Music to Let you Concentrate

Music to Let you Concentrate(focusatwill.com)

335 points by biswajitsharma 12 years ago | 186 comments

jwr 12 years ago |

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.

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.

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.

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).

These days I mostly use natural sounds (the Naturespace app for iOS is great) and good headphones to mute background noise.

kps 12 years ago | |

I prefer silence, but since the open-plan fad holds sway here, I've found rain to be the most effective substitute. The best rain track I've found so far is 57 at http://archive.org/details/Sounds_of_Nature_Collection

moultano 12 years ago | | |

Check out gordon hempton: http://soundtracker.com/ He makes fantastic binaural nature recordings. The advantage of binaural recordings is that they have an amazing feeling of "space" so that you forget that you are wearing headphones and that you aren't sitting in a forest. I've made some of my own as well. https://soundcloud.com/moultano

kamaal 12 years ago | | |

When exposed to noise for prolonged periods of time, sometime in the middle noise becomes silence. You don't feel there is noise, unless some turns it off or increases/decreases a little.

Its called conditioning the mind.

Its a bit like the right pane in eclipse, In years I never remember using it even once, yet its absence will irritate me.

Ever get that feeling sometimes when you are surrounded by people in a noisy place and yet after sometime sort of don't even feel that is disturbance.

saidajigumi 12 years ago | | |

Thanks for posting this. I needed a reminder of the great stuff lurking in the Internet Archive's "stacks".

justin66 12 years ago | | |

This is super cool. Thank you! I have to admit I don't get the joke about crickets...

jmah 12 years ago | | |

There are some great hour-long ambient recordings at http://whitenoisemp3s.com

karthikv 12 years ago | | |

This is a fantastic collection. Thanks for sharing this!

shrikant 12 years ago | |

I strongly agree with this. Even if it's only ambient music (mentioned here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5872706), I still use it only for situations involving mundane things like documentation. Otherwise I greatly prefer silence.

My SO though, is exactly the opposite. She just can't get any work done in silence, and needs relatively fast music with vocals. Although it does need to be music that she's already familiar with, otherwise she gets distracted by having to listen to the lyrics.

niels_olson 12 years ago | | |

I absolutely can't handle lyrics. I think you're right. Those of us who remember using gopher protocol probably grew up listening to radio hits even if we bought the tape or CD, so it was known and in its own way monotonous. But served the purpose of drowning out my brothers or roommate.

Now I don't own a TV and rarely listen to radio, and my tastes have dramasticly broadened, so I almost never listen to the same song more than a handful of times. I find lyrics are a show stopper. Even overly ambitious classical, jazz, electronica trips me up.

Here's a playlist I've been listening to for a while, seeded by, of all things, gopro surf videos, which has become my go-to study set, usually fed in with Bose QC-15s

http://open.spotify.com/user/grep2grok/playlist/1NcLBwixEKqQ...

dhimes 12 years ago | | |

For me, 'white noise' - type sounds- sounds of rainfall, waves, etc. [1]- help me focus. I usually work with nothing, bu one day when working in a noisy environment I discovered that putting headphones on and listening to 'sound of nature' tracks worked very well. So well, in fact, that now when I get stuck or am just having trouble focusing for any reason I do this.

[1] I think this is called 'brown noise' these days.

porker 12 years ago | | |

> I still use it only for situations involving mundane things like documentation.

I'm sorry, documentation requires less concentration?

I find (I hypothesize) that because I'm doing something which balances the hemispheres more (and requires me to get inside the head of my user) music doesn't work for documentation, it's too distracting. Programming yes, ambient works well, but writing...

throwaway183 12 years ago | |

Music engages your creative hemisphere.

