Senior software developer at Amazon Web Services. I work on the AWS Serverless Application Repository and AWS SAM. Iβm passionate about writing quality software and teaching others how to do the same.
Location
Seattle, WA
Education
BS Computer Engineering, Minors: CS and Math
Work
Sr. Software Development Engineer at Amazon Web Services
The entire soundtrack to the Lord of the Rings trilogy is great. A day of writing code can sometimes feel like a bare-footed journey from the comfort of the Shire to an ork-surrounded volcano via the lair of a giant man-eating spider, so it's really quite thematically appropriate: youtu.be/_SBQvd6vY9s
Usually heavy and high-energy. Usually metal. I put together some of my favorites albums and removed anything that wasn't high-tempo: open.spotify.com/user/mikengarrett...
I usually forget to put headphones on. Once I start coding time flies and I forget about music. When I do remember, I find music without too much lyrics does the trick. Mogwai is a good band to listen to.
Very similar. Chilled dubstep, a lot of instrumental hip-hop (anything by Blue Sky Black Death!) ambient tracks. I try to stay away from action movie soundtracks because the turns of pace make me anxious.
It's about a 50/50 split. When I really need to focus, I use songs I know I like from my saved (most of which came from discover). When I can focus a little less, I casually look for new ones.
I've been working with Ruby on Rails and several front-end technologies since 2010. Since then, I have successfully developed and maintained several commercial projects. Nowadays, I'm a full time f...
brain.fm/
Seriously, within seconds into listening to the focus mode, I get thrice the concentration level. In about 30 minutes I'm almost in a trance. I recommend taking breaks from time to time, though; if I listen to it for too long I feel weird and disconnected from the reality.
I recently got into the sound track from The Social Network movie and I find it to be the perfect mix of tempo for me. I definitely recommend it. Great sound track in and of itself, but also reminiscent of a movie all about building a pretty damn popular website.
Whether we use React or Vue or Angular, we will regret it. Instead letβs solve the problem then choose the technology
Interested in UI/UX, design thinking and data visualization
According to last.fm, I mostly listen to Ambient, Electronic & Jazz. Artists like:
Nils Frahm
Γlafur Arnalds
Gustavo Santaolalla
Floating Points
Rival Consoles
Boards of Canada
GoGo Peguin
Bonobo
and many others.
I used brain.fm previously, and while it works it can get tiring after a few weeks of listening to the same drone sounds. Too me what most helps me get into flow is calm, smooth, deep background music.
Almost anything from Beatles to Taylor Swift to Daft Punk to Rachmaninoff when writing boilerplate code or simple stuff, but I need total silence when writing complex algorithms or debugging, so I always carry a couple of rubber ear plugs from hardware stores.
I started with JS about 10 years ago and I fell in love with it (even though it can be weird π ). I had step backs in my career that ended up being good. Currently I'm a passionate front-end developer.
Why a post from 2017 appeared on my homepage? Haha!
It is hard to tell what I listen when I code, because I listen to a lot of music, but when I'm the mood I put some motivational upbeat music from my βMotivate Meβ playlist, if you need some motivational songs:
Focused on creating wonderful user experiences by attending to folks needs with empathy and creating spaces of safety. Senior Frontend Developer/Tech Lead at Dolittle.
Working in an open office means headsets with noise cancellation is a must. I used to listen to well-known Rock / metal music. I've found more that the more variation there is, the easier it is to et distracted.
After discovering mindfulness I've started enjoying silence, and that's the music of my choice these days: silence (noise cancellation almost works for that)
I've found the TRON / Social Network soundtracks to be quite enjoyable when not doing brain-taxing work.
Metal, 90's rock (nirvana, pearl jam, alice in chains, etc), tons of hip hop (E40, Too $hort, Snoop, Dre, Biggie, etc), Alt rock/Indie (Coheed and cambria, Spoon, Arcade fire, The Shins, etc), and finally sometimes I will put on various forms of electronic music, but I tend not to pay too much attention to who the artist is.
Oh hey look, my playlists just grew by a couple hundred songs! Thanks a ton!
I actually do have some stuff from John Murphy. I just didn't stick it on the list because the number of songs was so low compared to those other ones.
Depends on the day, but I really like those lo-fi hip hop streams on Youtube. You know, the ones with the looped old anime backgrounds? youtube.com/watch?v=h8W73zB4VMM
I also enjoy liquid dubstep/chillstep. Anything that's relatively low tempo and mostly instrumental, really.
