Ask HN: What music makes you a productive programmer? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What music makes you a productive programmer?

#21

Post by hacker_jumper » Fri, May 04, 2012, 5:49 PM UTC

keiferski wrote: post #17

The soundtrack for The Social Network by Reznor and Ross is my staple. It's all instrumental with a good beat, and gets me in the entrepreneurial mindset. Hand Covers Bruise: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SBNCYkSceU In Motion: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yczul_609Gg&feature=relat... Outside of that, anything techno-trance or industrial works. I definitely don't like too many voices, it's distracting.

+1 for The Social Network. Also stuff by Hans Zimmer (Inception, Pirates of the Caribbean & Dark Knight).

Re: Ask HN: What music makes you a productive programmer?

#22

Post by daniel-cussen » Fri, May 04, 2012, 6:59 PM UTC

Classic rock and shitty pop. All kinds of classic rock, but only certain, catchy pop songs can do the trick. I can completely ignore lyrics, they've never been a problem.

And I agree, a given album will put me in the same mentality every time.

Re: Ask HN: What music makes you a productive programmer?

#23

Post by kmanlives » Mon, May 07, 2012, 12:43 AM UTC

tjr wrote: post #10

Most consistently, I find that light classical (Bach, Brahms, etc.) helps me to focus on my work. But more interestingly, many days it's as if there is some particular "song of the day" that my mind wants to hear, and if I can determine an adequate song of the day, I can get very focused listening to that one song over and over all day. There doesn't seem to be any particular rhyme or reason to selecting such a song,…

I understand the "song of the day" concept. I'm a musician (trumpeter), so often classical or jazz distracts me too much. Instrumental rock and/or electronic music seems to work well. I've actually found one specific instrumental track that has been my go to track for years - The Brazilian by the band Genesis. When I'm focused and coding, I can listen to that track for days on end.

I have often wondered why it seems to help so much, but I am not going to complain.