Do you have a source for this?

sgift 12 years ago | | |

Peopleware, Page 78, "Creative Space":

"During the 1960s, researchers at Cornell University conducted a series of tests on the effects of working with music. They polled a group of computer science students and divided the students into two groups, those who liked to have music in the background while they worked (studied) and those who did not. Then they put half of each group together in a silent room, and the other half of each group in a different room equipped with earphones and a musical selection.Participants in both rooms were given a Fortran programming problem to work out from specification. To no one's surprise, participants in the two rooms performed about the same in speed and accuracy of programming. As any kid who does his arithmetic homework with the music on knows, the part of the brain required for arithmetic and related logic is unbothered by music —there's another brain center that listens to the music. The Cornell experiment, however, contained a hidden wild card. The specification required that an output data stream be formed through a series of manipulations on numbers in the input data stream. For example, participants had to shift each number two digits to the left and then divide by one hundred and so on, perhaps completing a dozen operations in total. Although the specification never said it, the net effect of all the operations was that each output number was necessarily equal to its input number. Some people realized this and others did not. Of those who figured it out, the overwhelming majority came from the quiet room."

(I hope this still counts as fair-use)

The whole part "Creative Space" is longer than my excerpt, so if you have access to Peopleware I recommend reading all of it.

jwr 12 years ago | | |

This precise statement is easily verified (just google it). But I thought I had a source for the "listening to music hampers your creative ability" statement, and I can't seem to find it.

You could reason that if you engage the brain with something, then it cannot do another thing at the same time. So if you engage the areas responsible for creative thought processes, these areas will not be available for other tasks.

Obviously this might not be the same for everyone, I'm just cautioning people and urging everyone to do some testing.

Another example is that many people (including myself) can't dictate, for the same reasons. In my case, whenever I use dictation, I later go back and re-read what I wrote and it is always disappointing. It seems the areas of my brain that process speech are also needed to form thoughts into sentences and I just can't do both well.

antimagic 12 years ago | |

For me, the key is to not listen to new music whilst trying to do creative work. If I'm listening to an album that I have been listening to for the last 6 months, it can be the perfect foil to the incredibly noisy open plan offices I have worked in for the last 15 years of my career (managers, for goodness sake please stop making open plan offices!)

Nothing beats the overriding hum of a server room though - Pure white noise at loud enough volumes that you can't talk easily with other people. Stick some ear plugs in to dampen the volume a little, and you're set to go.

lampe3 12 years ago | |

my brian works the other way around: i cant be creative in silence. I need to listen to music but the music has to be without vocals. if there are vocals that i understand i to much focus on the vocals.

I talked about some other Coders about that. About 20 People. The strange thing was that 7 need music that pump them up like rock or something like that. 7 need relaxing/chillout music( iam in that group) and 6 of them need silence.

So i think there is no general way of what you can listen or not to.

ctdonath 12 years ago | |

Depends on the music.

Most pop or classical music demands your attention; you'll pay good money to go to a concert where you sit in a chair and pay attention for a prolonged period. Dance/trance/techno provides high energy as a driver of activity, not a focus; you'll go to an event (dance) to focus on the activity, with the music as background motivation. Hence I listen to trance podcasts, getting the push and occupying a busy-but-unrelated-to-programming part of my brain, while also drowning out background noise (factory, sales guy on phone at next desk, ...).

kunai 12 years ago | |

I think it depends on the type of music you listen to. For example, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uCL1_YcRwk is always able to get me to stop thinking about other things and concentrate on the task at hand. I notice I do much, much better on exams when I listen to music (esp. jazz) while I'm studying; perhaps it blocks out all other thoughts, focusing my attention on the core material that is really required for maximum productivity and retention.

WA 12 years ago | |

That is a very interesting comment. I think my brain works similarly. I will pay more attention to that.

coldtea 12 years ago | |

>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.

Studies might suggest so, but irl programmings have been creating very cool stuff with music blazing from the speakers.

From Notch to JZW.

Ensorceled 12 years ago | |

I've noticed the same effect but kind of the other way around. When I'm doing programming that requires thinking outside the box and creativity, music is ANNOYING and disruptive.