I tried listening to the music I usually like while working (mostly rock), but felt I was concentrating on the music instead of my work.
It can be anything really, mostly pop and hip hop; sometimes k-pop, or classic rock or big band. What I tend to do is play the same songs over and over and over again.
Anytime my music starts up after being stopped, I start at the beginning of one giant Spotify playlist I've been adding to over the years. I know how many times I've been interrupted by how often I've heard the first song today, or how deep into the playlist I got.
I love coding in silence, and I do it whenever possible. It can bring my concentration to the levels I will never reach with music: if I listen to some new recommended music, then occasional intrusive and lyrics-rich tracks are inevitable; if I listen to something I already listened to, some tracks distract me with associated memories.
When coding in silence is not possible, I usually turn on some noise or find playlists for coding, depending on current mood.
Switch(mood){
case 1:
Atmospheric/ Epic/ Ambient Metal
break;
case 2:
Post Grunge/ Stoner Rock
break;
case 3:
Old School Rap/Hiphop/RnB/Pop/Electro
break;
case 4:
The Weekend haha
break;
default:
Shuffle all
}
Sharing my personally curated EDM/Electronic music playlist here (has almost 600 songs and growing. I also update it almost every day). I listen to it everyday and it works well for me!
It totally depends on the situation. When i am in a greenfield project i like to hear some electronic tunes. I like things without lyrics like Jean-Michel Jarre or Rival Consoles. Or on other occasions i really enjoy David Hicken (piano artist which if you did not know him you should definitely check it out ).
If i'll have to bugfix something in a legacy code base (it happens from time to time) i sometimes need some energetic or aggressive tunes. E.g. Carpenter Brut or The Algorithm are quite good for this kind of work. Even though sometimes i hear music with lyrics i find it most of the time distracting while coding.
Noise Cancelling headphones without the music (QC35, previously QC15). I've tried many things like brain.fm, focus zen, simply noise, focusmusic.fm - all of them became boring after 2-3 weeks.
I also have a 'debugging' playlist on spotify - when I need less concentration. 'Fast' music without vocals - liquid Drum 'n' Bass, Daft Punk's TRON: Legacy OST. Sometimes i switch to classical music when I'm working on something frustrating - Tchaikovsky symphony 5, Vivaldi Four Seasons, Camille Saint-Saens or Prokofiev Romeo and Juliet.
I like to thing of myself as die hard death metal fan, but I can't code with this music.
Sometimes I just want something more like close to white/grey noise, but with a dab of a beat to it so then I'll listen to this, title "CLEANSE Destructive ENERGY From Over-Thinking | Theta Binaural Beats" youtube.com/watch?v=Cpw_Wkm05j8
Both of these channels have other variations on these themes as well.
I like to code with rock (heavy metal, power metal, progressive, rock and roll, Psychedelic) but sometimes when the coding session is intense I switch to electronic. I think the difference relies on the tasks and my mood. I'm big fan of Armin Van Buuren, Tiesto, Paul Van Dyk.
I like to code with rock (heavy metal, power metal, progressive, rock and roll, Psychedelic) but sometimes when the coding session is intense I switch to electronic. I think the difference relies on the tasks and my mood. I'm big fan of Armin Van Buuren, Tiesto, Paul Van Dyk.
I recently discovered instrumental hip-hop, and have found it's the perfect music for day-today coding. It's not too distracting if I need to focus, but keeps me in a groove. A couple of my go-tos would be Jaku by DJ Krush or Endtroducing by DJ Shadow. If I don't need to think too much, and just need to bang out some code, I like something more aggressive, like metal or dubstep.
Depends--monkey work that I don't have to think too much about, Bluegrass and Irish Folk. (I keep it traditional.) If I have to think and problem solve, Space, Drone, Ambient, Steve Roach, Robert Rich, Biosphere, Brian Eno, Aes Dana.
Generally heavy bleepy-bloops, with a bias towards non-vocal. The Glitch Mob are excellent in this respect, though both Mystery Skulls and Studio Killers do a great job of keeping me focused, despite the vocals.
