HN

Need help?
<- Back
Music for Programming

Music for Programming

merusame

Comments (113)

  • mghackerlady
    I tend to like stuff by Will Wood. Always good enough to not skip a song, enough variety I'm not tempted to change to something else, large enough discography to not get distracted by repeat tracks, and insightful lyrics that have "the hacker way" if that makes any sense. Also partial to wendy carlos or whatever The Current (local MN radio station that has really good taste and pulls some deep cuts pretty often) playsETA: I forgot to mention gorillaz. Great programming music, and seems to give me good ideas.
  • dvh
    Don't laugh, but for me, it's Abba. Their entire discography is ~3 hours which is how long I can maintain peak concentration. Their songs are consistently good so that I don't need to skip a song, but not too good that I would stop working and start listening. Plus I've never heard Abba song in any good movie so it doesn't remind me scenes from a movie I would want to rewatch. Of course I don't listen to it every day, only when I really need to, most daily programming tasks can be done with any music.
  • da_chicken
    I've had three main tracks that I've used for the past 8 months or so.The first one is a 1-hour mix of "In Motion" from the soundtrack to The Social Network: https://youtu.be/bCxPmMbZjukThe second is a 1-hour mix of "It Has to be This Way" from the soundtrack to Metal Gear Rising Revengance: https://youtu.be/jKGDib6qZBoThe third is a 1-hour mix of "Clock Tower" from the soundtrack to Dead Cells: https://youtu.be/plwhysPCxXI
  • WD-42
    Shoutout to SomaFM's Defcon Radio which has been my go-to programming music for years now. Not too dissimilar to the stuff found on this site. https://somafm.com/defcon/
  • ZoomZoomZoom
    If I could code with a piece of music playing in the background and not lose focus means it's not worth listening at all.Very rarely I use custom-filtered (brownish) noise to help with isolation. Perhaps some kind of Ambient or New Age would work too in such situations, but things I like in those genres require attention and not paying it would be absolutely disrespectful.I listen to all kinds of music at my dayjob but only during specific activities that do not require much contemplation and I can mostly flow with the music and do the work in the background.Though, I'm a musician and sound engineer, so my relationships with music in general might be a bit special.
  • bananzamba
    In the morning I listen to chill electronic music without lyrics: Tycho, Emancipator, Blackmill, Jon HopkinsLater in the day I listen to more energetic electronic music (a lot of which is from the Hotline Miami soundtrack): M|O|O|N, Dan Terminus, Carpenter Brut, Daniel Deluxe, 1788-L, Pendulum
  • jmorenoamor
    Swing or Jazz for analysis and painting diagramsHeavy Metal for actual developmentBossa Nova for deploying at 1 am
  • frereubu
    It's unsurprising to find lots of ambient / electronica here, and generally I'm the same, but I do occasionally like really loud punk or rock if I need some motivation, like the album Feel The Darkness by Poison Idea, or as I said in another comment, I Am A Tower by Swans on a loop. Generally I get my best work done when I can lock into a single track and have it on repeat.
  • kherud
    If I'd have to make one recommendation it's David August's Boiler Room set [1]. It has such a coherent flow through the whole set, it makes me fly through multiple hours if not days of work.[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRfwdJx0NDE
  • stevebmark
    This seems focused on one very particular taste in music of droning semi-random lo-fi synthesizers. I find this unlistenable without any kind of percussion.
  • cyberpunk
    Illuminoids, has to be.https://archive.org/details/IlluminationRadioPick an episode with your rng of choice.
  • __david__
    I discovered long ago that psytrance/goa was perfect for me. It works almost as well as caffeine and I can work for hours and hours as long as it’s blaring.
  • kcrwfrd_
    Aphex Twin, Selected Ambient Works 85-92Boards of CanadaMr. Robot Original Soundtrack
  • quinnjh
    This site is a gem that has accompanied me on many spikes in the last year :) datasette's original music is top tier too. cognitively stimulating but not attention stealing.
  • gattr
    I haven't played the game, but I like to have Baldur's Gate 3 soundtrack in the background sometimes (can be found on YT).
  • freetonik
    I remember watching an interview with Marco Arment (creator of Overcast and Instapaper) where he mentions that he listens to Phish a lot [1]. He collects every single recording and live show, almost 30 gigabytes of music from this one band. IIRC, he listens to it when working, so he never runs out of "music for programming" this way.1. https://marco.org/2011/05/26/geek-intro-to-phish
  • vlachen
    Aim to Head's mix channel is a lot of what I listen to for my design work. 30 min to 1 hour of well mixed tracks. The Witch House tracks are partially helpful in focusing.https://m.youtube.com/@aimtoheadmix1915/videos
  • anothereng