I love listening to music while pixel juggling UI's or fixing bugs but as soon as I start working on a scheduling algorithm or something similar I have to turn the music off.

kvcrawford 12 years ago | |

Personally, I frequently switch between music and silence. Putting on some music stokes my motivation and productivity, getting me started on a task. As soon as I hit a problem that requires more brainpower, I hit pause to let myself think—just like turning down the music in your car so you can parallel park.

methodin 12 years ago | |

I am curious why something engaging your creative brain would prevent you from being creative - I would think it would do the opposite? *edit: Did you mean to say it "can kill your ability to think outside the box"?

narcissus 12 years ago | | |

I presume the idea is that with music engaging that portion of the brain, it's not able to work on other things that require creativity. It's essentially burning cycles that could be used for something else (and I know that's a horrible analogy).

Kind of like how (for me, at least!) it's nearly impossible to effectively read and have a conversation at the same time as they are using the same language part?

biswajitsharma 12 years ago | |

If this is true, this is a brilliant comment!

antihero 12 years ago |

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.

Check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUAAVUKk6Fc - it's rather seedy and excellent in it's own right. Two Lone Swordsmen is okay, too.

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.

Lastly, luvstep/liquid dubstep type things are quite vapid but listen-able.

tripzilch 12 years ago | |

> 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.

Yup, goa-trance for me :)

Music with a lot of lyrics is most distracting to me, though I've found it also depends on the particular way the vocals are mixed/mastered, on some albums they're much harder to ignore than others. Lyrics in my native tongue (Dutch) are hardest to ignore, but even music in a foreign language I don't understand at all (say, the xxx rottweiler hundar, Icelandic hiphop) is more distracting than something (almost) purely instrumental.

angersock 12 years ago | | |

If you like goa and whatnot, these folks have some good free tracks scattered across different electronic genres:

http://www.ektoplazm.com/

pepr 12 years ago |

"... 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."

Precisely! I like to listen to ambient music when working and constantly trying to find new music for this purpose is quite a hassle.

limmeau 12 years ago |

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).

lloeki 12 years ago | |

I regularly the Fez soundtrack by Disasterpeace, and musicforprogramming();[0] has quite a few ones (esp. 06 and 08) that "just work" with my brain and make me zoom right into the zone in seconds. Also, This Binary Universe by BT.

[0]: http://musicforprogramming.net/?c=manifesto

DiabloD3 12 years ago | | |

Yay for musicforprogramming. I listen to their mixes quite frequently.

I wish they'd do a 24 hour mix that omitts vocals and sharp sounds altogether, that'd pretty much be the best ambient music I could imagine.

rmrfrmrf 12 years ago | |

Agreed. (The Sims 1 Build Mode Tracks/Skyrim OST/Skyrim Atmospheres CD) + RainyMood. Done and Done.

Nzen 12 years ago |

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. http://www.sound-ideas.com/sound-effects/bbc-41-60-cds-sound... Some are the typical sfx fare, but the latter half is of city streets from around the world.

jimbosis 12 years ago | |

SoundTransit http://turbulence.org/soundtransit/index.html has interesting field recordings all under the CC BY 2.0 license. If you "Book a Transit," it compiles an mp3 of several different field recordings, taking you from city to city. You can also search the database or just browse the collection.

limmeau 12 years ago | | |

The flight booking metaphor makes it very inviting to play around. Thanks for sharing.

(Now if I could get Firefox for Android to download a .mp3 link to local SD card...)

limmeau 12 years ago | |

Have you tried Boodler, a soundscape generator?

http://boodler.org/

soitgoes 12 years ago |

Nice service. When I'm coding Trance, mainly Armin van Buuren, works best for me.

jwdunne 12 years ago | |

Agreed and same. I have a playlist on my phone for just trance which gets listened to whenever I'm working or even exercising.

