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Music Programming

Musician Releases Album of Music To Code By 181

Posted by samzenpus from the brian-eno dept.
itwbennett writes Music and programming go hand-in-keyboard. And now programmer/musician Carl Franklin has released an album of music he wrote specifically for use as background music when writing software. "The biggest challenge was dialing back my instinct to make real music," Franklin told ITworld's Phil Johnson. "This had to fade into the background. It couldn't distract the listener, but it couldn't be boring either. That was a particular challenge that I think most musicians would have found maddening."
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Musician Releases Album of Music To Code By More

Musician Releases Album of Music To Code By

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  • That's not exactly new (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 05, 2015 @10:06PM (#49193885)

    Isn't that what ambient electronica for the last twenty years has basically been? Labels like Ultimae Records has been releasing that kind of music forever. Nothing terribly new here.

    • Re:That's not exactly new (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 05, 2015 @10:56PM (#49194097)

      Yep. This just screams publicity stunt and at $20 it's a fucking rip-off.

      So, no thanks Carl-boy, I already have my collection of ambient, downtempo, jazz noir and classical to do my work with.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        No demo available even? You just pay $20 and get ripped off or don't? hah!

        This article did at least get me to search youtube for "programming music". It seems there are already tons of tracks out there exactly for this, and get this - they're just on youtube, they don't cost $20!

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jd2112 ( 1535857 )

        Yep. This just screams publicity stunt and at $20 it's a fucking rip-off.

        So, no thanks Carl-boy, I already have my collection of ambient, downtempo, jazz noir and classical to do my work with.

        Personally I like to code to Heavy Metal. I wonder what that says about my code?

    • And while the rest of us don't actually *write* the material, we do collate mix-tapes.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Nutria ( 679911 )

      Chamber music has been around for at least 250 years.

      Stick a couple of flutists and string (violin & cello) players in the next room, open the doors and then have your dinner.

    • Vocal trance is my usual cup of tea for programming to. Maybe some Psy Goa Trance, but all too often that becomes a bit distracting.

    • Re:That's not exactly new (Score:5, Insightful)

      by mwvdlee ( 775178 ) on Friday March 06, 2015 @03:31AM (#49194823) Homepage

      Surely I can't be the only one who finds this kind of "easy listening muzak" incredibly irritating. It sounds annoyingly bland and emotionless to me.
      Music tastes are subjective and change with the mood. There is no singular type music that'll work for more than a small fraction of all programmers.

    • Yep, you're completely right, this is far from new, and most developers will say that any music (without lyrics) will do..
      for me it's happy hardcore, techno or (instrumental) movie soundtracks (like those done by Hans Zimmer)..

      • Why this hate? Not you oarticulary, but the first 20 posts are all like: this is no news.

        Ofc it is! Everyone who is listening (or likes listening) to musik while programming has his own set of music he feels fitting. However that music never was made intentionally to be very well suited as 'background music' for programming.

        Here in this case we have a guy who is a programmer and a musician/composer who tried to 'invent'/compose music deliberately suited for that purpose!

        It is a big differenc if I browse for

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by xevioso ( 598654 )

      This is called ambient music. It's an entire sub-genre of electronic, and has existed in more or less similar form for 20 years or more.

      You can find thousands of entire mixes of ambient music that are perfect for coding to (I listen myself ) on mixcloud under the tag Ambient:

      https://www.mixcloud.com/tag/a... [mixcloud.com]

      Turns out it's also perfect music for exploring the galaxy as background music in a number of video games.

  • No lyrics. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 05, 2015 @10:09PM (#49193897)

    Step 1: remove lyrics.

    Beyond that, it'd be pretty easy.

    • Re:No lyrics. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Anrego ( 830717 ) * on Friday March 06, 2015 @12:00AM (#49194345)

      For me it just has to be familiar. It can have lyrics, crazy guitar and drum solos, loud screaming, whatever, as long as I've heard it a few dozen times it fades into the background for me.

      Personally I tend to like melodic rock (classic, progressive, even some of the lighter metal) when coding. Pink Floyd, the more ballad-y stuff from GnR, Pearl Jam, Red Rider, hell even Metallica (yeah yeah, shuddup).

      Also WTF is up with the layout changes on slashdot. They couldn't get people to swallow beta, so now they are fucking up the non-beta site?

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by aralin ( 107264 )

        Yes, exactly. I just code with Red Hot Chili Peppers album Californication and that can get pretty wild. The important part is that it has to be familiar. After a while the brain will go into hyperfocus mode and remove the sound inputs. And so when I stop hearing the music, I know I am in the zone.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by mwvdlee ( 775178 )

          If you're aware that you're "in the zone", you're not.

        • Same here, if you have heard it a few dozen times it's no longer a distraction (as long as you like the song) have hot keyed next song etc. to keys in my normal typing position so I don't even have to move my hands to the media keys. I listen to music to drown the rest of the office out, in todays open plan fvcken office it's too easy to get distracted by something. I miss out on some of the scuttlebutt, but I generally catch up on that during my lunch break so no great loss.

    • Step 1: remove lyrics.

      Beyond that, it'd be pretty easy.

      Not for me. There are some purely instrumental pieces that captivate me every time. Especially Rimsky-Korsakov's Russian Easter Festival Orchestra.

      (Note: Even if you're not a huge fan of classical music, I suggest giving that piece a full listen through just once. It may blow your mind.)