I usually search for some keywords like dubstep, glitch, gaming, epic music (yes, you already guess it: I'm not a metal guy). I really like how the violin sounds, so right now I'm listening to Lindsey Stirling
Progressive metal, usually. Either instrumental or with near-undecipherable growls--lyrics are distracting. Animals as Leaders, Cloudkicker, Fallujah, The Atlas Moth, Opeth, Vektor. The list could go for days. Sometimes I'll switch it up and listen to video game soundtracks, or occasionally, some podcasts if I'm doing something lighter
Instrumental classical and jazz playlists from Google Play Music.
I also don't listen to my own music all the time - we have music playing in the office at low volume and I like the ambient noise. I tend to put my headphones on when I really need to concentrate hard for an extended period of time, or if I find myself getting distracted by what's going on around me.
If I listen to anything (I work from home pretty much exclusively, so usually not) it has to be something I know so well my brain wonβt be distracted. As a former music major, even classical music can distract me if itβs unfamiliar because my brain begins trying to analyze it, understand its structure, etc. So, I have some go-to albums or pieces that I can listen to while coding because I know them so well, mostly from my college years when I still had time to listen to new music. Here are a few:
Understand This Is A Dream by The Juliana Theory
40 Acres by Caedmonβs Call
Aaron Coplandβs Appalachian Spring Suite
Speakeasy by Stavesacre
Anthem by Less Than Jake
Slowly Going The Way of the Buffalo by MxPx
Joaquin Rodrigoβs Concerto de Aranjuez
In the absence of this, I will sometimes also put on Coffitivity as a sort of hum of noise if Iβm in a noisy environment. coffitivity.com/
never met a part of the stack I didn't like. sr. engineer at clique studios in chicago, perpetual creative hobbyist, bird friend, local gay agenda promoter. she/her. tips: https://ko-fi.com/carlymho
Gazelle Twin, Disasterpeace, Andy Stott, Headless Horseman, soundtracks that fall into the "weird electronica/ambient" category (e.g. Arrival, Mr. Robot, Stranger Things, We Know the Devil)βI figured out a while back that I do best working to music that's like... slightly jarring white noise that's minimally distracting but not too soothing.
Either that or really bright upbeat K-pop. I don't really have an in-between, ha ha.
All sorts of music, depending on my mood. Heavy metal, ambient (8bit ambient is pretty cool), classical music...
I find soundtracks to be particularly immersive, especially video game soundtracks - Bastion, Sword and Sworcery and Journey are amongst my favorites.
Movies : [The fight club, Scott Pilgrim, Matrix],
Series : [GoT, Veep, Silicon Valley,Seinfeld, mr Robot, How I meet your mother]
Sports : [Old sport events, soccer, basketball,baseball],
I dont use music to code, because I cant listen songs I dont like, and it doesnt matter the artist, no all the songs are good, so I need to skip the song, I cant do that each 3 min, movies and series works better for me.
It depends. There are days, where I listen to Deep House / Tropical House Mixes and on other days I need something that pushes me more, then it'll be Drum and Bass or some Hardrock.
From my experience, songs without vocals - or songs with vocals that are harder to understand work better for me, since I find it very distracting if I subconsciously listen to the lyrics :)
Vitamin string quartet is my go-to when programming. They do instrumental covers of popular songs. You get all of the catchy beats/rhythms without any of the distracting words.
I also try to have Coffitivity running as well just to give that ambient noise creative boost.
I am a big fan of LukHash. He's a Polish artist who produces chiptune, fused with electro and dubstep. Everything from his tunes to the album and track names put your brain into coding mode.
Trance, primarily from DI.fm. I'm a big fan of their Vocal Trance and Epic Trance channels. I'm usually either streaming one of those two channels, or listening to songs I first heard on those channels and added to my collection.
I REEEAAAALLY like to learn, and follow a 3 step process to do so.
1) Hear about something interesting/cool
2) Goooooooooogle
3) You just learned a cool thing... :D
Any time need to get work done, I have a couple small playlists I set on shuffle & swap every 30 - 60 minutes. A mix over lively Irish jig & some-what funky smooth (metro?) Jazz. It's a strange combo but they blend surprisingly over long periods of time on repeat.
Lots of electronic stuff. EDM, trance, drum'n'bass, dubstep. But also some trip hop, soundtracks, sometimes a bit of metal, even some Americana made in Hamburg!: open.spotify.com/album/6OvZVQQZyW6...
