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Music to Let you Concentrate

focusatwill.com

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Re: Music to Let you Concentrate

#161

Post by ebiester »

porker wrote: post #131
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…

> I still use it only for situations involving mundane things like documentation. I'm sorry, documentation requires less concentration? I find (I hypothesize) that because I'm doing something which balances the hemispheres more (and requires me to get inside the head of my user) music doesn't work for documentation, it's too distracting. Programming yes, ambient works well, but writing...

For me, at least, that's true. But then, I've written a lot of words in my life.

Now, I will plan the documentation away from music, and I'll edit it away from a computer, but music gives you a "permission to suck" and just get words on the paper. Once you have words on the paper, you have something that can be molded.

Re: Music to Let you Concentrate

#162

Post by ebiester »

jwr wrote: post #97
throwaway183 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Music engages your creative hemisphere. Do you have a source for this?

This precise statement is easily verified (just google it). But I thought I had a source for the "listening to music hampers your creative ability" statement, and I can't seem to find it. You could reason that if you engage the brain with something, then it cannot do another thing at the same time. So if you engage the areas responsible for creative thought processes, these areas will not be available for other tasks…

It's a matter of practice. I've seen quadriplegics do dictation just fine. You just have to train yourself to think a different way. This may not be an efficient use of your time. (I find that I can do dictation, but it takes much more effort than typing.)

Re: Music to Let you Concentrate

#164

Post by oblique63 »

dhimes wrote: post #124
quesera wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [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).

Yep. More detail (with samples) here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colors_of_noise

Re: Music to Let you Concentrate

#165

Post by Florin_Andrei »

michael_h wrote: post #118
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…

I use: sox -r 48000 -n -d synth pink with noise canceling headphones and a relatively low volume. I also tend to listen to: sox -n -d synth sine %-5 sine %-14 vol 0.5 ...but everyone else seems to think it's incredibly annoying.

    play --show-progress -c 2 --null synth 01:00 brownnoise \
    reverb 19 vol 0dB bass 6 treble -3 repeat 558
Adjust bass and treble to match your headphones.

It sounds like a big waterfall, or like a continuous wave crash. And it's stereo. :)

EDIT: Or this:

    play --show-progress -c 2 --null synth brownnoise \
    reverb bass 6 treble -3 echos 0.8 0.9 1000 0.3 1800 0.25
The one with echos is a bit softer and more natural-sounding.

Re: Music to Let you Concentrate

#167

Post by nilaykumar »

rednukleus wrote: post #18
pepr wrote: post #2

"... 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.

Can you recommend a Top 5 ambient albums for working? EDIT: Thanks for all the suggestions!

Check out Emancipator: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCSN4DLG6Ng&list=PL7669BCCE53...

Trip-hop.

Re: Music to Let you Concentrate

#168

Post by kvcrawford »

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…

Personally, I frequently switch between music and silence. Putting on some music stokes my motivation and productivity, getting me started on a task. As soon as I hit a problem that requires more brainpower, I hit pause to let myself think—just like turning down the music in your car so you can parallel park.

Re: Music to Let you Concentrate

#169

Post by noiv »

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),…

True, http://www.deepmix.eu/ fits exactly to my audio DNA. Someone said, it's the sound of travelling bits.

Re: Music to Let you Concentrate

#170

Post by JonnieCache »

JonnieCache wrote: post #85
rednukleus wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you recommend a Top 5 ambient albums for working? EDIT: Thanks for all the suggestions!

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…

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.

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