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Music or No music while coding?

Madza on June 20, 2020

As I've noticed, some devs see music as a distraction and absolutely hate it, while some won't write a single line of code without headphones on ears.

Which type of person are you and could you please elaborate a bit on your reasons behind it?

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Brian Hanna

It depends on the cognitive load of the task at hand. If it's low, I'll generally listen to a podcast or watch a video on a second screen. If it's something that needs my undivided attention, I'll put on music in my noise cancelling headphones. Usually it's metal without lyrics, or with growls where I can't pick out words. It helps me drown out distractions

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Ekansh Kothiyal

Definently music FTW!
I generally have one of the chill lofi or classic jazz playlists on spotify while I work. I personally can't work or focus when the music has vocals/lyrics in it.

But if I have to really get into "the zone" while coding which requires long periods of undivided attention, I go for the binaural beats. You have four different types depending on the result you are looking for like for high intense concentration or different frequncies when you want to relax or even for deep sleep.

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George

I've gone through a few things while working, music for me works sometimes however whenever I get to a song that I'm "not in the mood" for I find myself taking time out to skip it or change playlist. I've tried netflix/prime video for it as well watching something that I don't really have to pay attention to, still found myself paying attention to it.

Most recently I've been listening to rain ASMR, not really sure what it is just find it really relaxing with no distractions and helps me work more efficiently than music.

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Carlos Arredondo

Music. Mostly because it drowns out all the noise around me and allows me to focus better. I do get distracted by conversations or people moving around me. A good pair of noise cancelling headphones and some music with no lyrics and I can work for hours.

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spiritupbro

no music i rather be silent make me focused

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stalha97

No music for me. I start coding with background music but after few minutes I find it very distracting and have to turn it off.

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Saurabh Sharma

No music, I cant focus on two things at once.

I rarely listen while refactoring

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james-cole2015

No music for me.. I’m usually listening to space white noise on YouTube - helps me focus on what I’m doing and tune out other noise around me

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Rafael Medeiros • Edited

Before noise canceling headphones, with music which I knew by heart, order by album and year. Those ones can't steal much processing power like a random playlist would as long as they keep predictable in every channel.

Then, noise canceling headphones, anti-social t-shirt and a reputation for being rude when interrupted FTW;

But now with quarantine where I have a whole room to myself, a shut door will suffice. Never want to leave home office again. \o/

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Michał Gibas

Generally when I need to really focus on some task that requires a lot of attention, I work with quiet lofi, nature sounds, jazz or classical music. Sometimes I code without any music at all. Often when I start my personal projects and I need to create/generate the boilerplate code and clean it up, I listen to rock or techno, because it doesn't require so much of my attention. It all really depends on my mood and the complexity of a given task.

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Jacob Colborn

I always use music because it helps me focus so much better. The genre of music changes with the mood, though. Most of the time it is some sort of electronic music but will progress to rock or hip-hop if I am just feeling it.

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cubiclesocial

No music for me. I can generally focus just fine even when unusual stuff is happening as long as it isn't music. The quieter it is, the better. I will occasionally throw on headphones not to play music but to drown out some environmental chatter if I really need to focus.

Probably depends entirely on the person and whether or not they grew up listening to music while studying for school.

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Zalán

For me this heavily depends on the music. For example I can listen to jazz without a problem but I cannot even write more than two lines while listening to rock or metal.

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Hamza Anis

Depends on the mood.

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Kelvin Liang

I like no lyric music to stay focus when coding. But silence does help when watching tutorials or books.

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Jan Wedel

I only listen to music (without lyrics, Jazz mostly) when there is some other noise that distracts me while coding (e.g. some drilling, colleague having loud conversation etc).

Otherwise, I prefer silence. As a musician, I tend to think about the music I listen to and my thoughts drift away from the code. And, I hate headphone. After a day wearing headphones, my ears and my head aches...

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GSPTeck

I listen to a playlist in loop with al kinds of genres. I see why people say it should be avoided: I catch myself singing along sometimes lol. But I preferr music with lyrics over no lyrics. I would prefer to not listen at all at that point.

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Htoo Aung

Sometime music, sometime no music. bro.

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/*Sharkie*/

I need music to focus at all, sitting in silence is sooo much more distracting. And this applies to everything I do, if there's not music/noise/something in the background I get antsy and distracted from whatever I'm doing.

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Ricardo Münch

Music!!! And almost always the same playlist, it seems to me that my brain made an association between some playlists and working, so when I sit down and put certain music on I kinda go into production mode haha

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Albir Tarsha

I could see using music to set a mood if I were creating something artful. However during problem solving or any deep thinking task I believe that music interferes with maximum productivity.

I quit music during studying in college. I was taking a test and I noticed that while I was testing I would hear the music that I studied with. My conclusion was that my brain was taking in all of the sensory information and storing it together even though there was no logical reason to associate my studies with what I was listening to.

The sense of hearing wires deep into the brain. So I don't think you can truly block out sounds even though it may seem like you can. The information in the music is not directly streaming to /dev/null . You are processing it. Otherwise there would be no difference in listening to music while coding, and in that case you would not feel a desire to listen to music while coding. I am quite certain that coding in silence is most effective and efficient.

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Luis Chavez

Music don't work to me. Because I needed to change a song that I don't like from a playlist. Maybe if I put more effort creating a perfect playlist with all my favorite songs It can work.

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Negru Paul
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Madza • Edited

I'm listening to it when I'm doing my workouts :)

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Sean

I'm a music guy, it helps me unwind so I can focus on the task at hand instead of other things I'm thinking about, or other people.

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Madza • Edited

Hahah, actually been listening to Go this evening and also a lot of Righteous couple weeks ago xdd

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Bernard Baker • Edited

Some sort of background noise is needed. Music of some sort is usually playing while I work.

I'm a people person, love catching up between features.

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PenAndPapers

Depends on the mood. I do listen into country, rock and blues music especially when I cant get my code to work.

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Thomas Bnt

Always music !

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Beez Fedia

It depends what I'm working on. If I need to focus hard, music helps. Music without words though someone like Nils Frahm or Hans Zimmer. Cinematic music seems to make me focus for longer.

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Alex

Music 🎶

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Jaime

Music help me to focus and make "Relaxing code"=Coding slower but Better. No music...fast fingers :S

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Glen Young

Generally not music, but I do play thunder and lightening sounds. A bit of background noise is helpful.

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Mukunda Johnson

Music is my fidget cube.

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Medam Mahesh

Changes from time to time. If I am doing a boring task that I hate to do, I just play a Jazz playlist. When the work is important and hard, I don't take any chances

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Dallas DeGrendel

I like Trip Hop for coding. Lyrics pull my focus.

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ThatNaturall

Really depends on the type of music

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Jon Randy 🎖️

Depends on the job in hand. Generally prefer music, but if intense brainpower is required then switch it off

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Valorm

Music because it helps me focus so much better. Any genre of music puts me in the mood. Most of the time hip-hop and pop.

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Jean-Franck

Music helps me to focus while I'm coding. I like to listen metal, synthwave, lofi or video game OSTs. But I don't listen podcasts while I'm coding since it distract me to follow it...

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Alexander Oguejiofor

Definitely music. New age or rap.

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Strahinja Babić

I mostly go with Music, even if it gets stressy when the code doesn't work music takes my mind off it, makes me calm and to finish the job :)

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ADCAdesigns • Edited

Depending on the mood. But most of the time no music. If I go with music mostly jazz instrumental.