I noticed something really interesting - your pace adjusts to the beat. For example, I took my headphones off to take a call and I was in awe at the speed of the beat, which only 2 minutes ago sounded fairly regular and not as fast.

jlengrand 12 years ago | | |

Agreed.

When I was working for my math exams, having to learn dozens of demonstrations by heart, I have a playlist composed of 6 hours of remixes of satisfaction, by Benni Benassi. Amazing how 6 hours can look like 30 minutes when you listen to the same, repititive music :).

ek 12 years ago | |

Yup, trance and house for me, definitely. Trance and house are like productivity crack. I listen to trance when I'm working and house when I'm working out.

niels 12 years ago | |

Yep, Trance works for me as well. I use di.fm/trance.

gizzlon 12 years ago | |

Same here, house is nice as well. You can fine a lot of 2 hours mixes on soundcloud as well as a state of trance on spotify

crazygringo 12 years ago |

Wow. This seems like a great and interesting product...

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).

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...

p0nce 12 years ago |

I use 25-min "pomodoro" mixes from there http://tech.no.com/

boothead 12 years ago | |

Nice, thanks for sharing!

p0nce 12 years ago | | |

Also progressive house mixes from https://soundcloud.com/cid-inc and https://soundcloud.com/mystic-mind

b0rsuk 12 years ago |

Once upon a time Red Alert (1), one of first RTS games, won Game Music of the Year award from multiple magazines.

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.

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.

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.

pyre 12 years ago | |

Slight off-topic, but reminded me of this:

http://dustincurtis.com/how-mr-q-manufactured-emotion.html

angersock 12 years ago | |

The SimCity4 soundtrack is really awesome for just hacking away at things. I think that the Red Alert soundtrack is one of the best "get shit done" albums I've had in my box for a while, even with the amazingly cheesy synths and 90s style. The Descent and System Shock 2 soundtracks were very much in this vein (SS1 was procedurally generated, so it's hit or miss).

I think the big trick is that game music is meant to get you thinking and active, but not distract you.

b0rsuk 12 years ago | | |

Red Alert 1 amazingly cheesy ? Really ?

Frank Klepacki - "Mechanical Man" (C&C 1) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ap6QaDBZJwM

C&C 1 tracks had vocals unit they figured out it conflicted with the announcer.

buster 12 years ago |

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..

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.

michaelgrafl 12 years ago |

Justin Bieber slowed down by 800% makes for some nice ambient noise.

Someone should assemble a collection of lame pop music that sounds awesome when piped through Paul's Stretch.

Would listen.

epsylon 12 years ago | |

For the lazy, here's the song mentioned: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QspuCt1FM9M

This was created using paulstretch [1], a program to transform normal audio using extreme stretches. I've tried it on a few songs I liked and it does really an excellent jobs of creating extremely fluid ambiances.

The triple parentheses on the first video is a nod to Sunn O))) [2], an American drone / noise / ambient metal band which features super long songs with droning saturated guitars (playing on vintage cranked up to 11 Sunn Model T amps) and usually no drums. One of my favorite songs from them and perhaps one of the best introduction to their music for the non-initiated is titled Alice [3], though perhaps it's not as representative of their music as, say, Ra at Dusk [4]. (Sunn O))) was heavily influenced by the pioneer drone metal band Earth, and their mindblowing album Earth²: special low frequency version [5]).

[1] http://hypermammut.sourceforge.net/paulstretch

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunn_%28band%29

[3] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8Djdi6z0m8

[4] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buA_xDQQg74

[5] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ls1OYn_xGzM

lolcraft 12 years ago | |

Minor detail someone might not know: a part of the Inception soundtrack (which is also great ambient) was made with that technique. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVkQ0C4qDvM

Those who have seen the movie and its plot device will know why this is a brilliant idea on so many levels.

cududa 12 years ago | |

Just curious - what is your disdain for pop music?

jechen 12 years ago |

"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."