For focussed work I prefer Indie-Game-Sountracks (e.g. C418, Austin Wintory, Disasterpiece), mostly easy and silent stuff.
For easier stuff like styling, markup and handling tickets I listen to podcasts or audio-books.
It depends, I have 2 programming moods, depending on whether there are strong theoretical background to what I have to code or not (for scientific projects at school), I use classical, or a mix of punk/pop/rock/alternative
I usually like silence if I can get it. Otherwise if I really need to concentrate I grab coffee and listen to something with bi-neural beats over youtube.
If I'm working on something that doesn't require much concentration or is boring then I listen to "The Magicians" in the background (which I've watched so many times now that it's good background noise.
A modern Renaissance man, with a diverse skill set and a love of learning. My old job dealt with all things online learning (and some IRL classes). My side projects have taken me all over the place.
Depends on the day. Today it's Jimmie Bratcher. :)
Other days it's been some mix of Hendrix, Chickenfoot, Audioslave, Joe Bonnamassa. Some times it's a bit of Ozzy and Metallica. I break out the classical from time to time.
I think the only type of music not represented in my collection is rap. Just doesn't appeal to me.
Anthony has been an explorer of the digital space for over a decade. From transforming start-ups into multi-million dollar organizations, to helping nonprofits solve real world problems with digita...
EDM ..... Daft Punk, Ship Wrek, Tobu, Marshmallow, Jinco, and a ton of other artists. Anything with a dope beat and not too many words to think about. I also have a tendency to listen to the same song on repeat for 12+ hours straight during coding sprints and Hackathons. Thatβs how I get into a flow state. π―π―π―
I just searched on Spotify and found this playlist, which is really cool for now!
I change my preferred playlist/songs/...form time to time so sometimes I hear dubstep, or concentration music and sometimes even no music, but that's not usual
Mostly hans zimmer instrumental. also Braid Soundtrek (Downstream my fav.)
Mainly instrumental only as I don't want to lose my concentration repeating the lyrics.
Different Guitars cover do as well :)
I work out of a home office and tend not to use headphones, maybe I should try that though.
Nonetheless, I usually listen to something in the "Focus" mood of Spotify, trying something new each time that I run through an entire playlist. I do find that I am most focused/productive when listening to songs that do not have lyrics played. One thing that I use to love listening to was the Daft Punk - Tron Legacy album/soundtrack (youtube.com/watch?v=OIM8RxaK5rE)
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I use Endel app for focusing.
The Dark Knightβs soundtrack
Oh that sounds great
Jay Z 4:44
Right now Lost on You by LP. What I listen to varies with my mood and what I am working on.
musicforprogramming.net/
+1
thanks
Thanks! I'm going to give this a listen this morning.
The entire soundtrack to the Lord of the Rings trilogy is great. A day of writing code can sometimes feel like a bare-footed journey from the comfort of the Shire to an ork-surrounded volcano via the lair of a giant man-eating spider, so it's really quite thematically appropriate: youtu.be/_SBQvd6vY9s
Yes! Bit too dark sometimes but works great anytime after lunch
Usually heavy and high-energy. Usually metal. I put together some of my favorites albums and removed anything that wasn't high-tempo: open.spotify.com/user/mikengarrett...
If you're looking for somethign new, here's the best metal releases from 2016: open.spotify.com/user/mikengarrett...
Oh yes, metal, dubstep or anything high energy. An absolute must!
Exactly the same here. It works so well.
Same here, preferably with harsh, mostly indecipherable vocals. Prevents me from getting distracted by the lyrics.
Agreed.... metal of all kinds, though I tend to shy away from doom/black/death...
I usually forget to put headphones on. Once I start coding time flies and I forget about music. When I do remember, I find music without too much lyrics does the trick. Mogwai is a good band to listen to.
You must not work in an open office!
YES. Mogwai all day everyday.
Ludovico Einaudi! I love Divenire, especially when I'm frustrated by something. I haven't tried Lindsey Stirling while working, but I'll have to now!
Love the range there. Add the Atmospheric Black Metal playlist from Spotify and Netsky dnb stuff. Mood dependant always.
I'm usually creeping my spotify discover playlist for Liquid / DnB tracks, and chill EDM. Nice, ethereal background.
Very similar. Chilled dubstep, a lot of instrumental hip-hop (anything by Blue Sky Black Death!) ambient tracks. I try to stay away from action movie soundtracks because the turns of pace make me anxious.
