Coding with Music

[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

[chriseden2]

I personally don't listen to music while programming, as it just distracts me. I'm fine with other people doing it as long as I cant hear it. I often have to listen to a recording of a power station to block out the noise leaking from other people's heaphones.

[M rIo]

Coding or not. Without music, there is no good life. Sure, I need music while coding. It helps me getting in my 'Zone' and stay there. Especially very industrial and weird music like techno, schranz, drum and bass etc. can get me right there.

throw new NotImplementedException("Signature");

[Snorri Kristjansson]

If you can afford this - this is the one to buy: Sennheiser HMEC-25-KA Noise cancelling is probably the best you can get from any headset. But it's very expensive $650+ :(

[Jakob Olsen]

Depends heavily on what i code... Lets face it. Not all the coding we do is hard. There are a lot of tedious tasks that we do over and over again. For this kind of coding i can listen to almost any type of music and do it a lot. It is only when i really need to dig into some of the hard stuff that music can be in the way.

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[Member 4152456]

In office we are 8 people and we listen jazz music and we dont have any problems.

[Jonathan C Dickinson]

It depends on the person. I personally use music for a few reasons: - I had childhood ADD and still have a mild dose - I concentrate better when I have distractions in the background. - It's easier to ignore coworkers and phone calls. - Get past the boredom of the same room all day every day. - I enjoy music (ditto). Saying that the brain can not multi task isn't entirely true[^]. Interestingly enough I believe that to be true: but that's me :).

He who asks a question is a fool for five minutes. He who does not ask a question remains a fool forever. [Chineese Proverb] Jonathan C Dickinson (C# Software Engineer)

[Plamen Dragiyski]

We get to very strange point. Our brain cannot multitask the way the computer do. The computer multitasking is based in so fast task switching, that you actually don't see that the CPU actually do one program at a time. Brain task-switching requires a task to be enough time to remember the details. For example if you go to school, then go out with friends, listen to music and then you do your homework. First and last action are linked to the point you get it as one task. But you do it for "enough" time to remember it. I listen to music. But while I am coding I don't "hear" which song is currently playing. If some "remarkable" song start playing, I am stopping coding for the time song plays. When the next song starts, I go back to the coding. Without music I got bored and I cannot write quality code in a half an hour. With music I code around 40 minutes in every hour and spent 20 minutes for listening a song. I can keep that way 4-12 hours depending on my sleep condition (and coffein in my body :) ).

[Dan_Martin]

The brain can multi-task, it just can't use the same section for two things at once. I have music on pretty much all the time but I tend to listen to mostly instrumental stuff so there are no language processing requirements or anything that would distract my brain from its main task. I don't think I could code without music. At least I wouldn't want to.

[Jane Williams]

Thanks - a very useful link. I find baroque music in general helps me study/code/write, with Vivaldi being particularly good.

[mardoek]

Most of the time I listen to Music while coding. Blues,Jazz or Progressive Rock/Metal is the best for coding.("Liquid Tension" is for when a lot of coding needs to be done!!) But you have to listen to it with headphones, so no other sounds distract you from coding.

[Oshtri Deka]

I am not sure if it makes me more productive, but it serves me as good stress relief (banging with my feet on the rhythm) and sound wall keeps me separated from the rest when I need extra concentration. Some music makes the opposite.

[Wags]

We used to have 2/4 man offices in our original building (ho hum) - but I only ever played music through speakers after hours. The head of department never seemed to mind. (It was normally just me and him left in the building and he had the office 2 doors down.) Our last building (our first open plan) housed ~100 people per wing but was divided into sections by tall cabinets. One night (it *is* sometime the only time to get things done when the phone's ringing all day) I was alone and blasting out Cypress Hill. 2h into my session a bloke from another team walked by on his way home. I hadn't noticed him working down the end of the wing. He's a quiet type who was due for retirement, had worked for the company since uni and *had* been used to his private office for the last 40 years. Oops! :doh: I like to think that perhaps he was getting down with Cypress Hill. :-D

"...there's what people want to hear, there's what people want to believe, there's everything else, THEN there's the truth!" - New York D.A., The International

[Gary Wheeler]

Talk radio would be too distracting for me, as I would be paying attention to the discussion in my ears rather than the argument/debate/domestic-violence-incident on the screen. I do listen to music, however.

Software Zen: delete this;

[Gary Wheeler]

I think the interesting part of the responses here is why people listen to music while coding. After reading the posts thus far, I found the following: - Those that don't listen don't like the distraction of the music. - If you don't listen, you obviously don't mind normal background noise, or don't have enough where you work to bother you. - Some of those that do listen do it to drown out background noise. - Some listen to enhance their mental process. Me, I listen to moderate my emotional state. I generally code best when I'm relaxed and unstressed. I tend to listen to jazz, new age, and classical. After lunch, when the carbohydrate crash hits, I'll dig out old-school 70's funk or 80's pop to wake me back up. If I've got a migraine pending, it's usually new age or some of those nature sounds + classical things that my wife likes :-O.

Software Zen: delete this;

[User 3401432]

I work in a rat maze of cubes, conference calls, curses, sneezes, snorts, coughs, and laughs. :^) There's 2,500 of us in our building. :~ The only way to escape from the cacophony is to listen to something -- anything -- with a beat. It isn't heavy (usually). It's usually lyric-free. It's probably jazz-techno-drums-synth stuff. It creates some order amongst the chaos. ... And there, in that semi-orderly world, I code. :cool:

[kustera]

I like programming with music. Sometimes I need good rhythm and then I prefer metal like Slipknot or something like Nirvana or Green Day, but normally I listen to classics. It doesn’t seem to affect my productivity.

[mattcj1122]

I usually listen to music, but more to drown out the surrounding office noise... so in that sense, I'm more productive when listening to music than the office noise. It actually started in college. Being unable to study in a library (which I find way too distracting with people walking around and all), I found myself studying in my room with music blasting in order to drown out some other person's crappy music. :laugh:

[Hooga Booga]

I listen rarely. But strangely enough, when I really need to get into the groove, I'll turn on some music and it works quite well.