    I use gregorian chant for programming
  • dijksterhuis
  • capnchaos
    For me nothing beats 90s ambient dnb for coding. There's something about drum and bass that really gets me in flow.
  • Lyngbakr
    I recently discovered Lorn and have been mainlining his back catalogue ever since whilst working. Thoroughly interesting and immersive yet not distracting.
  • andhuman
    I just listened to the Matrix OST and that one really gets me into a coding mood!
  • dmd
    I'm well aware that I'm in the minority, but I have never been able to focus on anything - especially programming - other than in absolute, total silence.(Yes, I'm an only child.)
  • peter119
    I’ve found instrumental + slightly repetitive tracks work best for me — anything too dynamic pulls my attention away.Lately it’s been a mix of ambient electronic and lo-fi, especially for longer deep work sessions.
  • bob1029
    When I'm really trying to get shit done I'll put on some German industrial music like Bagger 258. The lyrics don't bother me because I don't understand them. I find the harsh aesthetic helps to keep me from getting distracted with side quests. Those little voices in my head become inaudible over the nonsensical (to me) lyrics.
  • xallace
  • skor
    Here is some long-play stuff I do with code that helps write code https://lowveld.bandcamp.com/
  • jeleh
    Chillout channel on DI.FM: https://www.di.fm/chillout
  • gosukiwi
    I love instrumental only hip hop beats like shamisen x hip hop https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qi_-RmXz_g
  • laserlight
    This is more like music for relaxation. I can't code without a strong rhythm.
  • eterm
    I listen to post-rock.There are usually no lyrics, there's an absolute ton out there, and something about the music gets my brain flowing better than other instrumental music.
  • scorpionfeet
    Merzbow. Keep by fidget brain occupied with pure noise while I get real work done.OPs playlist requires too many faculties used in coding.
  • anon
    undefined
  • CoolGuySteve
    The soundtracks for SimCity 3000, 4, and the 5th one titled just "SimCity" are written specifically to be played while doing some fiddly micromanagement tasks.
  • jandrewrogers
    I’ve thought about and experimented with it a lot. The main criteria is no lyrics, or at a minimum lyrics in a language you don’t understand at all, since this hijacks attention from parts of the brain useful for programming in a noticeable way. I find prominent fast percussion seems to help with focus but I am less confident of that.Most other elements don’t seem to matter too much. Baroque, industrial, ambient, etc are all effectively equivalent in most regards.That said, I tend to lean toward 1990s atmospheric drum-and-bass (pretty much anything released by Good Looking Records) as a good default. That genre maximizes things that seem to help while minimizing things that seem to detract.
  • poody
    This may be weird.. but I have been listening to a bunch of extended "save room" ambient tracks based on music in Resident Evil.. Someone under the name of Survival Spheres has a crapload of these on YT-music.. They are all about 10-12 mins long.. and they stay of the way mentally..
  • suzdude
    Random Access Memories.
  • gbertasius
    I love progressive techno for this. No vocals and sounds are in the lower frequency range. Easy to tune out.
  • processunknown
  • squigz
    While I'm not surprised at the general tastes here in the comments (as I mostly share them), I am surprised at the lack of any mention of classical?!Johann Johannsson and Max Richter are my go-tos.
  • supliminal
    I remember downloading music from the hacking e-show “The Scene” way back when - must have been late 2000s? Some great music in there like Newborn Butterflies if I remember the name right. It was nice background music in the show and I’d put it on from time to time.
  • janpmz
  • braincat31415
    Iron Maiden for me :)
  • nickvec
    I personally love my classic/progressive rock and am happy to listen to it while working. It seems odd to limit music for programming to only lo-fi.
  • jerrygoyal
  • gurst
    This is music for programming: https://velato.net/ (or music as programming??)
  • steveBK123
    Look up Dub Techno.
  • olivierestsage
    Swans is good for programming. And good for gnosis.
  • ananandreas
    Haha cool, very specific music though
  • tga
    For another genre suggestion: handpan music. It's rhythmic and repetitive, but warmer than electronica, and fades nicely in the background:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qafSm6N5bkc
  • fainpul
    synthwave
  • do_it_simpler
    This sight got me through many projects in college :)
  • whatever1
    Can we play it for my LLM?
  • slicktux
    soma.fm Channel: DEFCON Radio Best programming music!
  • alfiedotwtf
    Di.fm (Digitally Imported) has been my companion throughout the years
  • mrchantey
    this is so much fun!
  • anon
    undefined
  • aniekann
    minecraft music is peak and takes all :)
  • donkeybeer
    Morbid Angel - Altars of Madness
  • mlvljr
    [dead]