7 ms·

Music possessing these qualities can often provide just the right amount of interest to occupy the parts of your brain that would otherwise be left free to wand

Music possessing these qualities can often provide just the right amount of interest to occupy the parts of your brain that would otherwise be left free to wander and lead to distraction during your work. Finally - someone who recognizes that there's a curious & busy part of the brain which must be kept preoccupied during complex tasks, and mixes music just for that purpose. "Trance" music podcasts are a great approximation for this. (See "The Vocal Trance", "Above & Beyond: Trance Around The World", "The Perfect Mix", "Push The Night", "Perfecto Podcast", "The Sound of Trance", "Shakedown Podcast") ETA: Alas, too many managers don't understand this; they think you're getting distracted by the music, and can't comprehend that it is necessary to facilitate focus.

noonespecial 15y ago
Oceanlab - Sirens Of The Sea Remixed is my goto. Its like a ticket to the zone. http://www.aboveandbeyond.nu/oceanlab-sirens-of-the-sea-remixed/ http://www.aboveandbeyond.nu/oceanlab-sirens-of-the-sea-remi...
- joelg87 15y ago
  I find myself playing this one very regularly on Spotify, it really is like a ticket to the zone.
joejohnson 15y ago
I couldn't agree more about the Trance podcasts. It's great that these podcasts have no breaks (mixing each song into the next). Music like that with a good beat and lots of crescendos/decrescendos can be ideal for tuning out everything around me and staying focused for a long period of time.
- kstenerud 15y ago
  You can also get good stuff on TT in the Trance Out room.
emillon 15y ago
> Finally - someone [...] mixes music just for that purpose. DJ Bolivia has been quite known for his "Music to code by" mixes, I definitely recommend them. http://djbolivia.blogspot.com/2011/04/music-to-code-by-volumes-1-3.html http://djbolivia.blogspot.com/2011/04/music-to-code-by-volum...
- runevault 15y ago
  Just grabbed these and started the first track for while I work from home (go go Denver snow) and I'm really digging it. Thanks for the pointer.
  - X-Istence 15y ago
    Yay snow! Currently stuck at home in Littleton :P
- ANH 15y ago
  Good stuff. Started playing it, wasn't sure at first, then started working and was immediately in that other place where things get done. But now I'm reading Hacker News.
- djbolivia 15y ago
  Emillon, thanks. Some of those Music To Code By mixes have a fair amount of vocals though. I think nowadays, a lot of coders would prefer my weekly radio show at www.chma.fm. The drawback with the radio show is that each episode has a 25 to 60 second promo tape at the intro, but after that it's all music, no advertising, and I don't do voiceovers. I'd recommend episodes starting at about #070 - I was still trying to find a groove in the first seventy, and I only stopped doing an intro voiceover in the early 70's. They're also on SoundCloud (I just archived them all starting a few weeks ago) so you can skip around easily if you need to: http://www.soundcloud.com/djbolivia http://www.soundcloud.com/djbolivia
  - emillon 15y ago
    Nice, I'll check those out ! I listened to the first episodes but for some reason I preferred your former mixes. Let's see how the latest episodes are doing :)
demallien 15y ago
I personally am a big fan of a couple of the radio stations in the 'Ambient' section in iTunes. A big shout out for DroneZone, although anything from SomaFM is pretty good.
demallien 15y ago
I personally am a big fan of a couple of the radio stations in the 'Ambient' section in iTunes. A big shout out for DroneZone, although anything from SomaFM is pretty good.
NARKOZ 15y ago
Yes, these podcasts are like Mozart. There are no many words in them, so they're not distracting.
Tossrock 15y ago
For a quick intro, just tune to di.fm's trance channel. They have a lot of great trance radio shows; Global DJ Broadcast with Markus Schulz, A State of Trance with Armin Van Buuren, the aforementioned Trance Around The World, Global Trance Grooves with John 00 Fleming, etc. For easily downloadable podcasts, Sander van Doorn's Identity (although he's leaning more electro these days), The Gareth Emery Podcast, and Global Trance Grooves are good ones.