Yes! This is exactly the kind of music service I've been looking for when I'm working.

jrnkntl 12 years ago |

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: https://soundcloud.com/tags/tech-house

brusch 12 years ago |

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.

So I can listen to nearly any music for progrmaming. One of my favourites is Origin - Antithesis. But really everything works.

kvcrawford 12 years ago |

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, http://sub.fm, which has live DJs and an IRC chatroom where you can chat with the DJ and other fans. It's really great.

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.

Recently, I've also discovered a similar radio station for ambient music: http://stillstream.com/

frankydp 12 years ago |

http://www.getworkdonemusic.com/

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.

khalidmbajwa 12 years ago |

I somehow find techno and trans music to be quite distracting, this playlist however is an absolute godsend. "http://8tracks.com/tachedroof/the-only-study-mix-you-will-ev...

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.

philbarr 12 years ago | |

You mean: http://8tracks.com/tachedroof/the-only-study-mix-you-will-ev...

The quote got included in your link

ashutoshm 12 years ago |

Yo-Yo Ma - Bach, Cello Suites https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHzfD6XLK7Q

eggsyntax 12 years ago |

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: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDCsOL2vBJc 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.

INTPenis 12 years ago |

I like the idea but right now I have no connectivity on this app.

So far I've been using raining.fm because chamber music sometimes slows down and quiets so I can hear my co-workers.

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.

hoytie 12 years ago |

I have a "music for programming" spotify playlist for anyone interested: http://open.spotify.com/user/thoyt/playlist/2AUYxFDAi6MdOPtg...

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.

cfolgar 12 years ago |

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.

If you can strike a balance between creating helpful productivity customization and keeping it simple, something like this could really takeoff.

b0rsuk 12 years ago |

I noticed a while ago that some music needs active listening[1], while other kinds[2] don't distract me.

1 - Rock, various kinds of progressive music, anything with nontrivial melody

2 - ambient, more monotonous music, music with uniform volume

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.

fhd2 12 years ago |

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).

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 :)

kaonashi 12 years ago |

I need something that my brain isn't going to try to follow along with, like late 60's/early 70's jazz.

QuantumGood 12 years ago |

In spotify, the "Exam Study Classical Music…" playlist is good to know: http://open.spotify.com/user/127564522/playlist/0CwzkFXVbEK6...

brixon 12 years ago |

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.

kcorbitt 12 years ago |

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.

tdicola 12 years ago |

For concentrating, I'm a big fan of Brian Eno's ambient albums like Ambient 1: Music for Airports.

cpeterso 12 years ago |

I like listening to rain or even white (or pink or brown) noise:

http://www.rainymood.com/

http://whitenoisemeditation.bandcamp.com/

mellotron 12 years ago |

Boards of Canada pandora, gradually tuned for minor key ambient electronica.

That's my work soundtrack of choice.

azsromej 12 years ago |

A really nice site for pink noise (and fans, traffic, babbling, airplane cabins, waterfalls, rivers) is http://mynoise.net/noiseMachines.php

The creator is a signal processing engineer.

jcfrei 12 years ago |

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.

georgemcbay 12 years ago | |

For me, songs without lyrics work best, doesn't matter if it is classical or instrumental techno like Nine Inch Nail's "Ghosts". Songs with vocals that I've heard a lot are better than songs with vocals that I've never heard before, presumably because my brain isn't trying as hard to process the words as it would be if I hadn't heard them as much... but songs with no vocals at all are the best for focus, IME.

deepvibrations 12 years ago |

For me it's all about headphones with a good bass response and a bit of deep dubstep :) http://www.youtube.com/deepervibrations

5555624 12 years ago |

I tend to go with 12 Girls Band or movie soundtracks (Morricone, Horner, Williams).

iMark 12 years ago |

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.

oceanician 12 years ago |

This works great for me if not used too frequently: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0EgzJ0KGxg

Wish there was a 8 hour version!

yoshgoodman 12 years ago |

I use this channel http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCugb_j1Et8HRUpGiboLsPCw

antoncohen 12 years ago |

Coffitivity works well for me, it's not music, it's ambient noise http://www.coffitivity.com/

swah 12 years ago | |

But... isn't this exactly like the sound I'm trying to block (coworkers talking!) ? :)

[edit] I just read on their page that their theory is "It's pretty hard to be creative in a quiet space". So while I like the "hotel lobbby" feel for some kinds of work, I disagree that silence is bad.