Try Aso on soundcloud real cool
ππΏ
So you're usually looking for new tracks, or do you listen to the same ones a lot?
It's about a 50/50 split. When I really need to focus, I use songs I know I like from my saved (most of which came from discover). When I can focus a little less, I casually look for new ones.
brain.fm/
Seriously, within seconds into listening to the focus mode, I get thrice the concentration level. In about 30 minutes I'm almost in a trance. I recommend taking breaks from time to time, though; if I listen to it for too long I feel weird and disconnected from the reality.
I recently got into the sound track from The Social Network movie and I find it to be the perfect mix of tempo for me. I definitely recommend it. Great sound track in and of itself, but also reminiscent of a movie all about building a pretty damn popular website.
Great album, as almost any OST by Trent Reznor. I also enjoy listening to Lost Girl and Before the flood ones.
Such a great soundtrack, I can never skip it when it comes on!
Likewise. Great choice for coding.
There is another kind of music?
Pirate Metal?
Prog Metal. Otherwise you are missing Dream Theater, Devin Townsend, Leprous, Haken. And what kind of life is that?
You're right!
The Skyrim soundtrack (or any Elder Scrolls ones) as well as electronic or ambient music usually.
This! Spotify has a good collection.
Anything by Jeremy Soule is good.
Hans Zimmer Always!
This π
soundcloud.com/epicmountain
Mostly instrumentals because the lyrics can sometimes distract me and lead to a solo performance that no one needs or wants to hear.
Here are some of those:
According to last.fm, I mostly listen to Ambient, Electronic & Jazz. Artists like:
and many others.
I used brain.fm previously, and while it works it can get tiring after a few weeks of listening to the same drone sounds. Too me what most helps me get into flow is calm, smooth, deep background music.
BoC is perfect
Depend on the mood but here's my overall genres
== Geek Stuff Incoming ==
I mostly find any music with lyrics, etc. is sometimes too distracting.
So ambient / electronic is always nice.
Also, I've always found SomaFM Defcon music - is always good.
somafm.com/player/#/now-playing/de...
I like SomaFM. I made a simple page for me to listen Groove Salad :)
wildauer.io/somafm/
A mix of ambient, electronic and jazz. Disparition, explosions in the sky, Adam Young, Miles Davis and Antonio Carlos Jobim.
Almost anything from Beatles to Taylor Swift to Daft Punk to Rachmaninoff when writing boilerplate code or simple stuff, but I need total silence when writing complex algorithms or debugging, so I always carry a couple of rubber ear plugs from hardware stores.
Am I the only one listening to Interstellar OST? It's pure bliss, it takes us to whole new dimension.
Why a post from 2017 appeared on my homepage? Haha!
It is hard to tell what I listen when I code, because I listen to a lot of music, but when I'm the mood I put some motivational upbeat music from my βMotivate Meβ playlist, if you need some motivational songs:
open.spotify.com/track/6PgVDY8GTkx...

open.spotify.com/track/0cVyQfDyRnM...

open.spotify.com/track/2xC3aQCmwgs...

I know I'll be listening to those later, is this how Music Monday started? I remember that Michael posted those π€π½
Working in an open office means headsets with noise cancellation is a must. I used to listen to well-known Rock / metal music. I've found more that the more variation there is, the easier it is to et distracted.
After discovering mindfulness I've started enjoying silence, and that's the music of my choice these days: silence (noise cancellation almost works for that)
I've found the TRON / Social Network soundtracks to be quite enjoyable when not doing brain-taxing work.
Metal, 90's rock (nirvana, pearl jam, alice in chains, etc), tons of hip hop (E40, Too $hort, Snoop, Dre, Biggie, etc), Alt rock/Indie (Coheed and cambria, Spoon, Arcade fire, The Shins, etc), and finally sometimes I will put on various forms of electronic music, but I tend not to pay too much attention to who the artist is.
Yes, I like obscure instrumental artists. Any more anyone can recommend?
You don't have Max Richter or Yann Tiersen on this list? I'm surprised. Also: Johann Johannsson, Nathan Barr and the Sunshine OST (John Murphy!)
Oh hey look, my playlists just grew by a couple hundred songs! Thanks a ton!
I actually do have some stuff from John Murphy. I just didn't stick it on the list because the number of songs was so low compared to those other ones.
