Be careful. Music engages your creative hemisphere. This doesn't matter much if what you're doing is a simple, repetitive task. But if you're trying to design or program, it might kill your ability to "think outside the box" and invent creative solutions.<p>In my case, listening to music while programming has a very pronounced effect: I will spend 30 minutes crafting a function that will do something. The function will eventually work. And then I will stop listening to music and several minutes later notice that the function was entirely unnecessary, because I can make an architectural or data structure change instead and avoid writing the function altogether. This is something I am unable to do while listening to music.<p>Once I noticed this, I started being careful: I'd listen to music while configuring routers, but not when planning and designing the changes. You get the idea.<p>So, before you start listening to music while working, I'd advise you to check if your brain works the same way (the effect might not be exactly the same for everyone).<p>These days I mostly use natural sounds (the Naturespace app for iOS is great) and good headphones to mute background noise.
I've always found myself to be most productive when listening to repetitive electronic music - it motivates but also doesn't distract you too much.<p>Check out <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUAAVUKk6Fc" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUAAVUKk6Fc</a> - it's rather seedy and excellent in it's own right. Two Lone Swordsmen is okay, too.<p>Another good one is soundtracks - personally I like futuristic stuff (Deus Ex: HR soundtrack, or Mass Effect, or Person of Interest), as they are designed not to detract from the point of focus.<p>Lastly, luvstep/liquid dubstep type things are quite vapid but listen-able.
"... two out of three of people like to listen to music while they work, study or read but it’s difficult to find and manage music that consistently works well for this purpose."<p>Precisely! I like to listen to ambient music when working and constantly trying to find new music for this purpose is quite a hassle.
To concentrate, I use computer game soundtracks (e.g. from Humble Bundle; particularly the one with Eufloria and Waking Mars), and to drown out voices of coworkers whose volume dial got lost in the laundry, text-heavy music in a language I don't understand (alternating between Czech hip-hop and Finnish hummpa).
On the advice of coffitivity, I've turned to human environments for ambient noise. I've been blessed with library access to the BBC sound effects library. <a href="http://www.sound-ideas.com/sound-effects/bbc-41-60-cds-sound-effects-library.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.sound-ideas.com/sound-effects/bbc-41-60-cds-sound...</a> Some are the typical sfx fare, but the latter half is of city streets from around the world.
Wow. This seems like a great and interesting product...<p>But it also seems like the kind of thing any programmer with a decent music collection could throw together as an MVP in a couple of weekends (ignoring music distribution rights, of course).<p>But it's got quite the large team of people behind it -- I'm very curious to see if this can monetize well. It just seems like such a "niche" product -- like it should be just another channel on Pandora, instead of a whole company in its own right. Seeing that margins on music streaming are generally already so low, I wish I could see their monetization strategy...
Once upon a time Red Alert (1), one of first RTS games, won Game Music of the Year award from multiple magazines.<p>I was initially a bit puzzled by it: there's nothing in the music that immediately jumps at you as great. It's nice, it resembles Nine Inch Nails in some places, that's it. But then I noticed I can listen to it for extended lengths of time without problem. It's relatively subtle, and it grows on you. It doesn't resemble the "epic" movie-style soundtracks that are so common these days.<p>And I guess that's the point... ? Game music, especially in replayable games like RTS, need to be good in the long run or it inevitably ends up being turned off in game settings. "Epic" music makes good first impression, and in trailers, but it's short-sighted in the long run.<p>I'm arguing along these lines on Age of Wonders 3 forums (upcoming fantasy TBS game similar to Heroes of Might and Magic), but without success.
Doesn't work for me, i can't concentrate with this music..
I'm not sure if this will even work for a broader range or people because music is so much subjective..<p>For me it totally depends on the mood what music i can work best with, but usually it's some electronic house music where i can concentrate best.
Justin Bieber slowed down by 800% makes for some nice ambient noise.<p>Someone should assemble a collection of lame pop music that sounds awesome when piped through Paul's Stretch.<p>Would listen.
"We are not an entertainment company – we are a productivity tool company. We provide a new additional service you use to get stuff done better."<p>Yes! This is exactly the kind of music service I've been looking for when I'm working.
To each his/her own music needed to concentrate.
The ambient sounds help me to get stuff done in the mornings, as a wake up :)
During long coding-nights I'd rather go for Tech-house livesets that can be found all over soundcloud: <a href="https://soundcloud.com/tags/tech-house" rel="nofollow">https://soundcloud.com/tags/tech-house</a>
I think this is one of the few perks not beeing a English native speaker: I do understand lyrics if I concentrate but otherwise I hear the voice just as another instrument.<p>So I can listen to nearly any music for progrmaming. One of my favourites is Origin - Antithesis. But really everything works.
I'm a big fan of electronic music and the craft of DJing, and my favorite type of music to listen to while coding is UK Bass and its various subgenres. For this, I get my fix from the online "pirate-style" radio station, <a href="http://sub.fm" rel="nofollow">http://sub.fm</a>, which has live DJs and an IRC chatroom where you can chat with the DJ and other fans. It's really great.<p>Note that this type of music is different from more mainstream (and American) dubstep—it has a deeper, more ambient quality to it. Great coding music.<p>Recently, I've also discovered a similar radio station for ambient music: <a href="http://stillstream.com/" rel="nofollow">http://stillstream.com/</a>
<a href="http://www.getworkdonemusic.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.getworkdonemusic.com/</a><p>Link was posted on here a while back but is still the go to solution for me. Pretty well curated list of trance style stuff. Also has a fast and slow option.