OTOH, this might work for me because I can't parse engilsh that well.

antoncohen 12 years ago | | |

No, coworkers walking is distracting because I can hear and understand what they are saying. My mind gets interested and will try to listen. For me it's the same with music that has pronounced lyrics.

akhilravidas 12 years ago | |

+1 for coffitivity, I never imagined that a noise like this will help me focus until I started using it a few months back

igravious 12 years ago | |

This made me fall asleep.

devindotcom 12 years ago |

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?

DiabloD3 12 years ago |

I'd like to recommend BlueMars as well, http://bluemars.org/

Although I wish the guy running it would add more music.

lectrick 12 years ago |

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

codereflection 12 years ago |

The service looks awesome, will definitely be trying it out.

Also I love how the comments on this post have provided a plethora of new places to find music. Thanks everyone.

ChikkaChiChi 12 years ago |

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!)

rob-alarcon 12 years ago |

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.

This is nice.

orthecreedence 12 years ago |

I like DroneZone from SomaFM. It's my go to music for loud neighbors or lots of distracting noise. Very calming and allows me to concentrate.

dbcooper 12 years ago |

The mixes from Non-Collective are pretty good too.

http://noncollective.com/

jsingleton 12 years ago |

http://www.radioparadise.com is pretty good for easy listening

ff10 12 years ago |

I regularly go with Autechre "Perlence Subrange 6-36", Alva Noto's Xerox Vol. 1, Haliod Copies, Oval - "Systemisch"

JoshTriplett 12 years ago |

"It appears you have no connectivity."

wwwhizz 12 years ago | |

I presume you are blocking Flash.

Sujan 12 years ago | | |

Nah, happens quite a lot after some time of play.

larrykubin 12 years ago |

Explosions in the Sky is my go to for this.

scotty79 12 years ago |

I think that music just tricks my brain into thinking that what I'm doing is cool though it almost never is.

nreece 12 years ago |

The app layout is responsive and looks slick too. What framework (if any) did you use to build the UI?

biswajitsharma 12 years ago | |

Apologies, Just in case there has been any confusion. I just came across the Service, Liked it, Shared it here.

I am not involved in developing this service.

I liked the fact that, there is a lot of science that has gone behind it.

gburnett 12 years ago |

Thanks for posting this. Silence is preferable to music but music is preferable to other voices.

healsjnr1 12 years ago |

Board of Canada. Need I say more?

amouat 12 years ago | |

An extra s would be nice - Boards of Canada ;)

Nice to hear a Scottish band getting a shout though.

partomniscient 12 years ago | | |

Indeed. For those that aren't aware, their new album just came out a few days ago as well.

theclothesthief 12 years ago |

Nice app but is the favicon a red tooth? This is bugging me more than it should.

thezilch 12 years ago | |

No, https://www.focusatwill.com/favicon.ico

adamors 12 years ago |

Noise, modal jazz. Anything with a simple pattern is distracting.

jafaku 12 years ago |

Doesn't work. I click on the buttons and nothing happens.

revorad 12 years ago |

Loving the Up Tempo channel this morning. Nice work.

hdra 12 years ago |

Dubstep and trance music usually do the job for me

vixen99 12 years ago |

From Serse? I thought it was Handel.

gazrogers 12 years ago | |

It is Handel. The Opera is Serse or Xerxes.

Aqueous 12 years ago |

Music to let you concatenate.

dakimov 12 years ago |

I did not get how they handle intellectual property.