I just listened to the Matrix OST and that one really gets me into a coding mood!
dvh 10 hours ago [-]
Don't laugh, but for me, it's Abba. Their entire discography is ~3 hours which is how long I can maintain peak concentration. Their songs are consistently good so that I don't need to skip a song, but not too good that I would stop working and start listening. Plus I've never heard Abba song in any good movie so it doesn't remind me scenes from a movie I would want to rewatch. Of course I don't listen to it every day, only when I really need to, most daily programming tasks can be done with any music.
alexhans 7 hours ago [-]
Like others have said, for specific types of activity, I'll prefer no vocals or maybe even no music, but if vocals are fine Abba does have a great flow to it. I used to run to Abba too, at times, because it feels upbeat/positive with good enough tempo. Super trouper, for instance, makes for a great booster.
javchz 7 hours ago [-]
The Winner Takes It All lyrics are great for commits and Pull Requests: I don't wanna talk
If it makes you feel sad
And I understand
You've come to shake my hand
I apologize
If it makes you feel bad
smoyer 8 hours ago [-]
For real concentration I can't have lyrics but that's a great idea for other flow states. Mozart and Brahms are good for me ... Not slow enough to put me to sleep not fast enough or unusual to make me pay attention to the music.
alexhans 7 hours ago [-]
I vary a lot but when I do classical music Mozart has occupied quite a lot of my stats, in particular a clarinet concerto by Katherine Lucy [1] and also things like Beethoven's 6th (pastoral, it's beautifully featured in Fantasia) or Grieg's morning mood.
If you have specific song/interpretation recommendations I'd love to hear them.
usefulcat 6 hours ago [-]
Agree about the lyrics. Phillip Glass is one of my favorites for flowing. His style usually involves a lot of repetition, which I find meditative.
enochthered 6 hours ago [-]
Steve Reich is my favourite of the minimalists. Electric counterpoint and Music for 18 Musicians are regulars in the line up.
justonceokay 4 hours ago [-]
As a dancer it’s funny to me that programming and dancing both seem to be better with a disco soundtrack. Or house, or funk. Anything with a strong backbeat.
interroboink 9 hours ago [-]
> Don't laugh
I laugh (:
But good for you, whatever works. Personally, I can't do music with much lyrics or narrative; I find it distracting.
But to each their own!
kstrauser 7 hours ago [-]
No laughter here, my brother in music. This is one of the few vocal groups that I could be in the zone with, except "Fernando", because one must release their inner theater kid with that one.
matt_daemon 9 hours ago [-]
It would be impossible for me to not sing along to ABBA
olivierestsage 8 hours ago [-]
Mamma Mia soundtrack also works well \m/
hmokiguess 10 hours ago [-]
ABBA is amazing
alfiedotwtf 1 minutes ago [-]
Di.fm (Digitally Imported) has been my companion throughout the years
da_chicken 4 hours ago [-]
I've had three main tracks that I've used for the past 8 months or so.
The first one is a 1-hour mix of "In Motion" from the soundtrack to The Social Network: https://youtu.be/bCxPmMbZjuk
The second is a 1-hour mix of "It Has to be This Way" from the soundtrack to Metal Gear Rising Revengance: https://youtu.be/jKGDib6qZBo
Shoutout to SomaFM's Defcon Radio which has been my go-to programming music for years now. Not too dissimilar to the stuff found on this site. https://somafm.com/defcon/
usefulcat 5 hours ago [-]
I love the music on defcon but could really do without the sporadic interruptions. At first it was ok but gets old after a while.
vaylian 25 minutes ago [-]
Remember your 3-2-1.
Personally, I still like these defcon sound bites, even though I've heard them plenty of times. They are part of the atmosphere that the stream wants to create.
stevebmark 6 hours ago [-]
This seems focused on one very particular taste in music of droning semi-random lo-fi synthesizers. I find this unlistenable without any kind of percussion.
porjo 2 hours ago [-]
Agreed! I like music that can be enjoyed either active or passive listening. The main requirement is that it have no vocals. Here's my go-to Spotify playlist while coding.
The fact that it works for the author, but totally does not for you is a big fat sign that says: search what works for you. More than that: search what works for you in a particular state of mind. You are a special enough snowflake to require a personal playlist, and it's not easily guessable. Sometimes what works best for me is Bach's violin concertos. Other times it's MBR [1]. Yet other times it might be some Keiko Matsui piano jazz, or early Apocalyptica, or Enya, or [...]. Try different things, notice what feels right and when, rinse, repeat.
Wow I've never thought about listening to music I like before?????
nine_k 3 hours ago [-]
Not all music I like makes good work music. For instance, I cannot work with code while listening to songs: the verbal center apparently gets overloaded.
quinnjh 10 hours ago [-]
This site is a gem that has accompanied me on many spikes in the last year :) datasette's original music is top tier too. cognitively stimulating but not attention stealing.
klondike_klive 10 hours ago [-]
Have you listened to his "business funk" mixes? Too stimulating for work (for me) but so much fun. In my head it's the soundtrack to me striding through an open plan office barking nonsense business jargon.