- Karunamon 15y ago
  di.fm has a lot of really good content. Highly recommend any trance channel (I like the classic vocal best) and their Chiptune channel.
- gren 15y ago
  totally agreed. I've been listening to di.fm and Armin Van Buuren week shows for 5 years.
- ajtaylor 15y ago
  I second this. di.fm is playing for about half my work day, and often when I'm at home too. I love the Trance and Vocal Trance channels, with forays into EuroClub, DubStep and Chillout Dreams.
jasonkostempski 15y ago
Trance/Ambient stuff drives me nuts. For the longest time it jaded my view of electronic music because I thought it defined it. I prefer faster beats, well structured complex melodies a la Skrillex http://soundcloud.com/skrillex/sets http://soundcloud.com/skrillex/sets. The first few listens might be a little distracting but once I know the songs I find myself typing like I'm playing the song with my keyboard.
- mhitza 15y ago
  While I'm not that fond on the Trance/Ambient combination, there is out there trance with faster beats and more complex melodies (albeit not sure if we commonly share what more complex means). Take a sample playlist of mine http://grooveshark.com/playlist/Trance/63694608 http://grooveshark.com/playlist/Trance/63694608
  - ponzi 15y ago
    I liked your playlist. Thanks!
- Tossrock 15y ago
  > I prefer faster beats, well structured complex melodies a la Skrillex Skrillex and dubstep in general typically has a lower BPM than Trance. Skrillex usually works in the 120s, whereas trance is usually in the 130s-140s. You seem to be lumping trance and ambient together; however, they're quite different! I would argue that trance typically has more complex melodies than dubstep, which focuses more on tambre variations (ie crazy bass distortion). If you want to hear a cool trance track with high BPM and a nice complex melody, check out Duke Can't Come Home by Oza: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BA9If-QkXQk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BA9If-QkXQk As with all electronic music, you kind of have to sit through the first 32 bars or so for it to get to the good part; these parts of songs are really only there so that DJs can mix them together more easily.
- dannytatom 15y ago
  As Tossrock, dubstep is usually a pretty slow BPM. I'm a fan of fast myself and usually listen to a lot of DNB & breakcore (up to 190bpm), you might enjoy it. http://www.last.fm/tag/dnb http://www.last.fm/tag/dnb http://www.last.fm/tag/breakcore http://www.last.fm/tag/breakcore
varunsrin 15y ago
I find progressive trance great music to work to - some great artists in this genre are Ace Ventura, Gaudium, Lish, Zen Mechanics & Space Buddha.
Arjuna 15y ago
This is a super netlabel for the trance listener: http://www.ektoplazm.com http://www.ektoplazm.com All of their music is released under a Creative Commons license for non-commercial purposes. They offer a wide variety of trance genres, including Goa, Progressive, Psychedelic, Uplifting, etc. Plus, all music can be downloaded in FLAC, WAV and MP3 formats.
- leon_ 15y ago
  yo mon. this is the shit! love ektoplazm.
trafficlight 15y ago
The Digitally Imported trance channel is pretty good. http://di.fm http://di.fm
dogas 15y ago
I might as well plug my buddy's site: http://trance-mixes.com http://trance-mixes.com Very nice site, well put together.
- brey 15y ago
  oh, this is good. just what I've been looking for.
bengl3rt 15y ago
Anything by Alva Noto + Ryuichi Sakamoto puts me all the way in the zone.
- minikomi 15y ago
  Was going to post the same! Lovely, hypnotic and minimal.
  - jvoorhis 15y ago
    Just read this after posting http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3550443 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3550443. And I thought my Raster-Noton habit put me in the minority!
xxpor 15y ago
What kind of manager doen't let you listen to music?
- freehunter 15y ago
