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Music to Let you Concentrate

focusatwill.com

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Re: Music to Let you Concentrate

#121

Post by JonnieCache »

hexagonc wrote: post #110
JonnieCache wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fun fact: if you believe the title, he wrote some of the tracks when he was 14 years old. Personally I don't believe it for a second.

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.

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.

Re: Music to Let you Concentrate

#122

Post by dhimes »

xentronium wrote: post #114
dhimes wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, 'white noise' - type sounds- sounds of rainfall, waves, etc. [1]- help me focus. I usually work with nothing, bu one day when working in a noisy environment I discovered that putting headphones on and listening to 'sound of nature' tracks worked very well. So well, in fact, that now when I get stuck or am just having trouble focusing for any reason I do this. [1] I think this is called 'brown noise' these day…

White and brown noises are slightly different. You could check them out here http://simplynoise.com/

Excellent link! And the terms are explained, too.

EDIT: I just clicked the link 'simply rain' on that site- that is more like what I listen to.

Re: Music to Let you Concentrate

#123

Post by methodin »

jwr wrote: post #73

Be careful. Music engages your creative hemisphere. This doesn't matter much if what you're doing is a simple, repetitive task. But if you're trying to design or program, it might kill your ability to "think outside the box" and invent creative solutions. In my case, listening to music while programming has a very pronounced effect: I will spend 30 minutes crafting a function that will do something. The function will…

I am curious why something engaging your creative brain would prevent you from being creative - I would think it would do the opposite? *edit: Did you mean to say it "can kill your ability to think outside the box"?

Re: Music to Let you Concentrate

#124

Post by dhimes »

quesera wrote: post #111
dhimes wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, 'white noise' - type sounds- sounds of rainfall, waves, etc. [1]- help me focus. I usually work with nothing, bu one day when working in a noisy environment I discovered that putting headphones on and listening to 'sound of nature' tracks worked very well. So well, in fact, that now when I get stuck or am just having trouble focusing for any reason I do this. [1] I think this is called 'brown noise' these day…

> [1] I think this is called 'brown noise' these days. Yikes. What terrible branding! "Green noise" is better, sort of honest, and obvious.

They are engineering terms, not marketing terms. The 'colors' are to give you an analogy of sound frequencies in the spectrum: White is a blend of all (audio) frequencies with equal intensities; with pink noise, the intensity falls off at higher frequencies (1/f), and with brown noise the intensity falls off faster at higher frequencies (1/f^2).

Re: Music to Let you Concentrate

#125

Post by eggsyntax »

I've had really good luck with certain kinds of minimalist music. In particular, Simeon Ten Holt's "Canto Ostinato" seems to actively help me focus: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDCsOL2vBJc Most performances are well over an hour, so a nice little side benefit is that you don't have to spend much time picking and changing music.

Re: Music to Let you Concentrate

#126

Post by tripzilch »

antihero wrote: post #88

I've always found myself to be most productive when listening to repetitive electronic music - it motivates but also doesn't distract you too much. Check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUAAVUKk6Fc - it's rather seedy and excellent in it's own right. Two Lone Swordsmen is okay, too. Another good one is soundtracks - personally I like futuristic stuff (Deus Ex: HR soundtrack, or Mass Effect, or Person of Interest),…

> I've always found myself to be most productive when listening to repetitive electronic music - it motivates but also doesn't distract you too much.

Yup, goa-trance for me :)

Music with a lot of lyrics is most distracting to me, though I've found it also depends on the particular way the vocals are mixed/mastered, on some albums they're much harder to ignore than others. Lyrics in my native tongue (Dutch) are hardest to ignore, but even music in a foreign language I don't understand at all (say, the xxx rottweiler hundar, Icelandic hiphop) is more distracting than something (almost) purely instrumental.

Re: Music to Let you Concentrate

#127

Post by narcissus »

methodin wrote: post #123
jwr wrote: post #73

Be careful. Music engages your creative hemisphere. This doesn't matter much if what you're doing is a simple, repetitive task. But if you're trying to design or program, it might kill your ability to "think outside the box" and invent creative solutions. In my case, listening to music while programming has a very pronounced effect: I will spend 30 minutes crafting a function that will do something. The function will…

I am curious why something engaging your creative brain would prevent you from being creative - I would think it would do the opposite? *edit: Did you mean to say it "can kill your ability to think outside the box"?

I presume the idea is that with music engaging that portion of the brain, it's not able to work on other things that require creativity. It's essentially burning cycles that could be used for something else (and I know that's a horrible analogy).

Kind of like how (for me, at least!) it's nearly impossible to effectively read and have a conversation at the same time as they are using the same language part?

Re: Music to Let you Concentrate

#128

Post by ctdonath »

jwr wrote: post #73

Be careful. Music engages your creative hemisphere. This doesn't matter much if what you're doing is a simple, repetitive task. But if you're trying to design or program, it might kill your ability to "think outside the box" and invent creative solutions. In my case, listening to music while programming has a very pronounced effect: I will spend 30 minutes crafting a function that will do something. The function will…

Depends on the music.

Most pop or classical music demands your attention; you'll pay good money to go to a concert where you sit in a chair and pay attention for a prolonged period. Dance/trance/techno provides high energy as a driver of activity, not a focus; you'll go to an event (dance) to focus on the activity, with the music as background motivation. Hence I listen to trance podcasts, getting the push and occupying a busy-but-unrelated-to-programming part of my brain, while also drowning out background noise (factory, sales guy on phone at next desk, ...).

Re: Music to Let you Concentrate

#129

Post by Diederich »

dhimes wrote: post #106
shrikant wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I strongly agree with this. Even if it's only ambient music (mentioned here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5872706 ), I still use it only for situations involving mundane things like documentation. Otherwise I greatly prefer silence. My SO though, is exactly the opposite. She just can't get any work done in silence, and needs relatively fast music with vocals. Although it does need to be music that she's alrea…

For me, 'white noise' - type sounds- sounds of rainfall, waves, etc. [1]- help me focus. I usually work with nothing, bu one day when working in a noisy environment I discovered that putting headphones on and listening to 'sound of nature' tracks worked very well. So well, in fact, that now when I get stuck or am just having trouble focusing for any reason I do this. [1] I think this is called 'brown noise' these day…

These days, I tend to listen to this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXtimhT-ff4

I have a music composition and conducting background, so any kind of music ends up distracting me at some level.

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