I somehow find techno and trans music to be quite distracting, this playlist however is an absolute godsend.
"<a href="http://8tracks.com/tachedroof/the-only-study-mix-you-will-ever-need-pt-1"" rel="nofollow">http://8tracks.com/tachedroof/the-only-study-mix-you-will-ev...</a><p>Comprised of classical music scores from some of the best movies, it creates the perfect ambience for coding, which stays out of your way, yet soothes and calms you while enhancing your productivity. Can't get enough of this mix.
I've had really good luck with certain kinds of minimalist music. In particular, Simeon Ten Holt's "Canto Ostinato" seems to actively help me focus: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDCsOL2vBJc" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDCsOL2vBJc</a>
Most performances are well over an hour, so a nice little side benefit is that you don't have to spend much time picking and changing music.
I like the idea but right now I have no connectivity on this app.<p>So far I've been using raining.fm because chamber music sometimes slows down and quiets so I can hear my co-workers.<p>My goal is to shut out what everyone is saying, but not the fact that they're talking. So far raining.fm has been perfect, but the only small downside is that when you take the headphones off it feels like you stepped out of a space shuttle or something.
I have a "music for programming" spotify playlist for anyone interested: <a href="http://open.spotify.com/user/thoyt/playlist/2AUYxFDAi6MdOPtgOdcCxF" rel="nofollow">http://open.spotify.com/user/thoyt/playlist/2AUYxFDAi6MdOPtg...</a><p>I tend to think I do my best work in silence, but for repetitive or boring tasks it's great to have a lovely soundtrack.
Interesting. I've seen a few similar submissions here that play ambient/focus music. To me, a product or service like this has to provide enough goodies to sway me from the convenience of a simple Spotify playlist, seeing as that is the go-to choice for many.<p>If you can strike a balance between creating helpful productivity customization and keeping it simple, something like this could really takeoff.
I noticed a while ago that some music needs active listening[1], while other kinds[2] don't distract me.<p>1 - Rock, various kinds of progressive music, anything with nontrivial melody<p>2 - ambient, more monotonous music, music with uniform volume<p>I'd love to say I've started dividing my music collection according to this criteria - but I've been too lazy so far. Sorry about that. I'll try once again.
Have been using this for about two months now. Never really listened to music while working before, for some reason it always ended up distracting me (the kind of music I like anyway).<p>But with this, I can actually concentrate just fine. Can't really tell if it helps, but at least it's nice music that doesn't get in the way, good enough for me :)
In spotify, the "Exam Study Classical Music…" playlist is good to know: <a href="http://open.spotify.com/user/127564522/playlist/0CwzkFXVbEK6VJO3Rzo7lX" rel="nofollow">http://open.spotify.com/user/127564522/playlist/0CwzkFXVbEK6...</a>
It's different for everyone and you should try out different things. For me, a 2 disc collection of Willie Nelson helps the most since it is a moderate tempo and I have heard it so many times that it is not distracting. Also, when the 2 CDs are done, I know that I should stand up and stretch.
This is a great little service. I have a "concentrate" playlist in spotify that tries to fill this need with classical music, but I listen to it in the background so much that even with a fairly long playlist I get tired of hearing the same songs. Will definitely be trying this out.
I like listening to rain or even white (or pink or brown) noise:<p><a href="http://www.rainymood.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.rainymood.com/</a><p><a href="http://whitenoisemeditation.bandcamp.com/" rel="nofollow">http://whitenoisemeditation.bandcamp.com/</a>
A really nice site for pink noise (and fans, traffic, babbling, airplane cabins, waterfalls, rivers) is <a href="http://mynoise.net/noiseMachines.php" rel="nofollow">http://mynoise.net/noiseMachines.php</a><p>The creator is a signal processing engineer.
I've realized that it doesn't matter so much what I listen to but rather how much. The more often I hear a song / album whilst working the better it helps me to focus. For a while now this has been pink floyds pulse concert from 1994.
For me it's all about headphones with a good bass response and a bit of deep dubstep :)
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/deepervibrations" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/deepervibrations</a>
I'm deeply in love with Zoe Keating's work. She's a cellist who composes and records her own music, building compositions using a looper. It's beautiful stuff, and I find it perfect for coding.
This works great for me if not used too frequently:
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0EgzJ0KGxg" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0EgzJ0KGxg</a><p>Wish there was a 8 hour version!
I use this channel <a href="http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCugb_j1Et8HRUpGiboLsPCw" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCugb_j1Et8HRUpGiboLsPCw</a>
Coffitivity works well for me, it's not music, it's ambient noise <a href="http://www.coffitivity.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.coffitivity.com/</a>
I'm a little confused (though the service looks nice and works well). Do people not have their own music they prefer to listen to, or a dozen other ways to stream customized channels?
I'd like to recommend BlueMars as well, <a href="http://bluemars.org/" rel="nofollow">http://bluemars.org/</a><p>Although I wish the guy running it would add more music.
I feel bad for people who can't tolerate this sort of music but wordless energetic-yet-repetitive techno/trance/dubstep/etc seems to work great for me
The service looks awesome, will definitely be trying it out.<p>Also I love how the comments on this post have provided a plethora of new places to find music. Thanks everyone.
The best sound to help me concentrate would be some sort of ultrasonic repellent to keep people out of my office (unless absolutely necessary, of course!)
I was just testing the site like at 10:00AM and I just realize that I have been listening and coding with the "Up Tempo" station for about 40 min.<p>This is nice.
The mixes from Non-Collective are pretty good too.<p><a href="http://noncollective.com/" rel="nofollow">http://noncollective.com/</a>