  I'm not a programmer, I work in information security (monitor/response) but I've experienced something similar. My manager listens to music/podcasts, most of my coworkers do as well, but when someone from another team walks by, they assume we're doing nothing based on comments I've heard, "you have headphones in, obviously you're not busy". No, I'm just trying to concentrate. Thanks for interrupting with your smartass remark.
jonstjohn 15y ago
"there's a curious & busy part of the brain which must be kept preoccupied during complex tasks" this is so true - I've found, besides listening to music, I can actual half-listen to lectures/talks while I program, and concentrate considerably better than in quiet. Counter-intuitive but works really well.
msutherl 15y ago
As a DJ/producer, I have a professional obligation to loathe trance music, but I can't deny that it's just the perfect thing for programming. Some of my favorite balearic stuff: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdhIwGZxtLA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdhIwGZxtLA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTODkLro8gs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTODkLro8gs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-p_Ihm95KQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-p_Ihm95KQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyTRd8A7pm8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyTRd8A7pm8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cl2SOwjx5Vc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cl2SOwjx5Vc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=surw1-iXmR0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=surw1-iXmR0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsEY0OLv_Y4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsEY0OLv_Y4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uRTjooOnsc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uRTjooOnsc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXb0y9yws4c http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXb0y9yws4c http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQsEOUArwJA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQsEOUArwJA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtCOxFvDCFo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtCOxFvDCFo
- BurnZeZ 15y ago
  As a musician, I love it. That's probably half due to roughly 70% of my songs ending up as trance by the time I'm done though. What is it about it that you dislike exactly?
  - msutherl 15y ago
    Let me be clear: I have no issue with trance as a form (highly repetitive 140 bpm 4/4 dance music). But trance music as a scene since the mid-90's has been characterized by melodramatic, over-produced, formulaic and not forward-thinking music. It's akin to being a filmmaker and disliking plotless Hollywood action films. These days there's a lot of innovative and interesting dance music coming out in the wake of dub step. I tend to play stuff like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sbj6iVyIgAI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sbj6iVyIgAI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oH4GIL1wYWo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oH4GIL1wYWo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHweamNAkjY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHweamNAkjY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUYQTPhPJZE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUYQTPhPJZE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34GJld5OmiE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34GJld5OmiE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YH_Ondi_ojA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YH_Ondi_ojA Music with new ideas, character and soul. Unfortunately interesting music sometimes demands a little too much attention when you're trying to code!
kellishaver 15y ago
I realized today that I've been listening to the same playlist 203 songs for about a year now. It usually plays all day long. I'm kind of bored with it when I'm actually paying attention to it and want to listen to music, but it's great for programming. The songs are so well known to me at this point that I don't really consciously think about them. My brain just kind of sings along without me while I write code.

