Coding With Music

  • "http://www.simplynoise.com/"

    Thank you for posting that link! I'm going to try it out soon.

  • Heather, You may also try Apocalyptica. Some of their songs are instrumental hard rock with cellos. So it moves fast enough to keep you from falling asleep.

    I personally like their Metallica album.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plays_Metallica_by_Four_Cellos

  • I like to listen to music, talk radio, or some type of background noise that does not distracting, when I am coding and doing routine tasks. When I have to read technical articles then I need dead silence.

    One funny thing I do is I found this radio station that plays old swing and big band music. The format of the show is the same format that used by the same station in the in the`30s and `40s. They even read the old news broadcasts and advertisements from that time. It’s pretty cool. It just provides the perfect background noise of calm talk and music for me.

  • Jon Russell

    One funny thing I do is I found this radio station that plays old swing and big band music.

    Do you have a link for this site?

  • For Instrumental look for liquid tension experiment, very interesting music from talented musicians.

  • Apocalyptica HAHAHAHA. Loved what I heard just a funny concept with music. Gotta love creativity!

  • If I'm head's down in a cubicle environment, (mostly) instrumental music my savior. I listen to:

    Zero 7

    Ludovico Einaudi

    God is an Astonaut

    Pink Floyd (Wish You Were Here)

    Yann Tiersen (Amelie Soundtrack)

    I've listened to some of these artists so often that I have a conditioned response towards focus and concentration.

    But... I find that for a really vexing problem, sometimes taking the earbuds out and changing the sounds around me helps me look at the problem in a different way. So, there is something to the idea that the brain works differently based on the audio inputs being received. Kind of makes you wonder what all of the ambient noise in a cubicle farm does to overall productivity...

    --Audrey (@Datachix2)

  • Kenneth Wymore (12/3/2010)


    Heather, You may also try Apocalyptica. Some of their songs are instrumental hard rock with cellos. So it moves fast enough to keep you from falling asleep.

    I personally like their Metallica album.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plays_Metallica_by_Four_Cellos

    Excellent suggestion, thanks! I used to listen to Metallica all the time and I always preferred their rock ballads to the heavier stuff. I will definitely check out Apocalyptica and maybe plug them into Pandora to see what else comes up.

  • If you like hearing sounds like crickets chirping in your ears continually for the rest of your life then go ahead and blast your headphones.

    I have to blast mine in order to drown out the distracting crickets in my ears πŸ˜€

    Seriously tho ... our office has white-noise (or is it pink?) generators in the ceiling. It sounds like the air is running all of the time, but is enough to eliminate the pin-drop environment we would have otherwise, and quickly becomes forgotten noise. It really helps.

    As for music, I like listening during the day -- mostly familiar stuff from my home album/CD collection, unfamiliar music breaks my concentration -- but for me the headphones themselves become distracting after a few hours. I've tried earbuds and cover-the-ear types as well, but just can't get used to the feel of "speakers on my head" for hours at a time. If nobody's around I might play some tunes quietly through the laptop speakers, but that's pretty rare. On an (even rarer) day at home I'll turn on an FM station in another room and let it play all day, which for me is even less distracting than the computer speakers.

    I probably spend less than an hour a day with headphones on, the rest of the day is white noise. Maybe we just have a quiet office....

  • audrey.hammonds 65726 (12/3/2010)


    If I'm head's down in a cubicle environment, (mostly) instrumental music my savior. I listen to:

    Zero 7

    Ludovico Einaudi

    God is an Astonaut

    Pink Floyd (Wish You Were Here)

    Yann Tiersen (Amelie Soundtrack)

    Pink Floyd's Meddle and Dark Side of the Moon are good ones too since there are a lot of instrumental passages on both of these.

  • Like a lot of people have mentioned, in a cubicle world the conversations going on around you can be distracting, so having some music/white noise playing helps me to focus on my tasks. Also, I've noticed that when the after lunch sleepiness starts to kick in, listening to music can keep that part of my brain occupied so that I'm much more alert, instead of wanting to take that afternoon power nap. πŸ˜‰

    J DBA

  • Randy Rabin (12/3/2010)


    If you like hearing sounds like crickets chirping in your ears continually for the rest of your life then go ahead and blast your headphones.

    I probably spend less than an hour a day with headphones on, the rest of the day is white noise. Maybe we just have a quiet office....

    I have to take off my headphones every 30 minutes or so for a few minutes to give my ears a rest. When at home I either play CDs through the PC speakers or turn on the radio in another room too. In my old office there were many days where I was alone and I would just play CDs through our little boombox. The floorplan here is more open so I can't get away with that anymore. We have a white noise generator here and it makes it sound like the air vents are constantly running. It really does help, there have been times that it is off and it is freaky how much different the sounds are on our floor.

  • Kenneth Wymore (12/3/2010)


    Jon Russell

    One funny thing I do is I found this radio station that plays old swing and big band music.

    Do you have a link for this site?

    @kenneth - http://www.kuws.fm/ Click on the Radio Superior link.

  • Great topic! Having music on generally makes my working experience more enjoyable, and therefore more productive. Unfortunately, I need to have it come through on regular speakers as headphones make me feel "cut off" from my surrounding environment. This pretty much relegates music while working to times when I know my co-workers aren't going to be coming to my cube for any reason, or when working remotely. Since neither of those conditions typically apply to me, and open speakers is a no-no, enjoying music while working is a rare treat.

  • I use it to drown out the voices in my head. If they are allowed to get to loud I do not know what code I would end up writing.

    Music is a must, I used to listen to talk radio while I work, but that take a little too much attention to stay focused.

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