Ben Halpern

Posted on Jan 18, 2017 • Updated on Sep 29, 2017

What's playing in your headphones while you code?

#discuss

Discussion (357)

Ryan Norton • Sep 23 '17 • Edited on Sep 23

A mix of ambient, electronic and jazz. Disparition, explosions in the sky, Adam Young, Miles Davis and Antonio Carlos Jobim.

Eduardo Gómez Vásquez • Oct 12 '17

Black Metal
Trash Metal
Folk Metal
Power Metal
Heavy Metal
Nu Metal
Symphonic Metal
Death Metal

There is another kind of music?

Ben Sinclair • Apr 3 '18

Pirate Metal?

Vicus • Oct 15 '17

Prog Metal. Otherwise you are missing Dream Theater, Devin Townsend, Leprous, Haken. And what kind of life is that?

Eduardo Gómez Vásquez • Oct 15 '17

You're right!

Adnan Kičin • Oct 3 '17

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:

Jacob Tan 🤓 • Sep 23 '17

This 😄

soundcloud.com/epicmountain

Luis Ventura • Oct 4 '17

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.

Jessica Lam • Sep 24 '17

open.spotify.com/user/122241197/pl...

And
open.spotify.com/user/122241197/pl...

Fanny • Sep 23 '17

open.spotify.com/user/anotherfanny...

Aarøπ Dayalaπ • Sep 23 '17

My current head space
open.spotify.com/user/darthgoon/pl...

Paul Frame • Nov 27 '17

The Dark Knight’s soundtrack

Ben Halpern • Nov 27 '17

Oh that sounds great

Chris Pahla • Oct 19 '17

Jay Z 4:44

Madzz Srestha • Oct 12 '17

Right now Lost on You by LP. What I listen to varies with my mood and what I am working on.

Billy • Jan 18 '17

musicforprogramming.net/

Yerkon • Mar 5 '17

thanks

Phil Thomas • Jan 19 '17

Thanks! I'm going to give this a listen this morning.

James Hood • Apr 26 '17

Mike 🤘 • Jan 18 '17

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...

Ghost • Jan 18 '17

Oh yes, metal, dubstep or anything high energy. An absolute must!

Daniel Mason • Mar 5 '17

Exactly the same here. It works so well.

Brian Hanna • Apr 26 '17

Same here, preferably with harsh, mostly indecipherable vocals. Prevents me from getting distracted by the lyrics.

TPiddy • Jan 19 '17

Agreed.... metal of all kinds, though I tend to shy away from doom/black/death...

Callum Messiter • Jan 19 '17

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

Daniel Waller (he/him) • Sep 23 '17

Yes! Bit too dark sometimes but works great anytime after lunch

Carlton Hanna • Jan 18 '17

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.

Ben Halpern • Jan 18 '17

You must not work in an open office!

Jess Lee • Jan 19 '17

YES. Mogwai all day everyday.

Jordan Roskelley • Jan 19 '17

Fastfall Dustforce OST
Tron/Tron Remix
Chipzel/FantomenK/EnV (electronic, not rap)
Dunderpatrullen/Rymdkraft/Bossfight
Lindsey Stirling
Moby (esp Play)
Fatboy Slim
The Glitch Mob
65daysofstatic
Anamanaguchi - Endless Fantasy
Muse
David Guetta - Nothing But The Beat disc 2
Ludovico Einaudi - Divenire
Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (as embarrassing as that is)
Papa Roach/Disturbed/Evanescence ...probably more

Phil • Sep 24 '17

Love the range there. Add the Atmospheric Black Metal playlist from Spotify and Netsky dnb stuff. Mood dependant always.

Kinna Thompson • Mar 5 '17

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!

Erika Wiedemann • Jan 19 '17

I'm usually creeping my spotify discover playlist for Liquid / DnB tracks, and chill EDM. Nice, ethereal background.

Eric Ekong • Mar 5 '17

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.

sechaba tsotetsi • Apr 26 '17

Try Aso on soundcloud real cool

Eric Ekong • Apr 26 '17

👌🏿

Ben Halpern • Jan 19 '17

So you're usually looking for new tracks, or do you listen to the same ones a lot?

Erika Wiedemann • Jan 19 '17

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.

Gabe Dunn • Jan 19 '17

That's pretty much what I'll do.

Marcos Felipe Pimenta Rodrigues • Jan 19 '17

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.

Ben Halpern • Jan 18 '17

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.

Agustín Ventura Carrasco • Mar 5 '17

Great album, as almost any OST by Trent Reznor. I also enjoy listening to Lost Girl and Before the flood ones.

