8 ms·

In my personal experience, listening to music is fine (and helps keep me on task while waiting for builds and tests and such) when I'm working on well-understoo

In my personal experience, listening to music is fine (and helps keep me on task while waiting for builds and tests and such) when I'm working on well-understood bits. But if there's something novel or complicated, I have to turn it off or else I just can't get into the right frame of mind.

pdmccormick 5y ago
This reflects my experience as well. When I more or less know what I’m doing (where my typing is essentially the rate limiting step), playing familiar music helps me to focus, but when I really need to stop and think about what I’m trying to accomplish, I prefer as much silence as possible (I’ll even switch from headphones to large hearing protection earmuffs, the kind you should wear if you’re working with heavy equipment).
A4ET8a8uTh0 5y ago
I will build on it. Even type of music may make a difference in your mental state. Soothing background piano music may actually help your focus, while lyric heavy cadence of note distractions will do anything but since it is virtually designed for a distraction.
- burnished 5y ago
  I don't think you can make that kind of broad pronouncement here, lest your next step be to play classical music at plants to demonstrate some kind of preconceived superiority right? For me it feels more about familiarity. If I already have the lyrics memorized then it does not feel distracting whereas unfamiliar music can draw my focus.
- spfzero 5y ago
  Anything with Lyrics wrecks my concentration. Somehow my mind just can't stop tracking speech. Instrumental is OK, but silence is too. I know lots of people though who must have music on, or they simply cannot concentrate. For them, it might be that the music gives the mind something to hold on to, kind of a rail to help stay on track, and in the absence of that, their mind would wander farther afield.
  - maicro 5y ago
    One thing I've heard recommended, and enjoyed a bit myself, is to listen to music with lyrics in a language that you don't speak (at all, I'd say) - the (heavy conjecture) theory being that the foreign language isn't recognized and parsed as "speech", so avoids the language areas of the brain.
    - bjelkeman-again 5y ago
      Or music which you know very well, works for me. Hard rock from the late seventies go in one ear and out the other when I am writing.
      - QuercusMax 5y ago
        For me it's Rob Zombie's Hellbilly Deluxe. Not proud of it, but something about it gets me into a flow state for coding sessions.
        progre 5y ago
        Nothing to be ashamed of, that album is great!
  - toss1 5y ago
    YES. I can listen to things w/lyrics while doing CAD work; with any task requiring language, text, etc. it is too distracting, although some calm instrumentals are tolerable. When I really get focused on a bit of work, whatever music is playing literally disappears - if you came to me 3min later and offered me $millions to tell you what song just played, I'd get nothing. Cats are even more amazing - I can't find it right now, but I remember in reading studies in some of my college neuroscience classes where electrodes were put on cats to track their audio system with a clock/metronome sound in the background. You can trace the signal processing up through various nodes of the system at successively higher levels. When a mouse was let into the area, the metronome click trace disappeared from the data of almost every level of processing - it was entirely filtered out almost at the raw audio stage when the mouse showed up. That's focus.
- r3trohack3r 5y ago
  This is exactly it for me. For any task that has to do with words - writing, reading, code - lyrics are devastating. Even “lyric like” music, where an instrument is imitating speech for a track, grabs too much of my attention for me to focus. For most tasks, lyric free chill hop is a perfect balance. It replaces the chaos of my environment with a predictable backdrop that can fade out of focus. But for tasks that require extreme focus, like putting together a novel (to me) algorithm or exploring a new code base, even chillhop is too much. I have to find a place with absolute silence - anything that grabs my attention is devastating to the task at hand.
- Xelbair 5y ago
  i would argue that it isn't the type of music that affects you. it's your familiarity with it.
