Thanks for the article! I deeply love classical music and listen abundantly to it. When I code, I prefer not to be distracted by the pathos of some Romantic or late Romantic composers - so I would rather not listen to Brahms, Bruckner or Mahler. But I can really enjoy coding while listening to Beethoven, maybe it's the optimism and energy spreading from Beethoven's music that's contagious. Yes, for me coding takes a lot of mental energy and...optimism. You need to be resilient and in a way "heroic" to win over tests that keep failing and you don't know why! :)
So, for me, the best music I can listen to while coding is positive, vibrant, energetic music that doesnt have much pathos in it.
Baroque music, particularly Bach and his family can increase productivity, at least for me. Its rythm, repetition and "arithmetic" quality makes it very suitable for coding, for my tastes. But I cannot listen to Vivaldi, for instance, because there is a melancholy and a nostalgic beauty in this music, that makes me stop coding and just listen to it. After all, listening to music is an aesthetic activity - meaning by that, an activity that wakens your senses up. You just need to find the music that wakens the right senses for what you are doing. A certain type of classical music wakens too many senses up, so to say and it was intended to do so. If you need courage and a great motivation booster, well, probably Beethoven and Wagner are right for you. If you need patience and order, then it's Bach or Händel or even some symphonies or concertos by Haydn and Mozart. Contemporary music is too disruptive to listen while working, IMHO, and with a reason! There is normally a certain amount of protest or eversion to normal aesthetic tastes in contemporary music, that does not make it suitable for working, any work, at all.
Interesting, how about the music of Philip Glass - "music with repetitive structures"? I feel that minimalism works quite well while still being contemporary.
I made a playlist recently with some more music for this purpose which includes some contemporary stuff and a bit of jazz:
ah yes sure! In the end, while it can be generally true that music with repetitive structures can help productivity, choosing one or the other composer with this feature is still a very personal matter. I have listened to some Philip Glass' work, but it does not have that productivity effect on me, for instance...Jazz unfortunately neither :)))
I guess I still need a minimum of variation, otherwise I am distracted by obsessive repetition.
I will check Dobrinka Tabakova, thanks!!
For further actions, you may consider blocking this person and/or reporting abuse
We're a place where coders share, stay up-to-date and grow their careers.
Thanks for the article! I deeply love classical music and listen abundantly to it. When I code, I prefer not to be distracted by the pathos of some Romantic or late Romantic composers - so I would rather not listen to Brahms, Bruckner or Mahler. But I can really enjoy coding while listening to Beethoven, maybe it's the optimism and energy spreading from Beethoven's music that's contagious. Yes, for me coding takes a lot of mental energy and...optimism. You need to be resilient and in a way "heroic" to win over tests that keep failing and you don't know why! :)
So, for me, the best music I can listen to while coding is positive, vibrant, energetic music that doesnt have much pathos in it.
Baroque music, particularly Bach and his family can increase productivity, at least for me. Its rythm, repetition and "arithmetic" quality makes it very suitable for coding, for my tastes. But I cannot listen to Vivaldi, for instance, because there is a melancholy and a nostalgic beauty in this music, that makes me stop coding and just listen to it. After all, listening to music is an aesthetic activity - meaning by that, an activity that wakens your senses up. You just need to find the music that wakens the right senses for what you are doing. A certain type of classical music wakens too many senses up, so to say and it was intended to do so. If you need courage and a great motivation booster, well, probably Beethoven and Wagner are right for you. If you need patience and order, then it's Bach or Händel or even some symphonies or concertos by Haydn and Mozart. Contemporary music is too disruptive to listen while working, IMHO, and with a reason! There is normally a certain amount of protest or eversion to normal aesthetic tastes in contemporary music, that does not make it suitable for working, any work, at all.
Interesting, how about the music of Philip Glass - "music with repetitive structures"? I feel that minimalism works quite well while still being contemporary.
I made a playlist recently with some more music for this purpose which includes some contemporary stuff and a bit of jazz:
music.apple.com/no/playlist/figuri...
I recently discovered the music of Dobrinka Tabakova, very beautiful, a fantastic composer.
ah yes sure! In the end, while it can be generally true that music with repetitive structures can help productivity, choosing one or the other composer with this feature is still a very personal matter. I have listened to some Philip Glass' work, but it does not have that productivity effect on me, for instance...Jazz unfortunately neither :)))
I guess I still need a minimum of variation, otherwise I am distracted by obsessive repetition.
I will check Dobrinka Tabakova, thanks!!