Tahini • Jan 19 '17

Likewise. Great choice for coding.

Adam • Mar 5 '17

Such a great soundtrack, I can never skip it when it comes on!

Juhi • Jan 19 '17

The Skyrim soundtrack (or any Elder Scrolls ones) as well as electronic or ambient music usually.

pandom • Mar 21 '17

This! Spotify has a good collection.

Anything by Jeremy Soule is good.

Blizzard game Soundtracks
Hans Zimmer
Aphex Twin
65daysofstatic
Celldweller

HawiCaesar • Sep 23 '17

Hans Zimmer Always!

Diogo Correia • Jan 19 '17

According to last.fm, I mostly listen to Ambient, Electronic & Jazz. Artists like:

Nils Frahm
Ólafur 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.

N0X • Mar 5 '17

BoC is perfect

Anirudh Murali • Jan 19 '17

Am I the only one listening to Interstellar OST? It's pure bliss, it takes us to whole new dimension.

Logan Gray • Jan 19 '17

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...

manuel • Oct 25 '17

I like SomaFM. I made a simple page for me to listen Groove Salad :)

wildauer.io/somafm/

Fernando Alvarez • Jan 19 '17

Depend on the mood but here's my overall genres

Psychedelic Rock
New Age
80's, 70's, 60's and 50's in general
Metal
Classic Music

== Geek Stuff Incoming ==

Movies OST
Video games OST
Anime OST

Joshua Bemenderfer • Jan 19 '17

Ludovico Einaudi
Mattia Cupelli
Ramin Djawadi
Zack Hemsey
John Powell
Byetheway-May
Iván Torrent
Tartalo Music
Kai Engel
Kevin MacLeod
Harry Gregson-Williams

Yes, I like obscure instrumental artists. Any more anyone can recommend?

Kinna Thompson • Mar 5 '17

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!)

Joshua Bemenderfer • Mar 9 '17

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.

Chris Flores • Apr 26 '17

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...

Steffen Frosch • Jan 19 '17

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.

Andy Johnson • Jan 18 '17

Electronic. Dubstep, Trance, Techno, whatever. Lots of Lindsey Stirling, actually.

A.D. • Jan 19 '17

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.

Jessy • Oct 2 '17

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.

Mark • Jan 19 '17

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.

Anton Krylov • Jan 19 '17

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.

Pavneet Singh Saund • Jan 19 '17

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.

Alexander Kashev • Jan 19 '17

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.

Vicente Jr Yuchitcho • Jan 19 '17

Yes! Love the Shenzhen I/O soundtrack.

Dulan Lawliet~ • Oct 4 '17

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
}

Casen • Jan 19 '17

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.

avallete • Sep 25 '17

... 
while(programming)
{
    music = randomPickOne([
    "keygens music compilation", 
    "Epic music", // (Hans Zimmer)
    "Game OST remix/compilation", //(mirror edge is awesome)
    "Electro house/chill"
   ]);
   playIt(music);
}

Habib Qureshi • Jan 19 '17

Heavy Metal!
Heave metal with earbuds (usually from computer instead of smartphone).

I play selected playlist and usually like last.fm for music discovery.
For the heavy metal theme spotify, deezer none satisfy my taste so I build my own playlists..

youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7goQ0B...

last.fm/user/habibcs

Hate Nu metal
Doom metal
Doom death metal (FAV)
Melodic death metal (FAV)
Death metal
Deathcore
Hardcore
Black metal
Power/War/Thrash metal

Jerod Estapa • Jan 19 '17

Tycho. Always, Tycho.

djkwagala • Oct 6 '17

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

(ಠ_ಠ) sCrain • Jan 19 '17

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.

Antonio Radovcic • Sep 24 '17

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.

ForFer • Apr 26 '17

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

Jamie Phelps • Nov 27 '17

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 won’t be distracted. As a former music major, even classical music can distract me if it’s 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 Caedmon’s Call
Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring Suite
Speakeasy by Stavesacre
Anthem by Less Than Jake
Slowly Going The Way of the Buffalo by MxPx
Joaquin Rodrigo’s Concerto de Aranjuez

In the absence of this, I will sometimes also put on Coffitivity as a sort of hum of noise if I’m in a noisy environment. coffitivity.com/

Darshak Parikh • Sep 23 '17

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

Mikel Farley • Oct 12 '17

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...

Arne Mertz • Oct 12 '17

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...

Paulo H. R. Pinheiro • Jan 19 '17

Charlie Parker, Miles Davis and Itamar Assumpção.

Mark Erikson • Jan 19 '17

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.