  - jeffreygoesto 5y ago
    That is my personal experience as well. The more familiar music is, and the better it matches my mood, the better it works as background for programming. When I was under a stress maximum, this (the whole CD) [0] blew away all distractions and got me super focused. [0] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NzkxZfhgHso https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NzkxZfhgHso
- JJMcJ 5y ago
  Also a significant difference between music with singing, and purely instrumental music. The human voice is highly distracting for most people.
- miketery 5y ago
  Agreed. I use brain.fm (no affiliation) and have found it great for focusing. While I ride around the city on a bike or euc, I find faster pace music great for getting in the zone / flow state. For the latter example, I wonder how much of it is though neaural networks wired together fire together. In essence Ive always listened to music while riding so it feels right and known, what if I had ridden all this time without music, would I be better? I don't know.
  - kentrf 5y ago
    Good on you for actually getting any useful out of brain.fm I’ve tried it a couple of years ago, and for me it was mostly repeating tunes and nothing particularly good for programming/focus work.
- PicassoCTs 5y ago
  We are primed by nature to take anything social more important than everything else, except nature dangers. It makes totally sense to block out social cues "conversations" like lyrics to focus.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- MaxBarraclough 5y ago
  > Soothing background piano music may actually help your focus As I understand it, the relevant studies do not support this.
- paulmooreparks 5y ago
  For me, it was always classical orchestral music when writing new code and hard rock/heavy metal when debugging. The other way around ruined my focus on either task.
UglyToad 5y ago
Exactly this, I think music helps with energy/motivation to smash through a well understood but fairly uninteresting task, which outside of the HN Elite is most of our day to days. For understanding a new concept or problem the finding here probably applies.
mettamage 5y ago
I experience exactly this as well. I liberally use my volume up and down keys. Perhaps the following is too personal of a take, but we're talking about music YMMV ;-) Here it comes: Music doesn't make me feel lonely when I'm behind a computer. And feeling lonely is what made me into a mediocre programmer. For years I've not touched a computer because it just feels so isolating when you do it for 8 to 10 hours straight. But with music, with music I feel a shared experience between me, the artist, the feelings and the concepts. It helps that this form of "musical reasoning" doesn't cost me a lot of brainpower since I've been doing this on autopilot since I was a kid.
richardatlarge 5y ago
Psychology research has long shown that outside factors impact poor performance but are not a factor in skilled work, which may apply here
superfrank 5y ago
Maybe it's just my personal experience, but I find the reverse of that is also true. If the music itself is novel, I find it much harder to focus on the task at hand. I've got about 50 albums that I rotate through while I'm coding and I can focus on the task at hand fairly well with those on, but if I put on a new album by an artist I like, my ability to concentrate on code goes way down.
- dabernathy89 5y ago
  I've got the same experience, especially with music that has lyrics. I've got a few favorites that I can listen to just fine while working.
- rufus_foreman 5y ago
  Yeah, at some point music that you are familiar with becomes background noise. I used to be able to sleep to Loveless by My Bloody Valentine at high volume. I used it to drown out other sounds when I had loud neighbors in an apartment on the bus line. When you listen to something that often, your brain just ignores it.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
anoyesnonymous 5y ago
Accurate for my experience as well.
unclebucknasty 5y ago
I wonder how much of the effect is owed to blocking out other stimuli that might be more disruptive?
wisty 5y ago
I think there's research on driving. Listening to music is bad if you're in city traffic and need to use all your attention, but good if you're on a country road and risk just losing focus.

