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 eventually work. And then I will stop listening to music and several minutes later notice that the function was entirely unnecessary, because I can make an architectural or data structure change instead and avoid writing the function altogether. This is something I am unable to do while listening to music.
Once I noticed this, I started being careful: I'd listen to music while configuring routers, but not when planning and designing the changes. You get the idea.
So, before you start listening to music while working, I'd advise you to check if your brain works the same way (the effect might not be exactly the same for everyone).
These days I mostly use natural sounds (the Naturespace app for iOS is great) and good headphones to mute background noise.
Its called conditioning the mind.
Its a bit like the right pane in eclipse, In years I never remember using it even once, yet its absence will irritate me.
Ever get that feeling sometimes when you are surrounded by people in a noisy place and yet after sometime sort of don't even feel that is disturbance.
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 already familiar with, otherwise she gets distracted by having to listen to the lyrics.
Now I don't own a TV and rarely listen to radio, and my tastes have dramasticly broadened, so I almost never listen to the same song more than a handful of times. I find lyrics are a show stopper. Even overly ambitious classical, jazz, electronica trips me up.
Here's a playlist I've been listening to for a while, seeded by, of all things, gopro surf videos, which has become my go-to study set, usually fed in with Bose QC-15s
http://open.spotify.com/user/grep2grok/playlist/1NcLBwixEKqQ...
[1] I think this is called 'brown noise' these days.
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...
Do you have a source for this?
"During the 1960s, researchers at Cornell University conducted a series of tests on the effects of working with music. They polled a group of computer science students and divided the students into two groups, those who liked to have music in the background while they worked (studied) and those who did not. Then they put half of each group together in a silent room, and the other half of each group in a different room equipped with earphones and a musical selection.Participants in both rooms were given a Fortran programming problem to work out from specification. To no one's surprise, participants in the two rooms performed about the same in speed and accuracy of programming. As any kid who does his arithmetic homework with the music on knows, the part of the brain required for arithmetic and related logic is unbothered by music —there's another brain center that listens to the music. The Cornell experiment, however, contained a hidden wild card. The specification required that an output data stream be formed through a series of manipulations on numbers in the input data stream. For example, participants had to shift each number two digits to the left and then divide by one hundred and so on, perhaps completing a dozen operations in total. Although the specification never said it, the net effect of all the operations was that each output number was necessarily equal to its input number. Some people realized this and others did not. Of those who figured it out, the overwhelming majority came from the quiet room."
(I hope this still counts as fair-use)
The whole part "Creative Space" is longer than my excerpt, so if you have access to Peopleware I recommend reading all of 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.
Obviously this might not be the same for everyone, I'm just cautioning people and urging everyone to do some testing.
Another example is that many people (including myself) can't dictate, for the same reasons. In my case, whenever I use dictation, I later go back and re-read what I wrote and it is always disappointing. It seems the areas of my brain that process speech are also needed to form thoughts into sentences and I just can't do both well.
Nothing beats the overriding hum of a server room though - Pure white noise at loud enough volumes that you can't talk easily with other people. Stick some ear plugs in to dampen the volume a little, and you're set to go.
I talked about some other Coders about that. About 20 People. The strange thing was that 7 need music that pump them up like rock or something like that. 7 need relaxing/chillout music( iam in that group) and 6 of them need silence.
So i think there is no general way of what you can listen or not to.
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, ...).
Studies might suggest so, but irl programmings have been creating very cool stuff with music blazing from the speakers.
From Notch to JZW.
I love listening to music while pixel juggling UI's or fixing bugs but as soon as I start working on a scheduling algorithm or something similar I have to turn the music off.
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?
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), as they are designed not to detract from the point of focus.
Lastly, luvstep/liquid dubstep type things are quite vapid but listen-able.
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.
| Deus Ex: HR soundtrack
Another electronic / soundtrack that I have spent a lot of time with is the Tron Legacy soundtrack.
Precisely! I like to listen to ambient music when working and constantly trying to find new music for this purpose is quite a hassle.
http://unop.co.uk/dev/spotify-playlist-generator/
I'd be interested to know if it works everywhere. It still works in the UK.
EDIT: Source code: https://github.com/jpsingleton/Spotify-Playlist-Generator
EDIT: Thanks for all the suggestions!
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 working right now and listen to it. Also he did a SAW vol. 2 album which is more beatless, but it's not as good.
You can't go wrong with Future Sound of London. It's a bit dystopian, but utterly amazing stuff.
The "minimalist" (he hates that word) work of composer Steve Reich is also very good for zoning out. All the other people in the modern "ambient" genre are ripping him off to some extent or another. I suggest starting with Electric Counterpoint.
EDIT - some more:
Hecq - 0000
Almost anything by The Orb, especially The Orb's Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld. Make sure you get the proper UK version not the cut down US release.
Portico Quartet by Portico Quartet
All the Boards of Canada stuff
http://www.last.fm/music/Carbon+Based+Lifeforms
http://www.last.fm/music/H.U.V.A.+Network
Other artists on Ultimae are also worth a try.
I also picked up a Grooveshark playlist from someone (but can't rememeber where I got it from) that works really well: http://grooveshark.com/#!/playlist/Ambient/54561881
Also of interest is StilllStream, an ambient radio station: http://stillstream.com/
Billow Observatory - Billow Observatory
Nuojuva - Valot Kaukaa
Global Underground 24/7 - Danny Howells (Day Disc)
Willits + Sakamoto - Ancient Future
Nils Frahm - Felt
Bersarin Quartet - II
The World on Higher Downs - Land Patterns
Helios (Keith Kenniff, aka Goldmund) - Caesura
Trip-hop.