Zachtronics' games soundtracks, e.g. SHENZHEN I/O OST: zachtronics.bandcamp.com/album/she...
Some Ben Prunty, e.g. Cipher: benprunty.bandcamp.com/album/ciphe...
In general, preference for electronica.
Yes! Love the Shenzhen I/O soundtrack.
Depends on the day, but I really like those lo-fi hip hop streams on Youtube. You know, the ones with the looped old anime backgrounds? youtube.com/watch?v=h8W73zB4VMM
I also enjoy liquid dubstep/chillstep. Anything that's relatively low tempo and mostly instrumental, really.
I tried listening to the music I usually like while working (mostly rock), but felt I was concentrating on the music instead of my work.
It can be anything really, mostly pop and hip hop; sometimes k-pop, or classic rock or big band. What I tend to do is play the same songs over and over and over again.
Anytime my music starts up after being stopped, I start at the beginning of one giant Spotify playlist I've been adding to over the years. I know how many times I've been interrupted by how often I've heard the first song today, or how deep into the playlist I got.
I love coding in silence, and I do it whenever possible. It can bring my concentration to the levels I will never reach with music: if I listen to some new recommended music, then occasional intrusive and lyrics-rich tracks are inevitable; if I listen to something I already listened to, some tracks distract me with associated memories.
When coding in silence is not possible, I usually turn on some noise or find playlists for coding, depending on current mood.
Electronic. Dubstep, Trance, Techno, whatever. Lots of Lindsey Stirling, actually.
Switch(mood){
case 1:
Atmospheric/ Epic/ Ambient Metal
break;
case 2:
Post Grunge/ Stoner Rock
break;
case 3:
Old School Rap/Hiphop/RnB/Pop/Electro
break;
case 4:
The Weekend haha
break;
default:
Shuffle all
}
Sharing my personally curated EDM/Electronic music playlist here (has almost 600 songs and growing. I also update it almost every day). I listen to it everyday and it works well for me!
open.spotify.com/user/complexchris...
It totally depends on the situation. When i am in a greenfield project i like to hear some electronic tunes. I like things without lyrics like Jean-Michel Jarre or Rival Consoles. Or on other occasions i really enjoy David Hicken (piano artist which if you did not know him you should definitely check it out ).
If i'll have to bugfix something in a legacy code base (it happens from time to time) i sometimes need some energetic or aggressive tunes. E.g. Carpenter Brut or The Algorithm are quite good for this kind of work. Even though sometimes i hear music with lyrics i find it most of the time distracting while coding.
Noise Cancelling headphones without the music (QC35, previously QC15). I've tried many things like brain.fm, focus zen, simply noise, focusmusic.fm - all of them became boring after 2-3 weeks.
I also have a 'debugging' playlist on spotify - when I need less concentration. 'Fast' music without vocals - liquid Drum 'n' Bass, Daft Punk's TRON: Legacy OST. Sometimes i switch to classical music when I'm working on something frustrating - Tchaikovsky symphony 5, Vivaldi Four Seasons, Camille Saint-Saens or Prokofiev Romeo and Juliet.
I like to thing of myself as die hard death metal fan, but I can't code with this music.
If I'm looking for variety, I'll usually listen to Programming Music Mix for Dark Minds: youtube.com/watch?v=KGH26RaM0M4
Sometimes I just want something more like close to white/grey noise, but with a dab of a beat to it so then I'll listen to this, title "CLEANSE Destructive ENERGY From Over-Thinking | Theta Binaural Beats" youtube.com/watch?v=Cpw_Wkm05j8
Both of these channels have other variations on these themes as well.
I like to code with rock (heavy metal, power metal, progressive, rock and roll, Psychedelic) but sometimes when the coding session is intense I switch to electronic. I think the difference relies on the tasks and my mood. I'm big fan of Armin Van Buuren, Tiesto, Paul Van Dyk.
I like to code with rock (heavy metal, power metal, progressive, rock and roll, Psychedelic) but sometimes when the coding session is intense I switch to electronic. I think the difference relies on the tasks and my mood. I'm big fan of Armin Van Buuren, Tiesto, Paul Van Dyk.
I recently discovered instrumental hip-hop, and have found it's the perfect music for day-today coding. It's not too distracting if I need to focus, but keeps me in a groove. A couple of my go-tos would be Jaku by DJ Krush or Endtroducing by DJ Shadow. If I don't need to think too much, and just need to bang out some code, I like something more aggressive, like metal or dubstep.