You thinking like Good Looking Records stuff like Artemis? Love it.
jandrewrogers 5 hours ago [-]
Artemis/Shogun are one of my major go-tos.
poody 5 hours ago [-]
Same... Source Direct - Approach and Identify
yowayb 7 hours ago [-]
I used to have bassdrive on. So good.
__david__ 3 hours ago [-]
I discovered long ago that psytrance/goa was perfect for me. It works almost as well as caffeine and I can work for hours and hours as long as it’s blaring.
alfiedotwtf 3 minutes ago [-]
Same. To be honest, anything with a303 feels uplifting, but for me, hard acid techno is the winner!
Lyngbakr 9 hours ago [-]
I recently discovered Lorn and have been mainlining his back catalogue ever since whilst working. Thoroughly interesting and immersive yet not distracting.
poody 4 hours ago [-]
This may be weird.. but I have been listening to a bunch of extended "save room" ambient tracks based on music in Resident Evil.. Someone under the name of Survival Spheres has a crapload of these on YT-music.. They are all about 10-12 mins long.. and they stay of the way mentally..
CoolGuySteve 7 hours ago [-]
The soundtracks for SimCity 3000, 4, and the 5th one titled just "SimCity" are written specifically to be played while doing some fiddly micromanagement tasks.
While working with code, I mostly listen to Playboi Carti or older Thugger
dmd 6 hours ago [-]
I'm well aware that I'm in the minority, but I have never been able to focus on anything - especially programming - other than in absolute, total silence.
(Yes, I'm an only child.)
nickvec 6 hours ago [-]
I personally love my classic/progressive rock and am happy to listen to it while working. It seems odd to limit music for programming to only lo-fi.
supliminal 9 hours ago [-]
I remember downloading music from the hacking e-show “The Scene” way back when - must have been late 2000s? Some great music in there like Newborn Butterflies if I remember the name right. It was nice background music in the show and I’d put it on from time to time.
jandrewrogers 5 hours ago [-]
I’ve thought about and experimented with it a lot. The main criteria is no lyrics, or at a minimum lyrics in a language you don’t understand at all, since this hijacks attention from parts of the brain useful for programming in a noticeable way. I find prominent fast percussion seems to help with focus but I am less confident of that.
Most other elements don’t seem to matter too much. Baroque, industrial, ambient, etc are all effectively equivalent in most regards.
That said, I tend to lean toward 1990s atmospheric drum-and-bass (pretty much anything released by Good Looking Records) as a good default. That genre maximizes things that seem to help while minimizing things that seem to detract.
gurst 9 hours ago [-]
This is music for programming: https://velato.net/ (or music as programming??)
suzdude 2 hours ago [-]
Random Access Memories.
gbertasius 8 hours ago [-]
I love progressive techno for this. No vocals and sounds are in the lower frequency range. Easy to tune out.
slicktux 4 hours ago [-]
soma.fm
Channel: DEFCON Radio
Best programming music!
olivierestsage 8 hours ago [-]
Swans is good for programming. And good for gnosis.
do_it_simpler 10 hours ago [-]
This sight got me through many projects in college :)
aniekann 6 hours ago [-]
minecraft music is peak and takes all :)
steveBK123 7 hours ago [-]
Look up Dub Techno.
mrchantey 5 hours ago [-]
this is so much fun!
braincat31415 8 hours ago [-]
Iron Maiden for me :)
9 hours ago [-]
Rendered at 06:56:48 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
- [1] https://open.spotify.com/album/1R6rh9My8CTK4DqZorJR0V?si=3Ct...
If you have specific song/interpretation recommendations I'd love to hear them.
I laugh (:
But good for you, whatever works. Personally, I can't do music with much lyrics or narrative; I find it distracting.
But to each their own!
The first one is a 1-hour mix of "In Motion" from the soundtrack to The Social Network: https://youtu.be/bCxPmMbZjuk
The second is a 1-hour mix of "It Has to be This Way" from the soundtrack to Metal Gear Rising Revengance: https://youtu.be/jKGDib6qZBo
The third is a 1-hour mix of "Clock Tower" from the soundtrack to Dead Cells: https://youtu.be/plwhysPCxXI
Personally, I still like these defcon sound bites, even though I've heard them plenty of times. They are part of the atmosphere that the stream wants to create.
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1IKenYEiooONuxxawKtNOm?si=...
[1]: https://masterbootrecord.bandcamp.com/music
OPs playlist requires too many faculties used in coding.
some personal favourites:
- https://musicforprogramming.net/seventyone
- https://musicforprogramming.net/fiftyseven
- https://musicforprogramming.net/fortysix
It really sucks that so much of that catalog is no longer available for all intents and purposes.
https://m.youtube.com/@arcologies
You might also like mood indigo on SoundCloud, mix of house and DnB been a solid programming session soundtrack for me over the last few years.
https://on.soundcloud.com/5HzXSAKAdM41bxIvdp
(Yes, I'm an only child.)
Most other elements don’t seem to matter too much. Baroque, industrial, ambient, etc are all effectively equivalent in most regards.
That said, I tend to lean toward 1990s atmospheric drum-and-bass (pretty much anything released by Good Looking Records) as a good default. That genre maximizes things that seem to help while minimizing things that seem to detract.