About 60 album length mixes
I wish they'd do a 24 hour mix that omitts vocals and sharp sounds altogether, that'd pretty much be the best ambient music I could imagine.
(Now if I could get Firefox for Android to download a .mp3 link to local SD card...)
I noticed something really interesting - your pace adjusts to the beat. For example, I took my headphones off to take a call and I was in awe at the speed of the beat, which only 2 minutes ago sounded fairly regular and not as fast.
When I was working for my math exams, having to learn dozens of demonstrations by heart, I have a playlist composed of 6 hours of remixes of satisfaction, by Benni Benassi. Amazing how 6 hours can look like 30 minutes when you listen to the same, repititive music :).
But it also seems like the kind of thing any programmer with a decent music collection could throw together as an MVP in a couple of weekends (ignoring music distribution rights, of course).
But it's got quite the large team of people behind it -- I'm very curious to see if this can monetize well. It just seems like such a "niche" product -- like it should be just another channel on Pandora, instead of a whole company in its own right. Seeing that margins on music streaming are generally already so low, I wish I could see their monetization strategy...
I was initially a bit puzzled by it: there's nothing in the music that immediately jumps at you as great. It's nice, it resembles Nine Inch Nails in some places, that's it. But then I noticed I can listen to it for extended lengths of time without problem. It's relatively subtle, and it grows on you. It doesn't resemble the "epic" movie-style soundtracks that are so common these days.
And I guess that's the point... ? Game music, especially in replayable games like RTS, need to be good in the long run or it inevitably ends up being turned off in game settings. "Epic" music makes good first impression, and in trailers, but it's short-sighted in the long run.
I'm arguing along these lines on Age of Wonders 3 forums (upcoming fantasy TBS game similar to Heroes of Might and Magic), but without success.
I think the big trick is that game music is meant to get you thinking and active, but not distract you.
Frank Klepacki - "Mechanical Man" (C&C 1) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ap6QaDBZJwM
C&C 1 tracks had vocals unit they figured out it conflicted with the announcer.
For me it totally depends on the mood what music i can work best with, but usually it's some electronic house music where i can concentrate best.
Someone should assemble a collection of lame pop music that sounds awesome when piped through Paul's Stretch.
Would listen.
This was created using paulstretch [1], a program to transform normal audio using extreme stretches. I've tried it on a few songs I liked and it does really an excellent jobs of creating extremely fluid ambiances.
The triple parentheses on the first video is a nod to Sunn O))) [2], an American drone / noise / ambient metal band which features super long songs with droning saturated guitars (playing on vintage cranked up to 11 Sunn Model T amps) and usually no drums. One of my favorite songs from them and perhaps one of the best introduction to their music for the non-initiated is titled Alice [3], though perhaps it's not as representative of their music as, say, Ra at Dusk [4]. (Sunn O))) was heavily influenced by the pioneer drone metal band Earth, and their mindblowing album Earth²: special low frequency version [5]).
[1] http://hypermammut.sourceforge.net/paulstretch
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunn_%28band%29
[3] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8Djdi6z0m8
Those who have seen the movie and its plot device will know why this is a brilliant idea on so many levels.
Yes! This is exactly the kind of music service I've been looking for when I'm working.
So I can listen to nearly any music for progrmaming. One of my favourites is Origin - Antithesis. But really everything works.
Note that this type of music is different from more mainstream (and American) dubstep—it has a deeper, more ambient quality to it. Great coding music.
Recently, I've also discovered a similar radio station for ambient music: http://stillstream.com/
Link was posted on here a while back but is still the go to solution for me. Pretty well curated list of trance style stuff. Also has a fast and slow option.
Comprised of classical music scores from some of the best movies, it creates the perfect ambience for coding, which stays out of your way, yet soothes and calms you while enhancing your productivity. Can't get enough of this mix.
The quote got included in your link
So far I've been using raining.fm because chamber music sometimes slows down and quiets so I can hear my co-workers.
My goal is to shut out what everyone is saying, but not the fact that they're talking. So far raining.fm has been perfect, but the only small downside is that when you take the headphones off it feels like you stepped out of a space shuttle or something.
I tend to think I do my best work in silence, but for repetitive or boring tasks it's great to have a lovely soundtrack.
If you can strike a balance between creating helpful productivity customization and keeping it simple, something like this could really takeoff.
1 - Rock, various kinds of progressive music, anything with nontrivial melody
2 - ambient, more monotonous music, music with uniform volume
I'd love to say I've started dividing my music collection according to this criteria - but I've been too lazy so far. Sorry about that. I'll try once again.
But with this, I can actually concentrate just fine. Can't really tell if it helps, but at least it's nice music that doesn't get in the way, good enough for me :)
That's my work soundtrack of choice.
The creator is a signal processing engineer.
Wish there was a 8 hour version!
[edit] I just read on their page that their theory is "It's pretty hard to be creative in a quiet space". So while I like the "hotel lobbby" feel for some kinds of work, I disagree that silence is bad.
OTOH, this might work for me because I can't parse engilsh that well.
Although I wish the guy running it would add more music.
Also I love how the comments on this post have provided a plethora of new places to find music. Thanks everyone.
This is nice.
I am not involved in developing this service.
I liked the fact that, there is a lot of science that has gone behind it.
Nice to hear a Scottish band getting a shout though.