Depends--monkey work that I don't have to think too much about, Bluegrass and Irish Folk. (I keep it traditional.) If I have to think and problem solve, Space, Drone, Ambient, Steve Roach, Robert Rich, Biosphere, Brian Eno, Aes Dana.
Generally heavy bleepy-bloops, with a bias towards non-vocal. The Glitch Mob are excellent in this respect, though both Mystery Skulls and Studio Killers do a great job of keeping me focused, despite the vocals.
I usually search for some keywords like dubstep, glitch, gaming, epic music (yes, you already guess it: I'm not a metal guy). I really like how the violin sounds, so right now I'm listening to Lindsey Stirling
Edm keeps me in the zone been switching between two Spotify playlists:
open.spotify.com/user/hurtmeplease...
open.spotify.com/user/akhilsagar/p...
I like Orbital. If it has a decent beat and I can ignore what few vocals there are, it'll work. Metal is great, esp Dio-era Sabbath.
I like jazz IRL, but while coding, it demands your attention in ways that just don't work.
Progressive metal, usually. Either instrumental or with near-undecipherable growls--lyrics are distracting. Animals as Leaders, Cloudkicker, Fallujah, The Atlas Moth, Opeth, Vektor. The list could go for days. Sometimes I'll switch it up and listen to video game soundtracks, or occasionally, some podcasts if I'm doing something lighter
In order from most focus needed to least.
Tycho. Always, Tycho.
Instrumental classical and jazz playlists from Google Play Music.
I also don't listen to my own music all the time - we have music playing in the office at low volume and I like the ambient noise. I tend to put my headphones on when I really need to concentrate hard for an extended period of time, or if I find myself getting distracted by what's going on around me.
I listen to instrumentals of christian music especially: youtube.com/watch?v=rvo4P0SfBOw&li...
Recently I'm hooked to some Nigerian gospel mix: youtube.com/watch?v=fHWCE054TEM
If I listen to anything (I work from home pretty much exclusively, so usually not) it has to be something I know so well my brain wonβt be distracted. As a former music major, even classical music can distract me if itβs unfamiliar because my brain begins trying to analyze it, understand its structure, etc. So, I have some go-to albums or pieces that I can listen to while coding because I know them so well, mostly from my college years when I still had time to listen to new music. Here are a few:
In the absence of this, I will sometimes also put on Coffitivity as a sort of hum of noise if Iβm in a noisy environment. coffitivity.com/
Gazelle Twin, Disasterpeace, Andy Stott, Headless Horseman, soundtracks that fall into the "weird electronica/ambient" category (e.g. Arrival, Mr. Robot, Stranger Things, We Know the Devil)βI figured out a while back that I do best working to music that's like... slightly jarring white noise that's minimally distracting but not too soothing.
Either that or really bright upbeat K-pop. I don't really have an in-between, ha ha.
All sorts of music, depending on my mood. Heavy metal, ambient (8bit ambient is pretty cool), classical music...
I find soundtracks to be particularly immersive, especially video game soundtracks - Bastion, Sword and Sworcery and Journey are amongst my favorites.
Movies : [The fight club, Scott Pilgrim, Matrix],
Series : [GoT, Veep, Silicon Valley,Seinfeld, mr Robot, How I meet your mother]
Sports : [Old sport events, soccer, basketball,baseball],
I dont use music to code, because I cant listen songs I dont like, and it doesnt matter the artist, no all the songs are good, so I need to skip the song, I cant do that each 3 min, movies and series works better for me.
It depends. There are days, where I listen to Deep House / Tropical House Mixes and on other days I need something that pushes me more, then it'll be Drum and Bass or some Hardrock.
From my experience, songs without vocals - or songs with vocals that are harder to understand work better for me, since I find it very distracting if I subconsciously listen to the lyrics :)
Currently, I like this playlists:
Either soma.fm or /r/listentothis.
On soma.fm I usually listen to sf1033 at work, which is ambient electronic music mixed with public service (read: police) radio chatter.
Vitamin string quartet is my go-to when programming. They do instrumental covers of popular songs. You get all of the catchy beats/rhythms without any of the distracting words.
I also try to have Coffitivity running as well just to give that ambient noise creative boost.
