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Most people, it seems, listen to music while they work. Whether it’s to aid concentration or drown out their coworkers, I see most people do it. So today’s question is:
What music do you prefer to code/design/whatever by?
I have very diverse musical tastes and listen to just about everything, but I find that lyrics are distracting when I need to concentrate. So I prefer Jazz like Miles Davis and John Coltrane, or classical like Yo Yo Ma when I need to focus.
Beastie Boys with the occasional RUN DMC track
Vagner, Panda Bear, Chopin, Arctic Monkeys, AC/DC (lyrics not much of an issue due to inanity)
Wagner. Damn “whole-language” education.
I agree that lyrics are distracting. I can handle bands like Air and Zero 7, though. Sometimes I put on my “electronic” genre playlist, which is mostly bass-thumping, lyric-less music. This is to get my energy up. Most of the time I end up listening to jazz and classical. Recently I’ve been going through a Mahler phase.
Radio Paradise via iTunes…it’s upbeat but not distracting.
Electronic, Trance:
Trentemoeller Armin van Buuren Modeselektor Tiesto Royksopp Sigur Ros
These are the finest in Electronic.
Internet Radio:
www.filtermusic.net (Sektion Downtemp, Ambient -> SOMA FM Spacestation).
All of these are not distracting
I learned that I wasn’t able to listen to music with a lot of vocals several years ago while working. So, most of what I listen to is Ambient-Electronic-IDM.
From Boards of Canada to Helios to Xela to Freescha.
Just glance over my last.fm:
Typically: Ambient Popsicle from Groovera (http://groovera.com/) through iTunes Radio.
Otherwise: Whatever bad 80’s or Techno keeps my fellow rocketeers happy.
not sure if this embed tag will work from grabb.it… but here goes nothing
<embed src="http://grabb.it/players/single_track_player.swf?soundFile=http%3A%2F%2Fgrabb.it%2Ftracks%2F3cacd9cfc281.mp3" height="24" width="290"> </embed>helios-eingya-02-halving-the-compass
Aaron: +1 on Wagner.
Robby: I’ve been trying out some Electronica lately. Not typically my thing, but I find that it does work well as “background noise”. Also, I like that track! Mellow, but nice.
Big Tiger: So you guys have office music instead of everyone listening to their own thing via headphones? I’ve tried that before, always seemed like a battle not worth fighting.
Digitally Imported: http://www.di.fm/trance Afterhours FM: http://ah.fm/
Lyrics don’t bother me at all. Sometimes they give me some motivation to work more. I listen to everything from Interpol, Boards of Canada, Editors to Metallica, Hell Yeah, Marilyn Manson. Plus the occasional linux/ruby podcast.
Ambient from Soma FM’s Groove Salad and Jazz like Miles Davis and Coltrane.
Surprisely, I found that listening to A Capella works really well for me. Best of College A Capella for example.
When I have a really hard problem, I tend to listen to piano only music to concentrate. But if it’s normal coding, I like a folk/soft rock type of music. I listen to a good friend of mine Kieth Hampton (http://www.keith-hampton.com/). I also like the Indigo Girls, Eric Clapton, Miranda Lambert, Avril Lavigne, and Billy Joel. I have about 8 CDs ripped to MP3 and I listen to the same ones over and over.
I agree with the non-lyric sentiment… I just find an Ambient trance station in iTunes under Electronica, or just create a station in Pandora for Trance-related DJ’s, such as Tiesto, Armin Van Buuren, Marcus Schulz, Paul Oakenfold or Paul Van Dyk.