pdmccormick 5y ago

This reflects my experience as well. When I more or less know what I’m doing (where my typing is essentially the rate limiting step), playing familiar music helps me to focus, but when I really need to stop and think about what I’m trying to accomplish, I prefer as much silence as possible (I’ll even switch from headphones to large hearing protection earmuffs, the kind you should wear if you’re working with heavy equipment).

A4ET8a8uTh0 5y ago

I will build on it. Even type of music may make a difference in your mental state. Soothing background piano music may actually help your focus, while lyric heavy cadence of note distractions will do anything but since it is virtually designed for a distraction.

burnished 5y ago
I don't think you can make that kind of broad pronouncement here, lest your next step be to play classical music at plants to demonstrate some kind of preconceived superiority right? For me it feels more about familiarity. If I already have the lyrics memorized then it does not feel distracting whereas unfamiliar music can draw my focus.
spfzero 5y ago
Anything with Lyrics wrecks my concentration. Somehow my mind just can't stop tracking speech. Instrumental is OK, but silence is too. I know lots of people though who must have music on, or they simply cannot concentrate. For them, it might be that the music gives the mind something to hold on to, kind of a rail to help stay on track, and in the absence of that, their mind would wander farther afield.
- maicro 5y ago
  One thing I've heard recommended, and enjoyed a bit myself, is to listen to music with lyrics in a language that you don't speak (at all, I'd say) - the (heavy conjecture) theory being that the foreign language isn't recognized and parsed as "speech", so avoids the language areas of the brain.
  - bjelkeman-again 5y ago
    Or music which you know very well, works for me. Hard rock from the late seventies go in one ear and out the other when I am writing.
    - QuercusMax 5y ago
      For me it's Rob Zombie's Hellbilly Deluxe. Not proud of it, but something about it gets me into a flow state for coding sessions.
      - progre 5y ago
        Nothing to be ashamed of, that album is great!
- toss1 5y ago
  YES. I can listen to things w/lyrics while doing CAD work; with any task requiring language, text, etc. it is too distracting, although some calm instrumentals are tolerable. When I really get focused on a bit of work, whatever music is playing literally disappears - if you came to me 3min later and offered me $millions to tell you what song just played, I'd get nothing. Cats are even more amazing - I can't find it right now, but I remember in reading studies in some of my college neuroscience classes where electrodes were put on cats to track their audio system with a clock/metronome sound in the background. You can trace the signal processing up through various nodes of the system at successively higher levels. When a mouse was let into the area, the metronome click trace disappeared from the data of almost every level of processing - it was entirely filtered out almost at the raw audio stage when the mouse showed up. That's focus.
r3trohack3r 5y ago
This is exactly it for me. For any task that has to do with words - writing, reading, code - lyrics are devastating. Even “lyric like” music, where an instrument is imitating speech for a track, grabs too much of my attention for me to focus. For most tasks, lyric free chill hop is a perfect balance. It replaces the chaos of my environment with a predictable backdrop that can fade out of focus. But for tasks that require extreme focus, like putting together a novel (to me) algorithm or exploring a new code base, even chillhop is too much. I have to find a place with absolute silence - anything that grabs my attention is devastating to the task at hand.
Xelbair 5y ago
i would argue that it isn't the type of music that affects you. it's your familiarity with it.
- jeffreygoesto 5y ago
  That is my personal experience as well. The more familiar music is, and the better it matches my mood, the better it works as background for programming. When I was under a stress maximum, this (the whole CD) [0] blew away all distractions and got me super focused. [0] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NzkxZfhgHso https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NzkxZfhgHso
JJMcJ 5y ago
Also a significant difference between music with singing, and purely instrumental music. The human voice is highly distracting for most people.
miketery 5y ago
Agreed. I use brain.fm (no affiliation) and have found it great for focusing. While I ride around the city on a bike or euc, I find faster pace music great for getting in the zone / flow state. For the latter example, I wonder how much of it is though neaural networks wired together fire together. In essence Ive always listened to music while riding so it feels right and known, what if I had ridden all this time without music, would I be better? I don't know.
- kentrf 5y ago
  Good on you for actually getting any useful out of brain.fm I’ve tried it a couple of years ago, and for me it was mostly repeating tunes and nothing particularly good for programming/focus work.
PicassoCTs 5y ago
We are primed by nature to take anything social more important than everything else, except nature dangers. It makes totally sense to block out social cues "conversations" like lyrics to focus.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
MaxBarraclough 5y ago
> Soothing background piano music may actually help your focus As I understand it, the relevant studies do not support this.
paulmooreparks 5y ago
For me, it was always classical orchestral music when writing new code and hard rock/heavy metal when debugging. The other way around ruined my focus on either task.

UglyToad 5y ago

Exactly this, I think music helps with energy/motivation to smash through a well understood but fairly uninteresting task, which outside of the HN Elite is most of our day to days. For understanding a new concept or problem the finding here probably applies.

mettamage 5y ago

I experience exactly this as well. I liberally use my volume up and down keys. Perhaps the following is too personal of a take, but we're talking about music YMMV ;-) Here it comes: Music doesn't make me feel lonely when I'm behind a computer. And feeling lonely is what made me into a mediocre programmer. For years I've not touched a computer because it just feels so isolating when you do it for 8 to 10 hours straight. But with music, with music I feel a shared experience between me, the artist, the feelings and the concepts. It helps that this form of "musical reasoning" doesn't cost me a lot of brainpower since I've been doing this on autopilot since I was a kid.

richardatlarge 5y ago

Psychology research has long shown that outside factors impact poor performance but are not a factor in skilled work, which may apply here

superfrank 5y ago

Maybe it's just my personal experience, but I find the reverse of that is also true. If the music itself is novel, I find it much harder to focus on the task at hand. I've got about 50 albums that I rotate through while I'm coding and I can focus on the task at hand fairly well with those on, but if I put on a new album by an artist I like, my ability to concentrate on code goes way down.

dabernathy89 5y ago
I've got the same experience, especially with music that has lyrics. I've got a few favorites that I can listen to just fine while working.
rufus_foreman 5y ago
Yeah, at some point music that you are familiar with becomes background noise. I used to be able to sleep to Loveless by My Bloody Valentine at high volume. I used it to drown out other sounds when I had loud neighbors in an apartment on the bus line. When you listen to something that often, your brain just ignores it.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

anoyesnonymous 5y ago

Accurate for my experience as well.

unclebucknasty 5y ago

I wonder how much of the effect is owed to blocking out other stimuli that might be more disruptive?

wisty 5y ago

I think there's research on driving. Listening to music is bad if you're in city traffic and need to use all your attention, but good if you're on a country road and risk just losing focus.