noonespecial 15y ago

Oceanlab - Sirens Of The Sea Remixed is my goto. Its like a ticket to the zone. http://www.aboveandbeyond.nu/oceanlab-sirens-of-the-sea-remixed/ http://www.aboveandbeyond.nu/oceanlab-sirens-of-the-sea-remi...

joelg87 15y ago
I find myself playing this one very regularly on Spotify, it really is like a ticket to the zone.

joejohnson 15y ago

I couldn't agree more about the Trance podcasts. It's great that these podcasts have no breaks (mixing each song into the next). Music like that with a good beat and lots of crescendos/decrescendos can be ideal for tuning out everything around me and staying focused for a long period of time.

kstenerud 15y ago
You can also get good stuff on TT in the Trance Out room.

emillon 15y ago

> Finally - someone [...] mixes music just for that purpose. DJ Bolivia has been quite known for his "Music to code by" mixes, I definitely recommend them. http://djbolivia.blogspot.com/2011/04/music-to-code-by-volumes-1-3.html http://djbolivia.blogspot.com/2011/04/music-to-code-by-volum...

runevault 15y ago
Just grabbed these and started the first track for while I work from home (go go Denver snow) and I'm really digging it. Thanks for the pointer.
- X-Istence 15y ago
  Yay snow! Currently stuck at home in Littleton :P
ANH 15y ago
Good stuff. Started playing it, wasn't sure at first, then started working and was immediately in that other place where things get done. But now I'm reading Hacker News.
djbolivia 15y ago
Emillon, thanks. Some of those Music To Code By mixes have a fair amount of vocals though. I think nowadays, a lot of coders would prefer my weekly radio show at www.chma.fm. The drawback with the radio show is that each episode has a 25 to 60 second promo tape at the intro, but after that it's all music, no advertising, and I don't do voiceovers. I'd recommend episodes starting at about #070 - I was still trying to find a groove in the first seventy, and I only stopped doing an intro voiceover in the early 70's. They're also on SoundCloud (I just archived them all starting a few weeks ago) so you can skip around easily if you need to: http://www.soundcloud.com/djbolivia http://www.soundcloud.com/djbolivia
- emillon 15y ago
  Nice, I'll check those out ! I listened to the first episodes but for some reason I preferred your former mixes. Let's see how the latest episodes are doing :)

demallien 15y ago

I personally am a big fan of a couple of the radio stations in the 'Ambient' section in iTunes. A big shout out for DroneZone, although anything from SomaFM is pretty good.

demallien 15y ago

I personally am a big fan of a couple of the radio stations in the 'Ambient' section in iTunes. A big shout out for DroneZone, although anything from SomaFM is pretty good.

NARKOZ 15y ago

Yes, these podcasts are like Mozart. There are no many words in them, so they're not distracting.

Tossrock 15y ago

For a quick intro, just tune to di.fm's trance channel. They have a lot of great trance radio shows; Global DJ Broadcast with Markus Schulz, A State of Trance with Armin Van Buuren, the aforementioned Trance Around The World, Global Trance Grooves with John 00 Fleming, etc. For easily downloadable podcasts, Sander van Doorn's Identity (although he's leaning more electro these days), The Gareth Emery Podcast, and Global Trance Grooves are good ones.

Karunamon 15y ago
di.fm has a lot of really good content. Highly recommend any trance channel (I like the classic vocal best) and their Chiptune channel.
gren 15y ago
totally agreed. I've been listening to di.fm and Armin Van Buuren week shows for 5 years.
ajtaylor 15y ago
I second this. di.fm is playing for about half my work day, and often when I'm at home too. I love the Trance and Vocal Trance channels, with forays into EuroClub, DubStep and Chillout Dreams.

jasonkostempski 15y ago

Trance/Ambient stuff drives me nuts. For the longest time it jaded my view of electronic music because I thought it defined it. I prefer faster beats, well structured complex melodies a la Skrillex http://soundcloud.com/skrillex/sets http://soundcloud.com/skrillex/sets. The first few listens might be a little distracting but once I know the songs I find myself typing like I'm playing the song with my keyboard.

mhitza 15y ago
While I'm not that fond on the Trance/Ambient combination, there is out there trance with faster beats and more complex melodies (albeit not sure if we commonly share what more complex means). Take a sample playlist of mine http://grooveshark.com/playlist/Trance/63694608 http://grooveshark.com/playlist/Trance/63694608
- ponzi 15y ago
  I liked your playlist. Thanks!
Tossrock 15y ago
> I prefer faster beats, well structured complex melodies a la Skrillex Skrillex and dubstep in general typically has a lower BPM than Trance. Skrillex usually works in the 120s, whereas trance is usually in the 130s-140s. You seem to be lumping trance and ambient together; however, they're quite different! I would argue that trance typically has more complex melodies than dubstep, which focuses more on tambre variations (ie crazy bass distortion). If you want to hear a cool trance track with high BPM and a nice complex melody, check out Duke Can't Come Home by Oza: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BA9If-QkXQk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BA9If-QkXQk As with all electronic music, you kind of have to sit through the first 32 bars or so for it to get to the good part; these parts of songs are really only there so that DJs can mix them together more easily.
dannytatom 15y ago
As Tossrock, dubstep is usually a pretty slow BPM. I'm a fan of fast myself and usually listen to a lot of DNB & breakcore (up to 190bpm), you might enjoy it. http://www.last.fm/tag/dnb http://www.last.fm/tag/dnb http://www.last.fm/tag/breakcore http://www.last.fm/tag/breakcore

varunsrin 15y ago

I find progressive trance great music to work to - some great artists in this genre are Ace Ventura, Gaudium, Lish, Zen Mechanics & Space Buddha.

