When you are feeling unproductive/unfocused what one piece of music alters your mind state and helps you refocus?
For me it's Carl Craig "At Les" http://bit.ly/3KfNRh
interested to know what yours is...
Ask HN: What music alters your state of consciousness?
1–10 of 87 posts
Re: Ask HN: What music alters your state of consciousness?
#2Re: Ask HN: What music alters your state of consciousness?
#3http://searchyc.com/submissions/ask+hn+music
This one I think is an interestingly specific question. I'm not upvoting it, but I'm not flagging it, either: It might lead to interesting answers.
Steve Reich's Music For 18 Musicians does it for me. It's a beautiful, pulsating piece, with every movement focusing on a single chord, with no progressions for minutes at a time. It's one of the most unique classical pieces I've ever heard, and it gets my mind in a relaxed mood almost instantly.
Re: Ask HN: What music alters your state of consciousness?
#4Apparat's Walls album. If there is a way to hack consciousness, Walls does it:
http://www.lala.com/#album/1513490949824332234/Apparat/Walls
Try Fractals part 1 and 2. It really does feel like the audible equivalent of a fractal!
Re: Ask HN: What music alters your state of consciousness?
#5It depends what state of consciousness I'm currently in and what state I'm trying to get into. I think though that the best way to hack your state of conscious is by selectively engaging or disengaging all of the senses at once. There is actually a machine that was at least patented to do this for you, although I'm not sure if it ever actually went into production or not:
Re: Ask HN: What music alters your state of consciousness?
#6The music that alters my state tends to be the kind of music that creates an atmosphere:
* Anything by Gas (but mostly Zauberberg and Königsforst)
* Eno and Fripp
* Burial
* Montauk
Re: Ask HN: What music alters your state of consciousness?
#7Apparat's Walls album. If there is a way to hack consciousness, Walls does it: http://www.lala.com/#album/1513490949824332234/Apparat/Walls Try Fractals part 1 and 2. It really does feel like the audible equivalent of a fractal!
Love the album.
As an aside, if you're an Ableton Live 8 user, you can go download Fractales (both parts) as an Ableton Live Set -- part of their 10th anniversary celebration. It is fun to tease apart the track and figure out what makes it tick.
http://www.ableton.com/able10-artist-packs (see Apparat)
Re: Ask HN: What music alters your state of consciousness?
#8The Bladerunner soundtrack has worked wonders for focusing my mind since about the age of 15. Gastr del Sol's Camoufleur LP also performed admirably during my arduous PhD write-up.
Re: Ask HN: What music alters your state of consciousness?
#9http://searchyc.com/submissions/ask+hn+music
This one I think is an interestingly specific question. I'm not upvoting it, but I'm not flagging it, either: It might lead to interesting answers. Steve Reich's Music For 18 Musicians does it for me. It's a beautiful, pulsating piece, with every movement focusing on a single chord, with no progressions for minutes at a time. It's one of the most unique classical pieces I've ever heard, and it gets my mind in a relax…
You might find some other Reich tunes equally powerful, then. Among the best I've found for programming: Electric Counterpoint, Tehillim [Original ECM recording], You Are (Variations), Eight Lines (the re-instrumented version of Octet), and Music For A Large Ensemble.
(Reich has also written some wonderful music that I find harder to listen to in a programming context, including the landmark Different Trains [try the recording that also has Electric Counterpoint], City Life, and the Desert Music [try the San Francisco Symphony recording])
Re: Ask HN: What music alters your state of consciousness?
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
This one I think is an interestingly specific question. I'm not upvoting it, but I'm not flagging it, either: It might lead to interesting answers. Steve Reich's Music For 18 Musicians does it for me. It's a beautiful, pulsating piece, with every movement focusing on a single chord, with no progressions for minutes at a time. It's one of the most unique classical pieces I've ever heard, and it gets my mind in a relax…
You might find some other Reich tunes equally powerful, then. Among the best I've found for programming: Electric Counterpoint, Tehillim [Original ECM recording], You Are (Variations), Eight Lines (the re-instrumented version of Octet), and Music For A Large Ensemble. (Reich has also written some wonderful music that I find harder to listen to in a programming context, including the landmark Different Trains [try the…
I'm a huge Reich fan. City Life is incredible.