I am a big fan of LukHash. He's a Polish artist who produces chiptune, fused with electro and dubstep. Everything from his tunes to the album and track names put your brain into coding mode.
Have a look at his site: lukhash.com
You can download his discography at jamendo.com/artist/353807/lukhash
Dragonforce, Helion Prime, Halestorm, Rise Against, if I want something hard-hitting with guitar and drums.
Danny Baranovsky, MDK if I feel a need for an electronic beat.
Or soundtracks from any number of movies and games (seriously, check out the Horizon Zero Dawn OST, it's gorgeous).
Occasionally some Simple Plan, a bit of J-pop, Tokelauan band Te Vaka comes up, and a weird, eclectic mixture of things.
Trance, primarily from DI.fm. I'm a big fan of their Vocal Trance and Epic Trance channels. I'm usually either streaming one of those two channels, or listening to songs I first heard on those channels and added to my collection.
Charlie Parker, Miles Davis and Itamar AssumpΓ§Γ£o.
Any time need to get work done, I have a couple small playlists I set on shuffle & swap every 30 - 60 minutes. A mix over lively Irish jig & some-what funky smooth (metro?) Jazz. It's a strange combo but they blend surprisingly over long periods of time on repeat.
play.google.com/music/playlist/AMa...
Lots of electronic stuff. EDM, trance, drum'n'bass, dubstep. But also some trip hop, soundtracks, sometimes a bit of metal, even some Americana made in Hamburg!: open.spotify.com/album/6OvZVQQZyW6...
Current favourite: open.spotify.com/track/6hYyiunELXz...
Mixed fav playlist
open.spotify.com/user/1128664007/p...
For focussed work I prefer Indie-Game-Sountracks (e.g. C418, Austin Wintory, Disasterpiece), mostly easy and silent stuff.
For easier stuff like styling, markup and handling tickets I listen to podcasts or audio-books.
It depends, I have 2 programming moods, depending on whether there are strong theoretical background to what I have to code or not (for scientific projects at school), I use classical, or a mix of punk/pop/rock/alternative
I've created several playlists, divided by genre, that I listen according to the mood:
Sometimes I also listen to noisli, or genre playlists (liked electroswing recently). I like to vary a lot, I just don't like rap/hip hop and dubstep.
I usually like silence if I can get it. Otherwise if I really need to concentrate I grab coffee and listen to something with bi-neural beats over youtube.
If I'm working on something that doesn't require much concentration or is boring then I listen to "The Magicians" in the background (which I've watched so many times now that it's good background noise.
Depends on the day. Today it's Jimmie Bratcher. :)
Other days it's been some mix of Hendrix, Chickenfoot, Audioslave, Joe Bonnamassa. Some times it's a bit of Ozzy and Metallica. I break out the classical from time to time.
I think the only type of music not represented in my collection is rap. Just doesn't appeal to me.
EDM ..... Daft Punk, Ship Wrek, Tobu, Marshmallow, Jinco, and a ton of other artists. Anything with a dope beat and not too many words to think about. I also have a tendency to listen to the same song on repeat for 12+ hours straight during coding sprints and Hackathons. Thatβs how I get into a flow state. π―π―π―
I just searched on Spotify and found this playlist, which is really cool for now!
I change my preferred playlist/songs/...form time to time so sometimes I hear dubstep, or concentration music and sometimes even no music, but that's not usual
On any given day, a few things may be playing:
I can't believe nobody has mentioned Bach yet. Beethoven. Mozart.
Also a big fan of Radio Dismuke -- davidgagne.net/2017/02/27/radio-di...
And, yes, the Social Network soundtrack is great.
It varies for me. Most anything can work, as long as:
And for your extreme focus needs - Terraforming by Wide Eyes looping over and over and over.
Mostly hans zimmer instrumental. also Braid Soundtrek (Downstream my fav.)
Mainly instrumental only as I don't want to lose my concentration repeating the lyrics.
Different Guitars cover do as well :)
I work out of a home office and tend not to use headphones, maybe I should try that though.
Nonetheless, I usually listen to something in the "Focus" mood of Spotify, trying something new each time that I run through an entire playlist. I do find that I am most focused/productive when listening to songs that do not have lyrics played. One thing that I use to love listening to was the Daft Punk - Tron Legacy album/soundtrack (youtube.com/watch?v=OIM8RxaK5rE)