Coding with Music

Mustafa Ismail Mustafa

CP is my ultimate concentration breaker, not music :)

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Lutoslaw

I do listen to music while coding and I don't care if it makes me more or less productive. :rolleyes: Good radios: Radio Jazz - a polish radio with an excellent music. Open Fm Jazz - a polish radio with a very good music. Dinner Jazz Excursion - a radio with an acceptable, not distracting music. Last FM was good as long as it was free (now it costs 3€ per month[^] :(().

Greetings - Jacek Gajek

ian dennis 0

Why did you provide a link to rain? Surely we all know it's that wet stuff outside! :)

ian dennis 0

I listen to noise, like the Swingle Singers. Drowns out the office gossip. But for doing the housework, there's nothing quite like Bach's Toccata and Fugue. And Chopin's nocturne in E flat major for studying.

Lost User

Wet stuff outside? Then what is that wet stuff coming out of that tap? :confused: Oh I remember, that's beer :)

Todd Smith

I can listen to music without actually focusing on the music. Isn't classical music supposed to stimulate the brain more? Not all programming requires concentration. A lot of it is grunt work which is made less boring with some good music.

Todd Smith

John M Drescher

Since I have started buying mp3s early this year I have been coding most of the time with a constant stream of music. I have also ripped a few cds I had bought in the 90s. Before this at work I had a radio connected to my line in of my desktop so that I could click off the volume when the commercials started but that became too much of a hassle. I have no idea why most radio adds are very annoying and also at a louder volume than any song that is played on the station. I guess they assume that most will not mute them or switch station... Anyways the music relaxes me and makes me more productive. Although if I need to think about a design I sometimes turn it off for a few minutes.

John

Michael Dunn

I've tried having music or podcasts or talk radio going while coding, and it doesn't help me code at all. The background noise in the office isn't distracting so I don't need to have something playing.

--Mike--

Xmen Real

I can't code until I got headphones in my ears...as fast as music increases the finger speed get speed up. In Maths, music directly proportional to finger speed.

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dazfuller

All the time, but the type of music depends on what I'm doing. Ambient/Soft Rock if I'm thinking about a problem and faster Metal/Rock if I'm coding. Not listening to music drives me nuts and I can't get a good days work done without it, the noises of the office are just to dull and uninspiring!

pietpap

This might sound strange but I either listen to classical music or Marilyn Manson really loud with my headphones. Im at my most productive when I do this. I have trouble concentrating and loud screamy stuff or sweeping classical music seems to focus me on my coding by cancelling out random thoughts. Maybe my random braincells just go "oh hell no, kthxbye" or fall asleep something :laugh: Plus our office noises are unbearable.

RichardGrimmer

With you on the NEED thing....I'm stunningly lucky that although I have my own office, the door to it and others is always open, and I listen through speakers - I thought it would be a problem at first, but given the > 10gb of really REALLY varied music (From Akon to Zepellin through just about anything you care to mention, including Camoflage by Stan Ridgeway!) it was soon accepted by my colleagues...in fact, it's got to such a point that I can tell wether to skip a track or not, cos my boss starts whistling when he likes one I'm playing! For me, I really don't suffer with not being able to concentrate - I personally need some background noise...

C# has already designed away most of the tedium of C++.

RichardGrimmer

Harvey Saayman wrote:

I can't concentrate on ANYTHING in silence, silence drives me nuts!

Thank god for that - I thought it was just me! I bet you HAVE to turn somethng on in your house when you get home too (my personal fave is turn on a TV then go about my day)

C# has already designed away most of the tedium of C++.

Harvey Saayman

RichardGrimmer wrote:

I bet you HAVE to turn somethng on

I don't HAVE to, cause there is ALWAYS music playing, even when I'm not there :)

Harvey Saayman - South Africa Software Developer .Net, C#, SQL you.suck = (you.Passion != Programming & you.Occupation == jobTitles.Programmer) 1000100 1101111 1100101 1110011 100000 1110100 1101000 1101001 1110011 100000 1101101 1100101 1100001 1101110 100000 1101001 1101101 100000 1100001 100000 1100111 1100101 1100101 1101011 111111

Marco Turrini

I mostly agree with you and still... I listen music while working! The fact is that I work in a very distracting environment (five people in a small office, phone calls, people coming in...) and music is the only practical way to isolate myself from such a mess. Of course some genres are better than others: classical and new age are way preferable over pop/rock.

Marco Turrini

fboule

I am a musician, and I always listen to music when I program. I believe it not only isolates from outer disturbances like phone calls and so on, but the beat of music helps having a good rythm - it enhances brain activity. Note that I listen to symphonic metal, goth metal and tech trance these days (depending on my mood). Heavy metal rulez!

Anna Jayne Metcalfe

I usually just have the radio on (not with headphones though, I don't really get on with those). When I'm really in the zone, something far louder and livelier (Motorhead, Skyclad or whatever) is better though.

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AmazingMo

Kschuler wrote:

silence or music without words.

Yes, this is my experience too, although I would say that instead of "no words", then at least "words I don't understand". There seems to be a lot of Bach among CP members --- I have one Gregorian Chant cd that gets a lot of play, and another one with Brazilian lounge music. Other good tracks for getting things done are Allegri/Miserere, Barber/Agnus Dei, Rodrigo/Concerto de Aranjuez, and Tristan and Isolde without the libretto. When I don't need to concentrate then Kruder & Dorfmeister or Bloc Party. I paid for the Bose QC3 noise cancelling headphones --- they block out the hum of the a/c admirably, but not the incessant chatter of my colleagues. I would pay a lot for noise cancelling headphones that go up to at least 8 kHz. Peter.

Lost User

I work in an office landscape, so when doing particularly difficult tasks, I listen to the "Natural Sounds"-albums on Spotify in the earphones. I find that "Drifting in a calm bay" works best for me :)

Yannou

For those coders who are sitting in the Sahara desert with their laptops maybe? :3