Arjuna 15y ago

This is a super netlabel for the trance listener: http://www.ektoplazm.com http://www.ektoplazm.com All of their music is released under a Creative Commons license for non-commercial purposes. They offer a wide variety of trance genres, including Goa, Progressive, Psychedelic, Uplifting, etc. Plus, all music can be downloaded in FLAC, WAV and MP3 formats.

leon_ 15y ago
yo mon. this is the shit! love ektoplazm.

trafficlight 15y ago

The Digitally Imported trance channel is pretty good. http://di.fm http://di.fm

dogas 15y ago

I might as well plug my buddy's site: http://trance-mixes.com http://trance-mixes.com Very nice site, well put together.

brey 15y ago
oh, this is good. just what I've been looking for.

bengl3rt 15y ago

Anything by Alva Noto + Ryuichi Sakamoto puts me all the way in the zone.

minikomi 15y ago
Was going to post the same! Lovely, hypnotic and minimal.
- jvoorhis 15y ago
  Just read this after posting http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3550443 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3550443. And I thought my Raster-Noton habit put me in the minority!

xxpor 15y ago

What kind of manager doen't let you listen to music?

freehunter 15y ago
I'm not a programmer, I work in information security (monitor/response) but I've experienced something similar. My manager listens to music/podcasts, most of my coworkers do as well, but when someone from another team walks by, they assume we're doing nothing based on comments I've heard, "you have headphones in, obviously you're not busy". No, I'm just trying to concentrate. Thanks for interrupting with your smartass remark.

jonstjohn 15y ago

"there's a curious & busy part of the brain which must be kept preoccupied during complex tasks" this is so true - I've found, besides listening to music, I can actual half-listen to lectures/talks while I program, and concentrate considerably better than in quiet. Counter-intuitive but works really well.

msutherl 15y ago

As a DJ/producer, I have a professional obligation to loathe trance music, but I can't deny that it's just the perfect thing for programming. Some of my favorite balearic stuff: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdhIwGZxtLA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdhIwGZxtLA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTODkLro8gs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTODkLro8gs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-p_Ihm95KQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-p_Ihm95KQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyTRd8A7pm8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyTRd8A7pm8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cl2SOwjx5Vc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cl2SOwjx5Vc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=surw1-iXmR0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=surw1-iXmR0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsEY0OLv_Y4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsEY0OLv_Y4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uRTjooOnsc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uRTjooOnsc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXb0y9yws4c http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXb0y9yws4c http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQsEOUArwJA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQsEOUArwJA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtCOxFvDCFo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtCOxFvDCFo

BurnZeZ 15y ago
As a musician, I love it. That's probably half due to roughly 70% of my songs ending up as trance by the time I'm done though. What is it about it that you dislike exactly?
- msutherl 15y ago
  Let me be clear: I have no issue with trance as a form (highly repetitive 140 bpm 4/4 dance music). But trance music as a scene since the mid-90's has been characterized by melodramatic, over-produced, formulaic and not forward-thinking music. It's akin to being a filmmaker and disliking plotless Hollywood action films. These days there's a lot of innovative and interesting dance music coming out in the wake of dub step. I tend to play stuff like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sbj6iVyIgAI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sbj6iVyIgAI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oH4GIL1wYWo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oH4GIL1wYWo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHweamNAkjY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHweamNAkjY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUYQTPhPJZE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUYQTPhPJZE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34GJld5OmiE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34GJld5OmiE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YH_Ondi_ojA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YH_Ondi_ojA Music with new ideas, character and soul. Unfortunately interesting music sometimes demands a little too much attention when you're trying to code!

kellishaver 15y ago

I realized today that I've been listening to the same playlist 203 songs for about a year now. It usually plays all day long. I'm kind of bored with it when I'm actually paying attention to it and want to listen to music, but it's great for programming. The songs are so well known to me at this point that I don't really consciously think about them. My brain just kind of sings along without me while I write code.