  • Lift Music for Geeks (Score:4, Funny)

    by EEPROMS ( 889169 ) on Thursday March 05, 2015 @10:13PM (#49193919)
    So basically get a CD with relaxing lift music on it and just put a "Music for Programmers" label on it and your done.

  • Guitar/Piano/Bass/Drums (Score:5, Interesting)

    by pipedwho ( 1174327 ) on Thursday March 05, 2015 @10:14PM (#49193927)

    For anyone that wants to know what the music sounds like; it is conventional instrumental ambient music with a nice ensemble of guitar/bass/piano(synth)/drums. It sounds pretty relaxing, but it doesn't appear to be doing anything unusual like brain wave synced synthesiser swirls and crashing waves. Although some of the percussion is reminiscent of nature.

    I really like the electric guitar and synth tones he uses. Bad guitar tone and cheap sounding synths are two of my pet hates - but this music delivers quality tone, so nothing to complain about.

    Worth a listen for anyone interested.

  • Kinda like... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 05, 2015 @10:17PM (#49193937)

    One's favorite music is already acceptable background music for coding by?

    I don't need coder's muzak, i need something I already know by heart and like to occupy that part of my brain while i do other things. That's why i use my favorite music and not a radio, not pandora, nor anything else. I use my own music I have grown to love over the years, that I know fits my style or work.

    Coder's Muzak. Expect it in corporate dungeons soon to drive you to the point of severe annoyance and the sighting of headphones/earbuds as far as the eye can see.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by rwa2 ( 4391 ) *

      eh, I find my own favorite music too distracting, then I start thinking about other stuff and skipping forwards and messing with the playlist. So I find it the least effort to just have a good internet radio stream going on in the background.

      Most of them I discovered here on Slashdot, even.

      Groove Salad on http://somafm.com/ [somafm.com] (many other streams there worth trying too, most of my favorite songs are from Lush, but GS is the best coding stream)

      Sleepbot on http://sleepbot.com/ [sleepbot.com] for a wide variety of background

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Anrego ( 830717 ) *

      Pretty much this. I can use just about anything as background music once I've heard it a few dozen times. I use radio and similar when I want to find new stuff, but when I want background music I just put my "good stuff" playlist on shuffle.

  • Bad marketing (Score:4, Insightful)

    by De_Boswachter ( 905895 ) on Thursday March 05, 2015 @10:18PM (#49193947) Homepage

    I've been clicking around to find a sample, and, maybe it's just me, but I didn't find any. I might buy the album if there were previews that I could listen to, but if it takes longer that 5 minutes to successfully find any, it's 100% surely not going to happen.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      There's 3, on his website - http://mtcb.pwop.com/ - under the heading "Samples" no less...

    • Thanks, Anonymous Coward #1 and Anonymous Coward #2. And apologies. I shoudl have scrolled down the page a bit more, rather than jump directly to the store and try find it there. These 'Web 2.0' and HTML5 things have rendered my spoilt brain pretty much dyxlectic for retro, 1993-style hypertext content.

    • I've been clicking around to find a sample, and, maybe it's just me, but I didn't find any.

      It's just you, and whoever modded you up - the second link in TFA takes your right to a sample.

      (Don't bother though, it's lame.)

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Anrego ( 830717 ) *

      Have been wondering this myself. The recent site instability, frequent downtime, and sudden "everything looks like shit" layout changes seem to imply that either:

      a) they've given up trying to get us to swallow beta and are opting to fuck up the "normal" version of the site
      b) they're trying to encourage people to switch by making the "normal" version of the site even shittier than beta

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by mwvdlee ( 775178 )

        Definitely not option B; beta.slashdot.org redirects to the normal site, so they've given up on beta.
        I think they were just trying to improve the normal slashdot.org site, the way a psychopath might try to improve his own face.

  • Uhhh what (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    These samples sound like shit...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rnturn ( 11092 )

      I don't know about that but the music samples tell me that I'd be bored to tears listening to that all day. I have some favorite CDs that I've found I can put on and play in repeat mode all day if necessary: Porcupine Tree's "The Sky Moves Sideways", Chapterhouse's "Blood Music", Eno's ambient recordings, most any Swervedriver or Ned's Atomic Dustbin, just about anything by J.S. Bach -- I've got a few hour's worth of Bach organ music that I find enjoyable to have playing while I'm writing code, documentatio

  • Alternatives here! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    If you want music that's like this "for programmers stuff" check out my suggestions.

    http://www.di.fm/chillout

    http://www.radiotunes.com/solopiano

    If you want some bineral beats (supposed to have actual positive effects) look into these....
    http://www.brainsync.com/audio-store/brain-power/concentration.html
    http://shop.hemi-sync.com/products/265-Breakthrough-For-Peak-Performance-Album/

    be sure to browse around those stores.

  • I have some standard playlists for coding, writing (Score:4, Informative)

    by bfwebster ( 90513 ) on Thursday March 05, 2015 @10:30PM (#49194003) Homepage

    My best coding/writing playlist is...the entire set of Moody Blues albums, in chronological order. (I've been listening to them for nearly 50 years. Crap I'm old.) The albums have to play in correct order, and the cuts on each album have to play in standard order. It just pretty much becomes a musical cocoon. I've found that if I'm avoiding doing some necessary writing or coding, I can put the playlist on, and I start working almost immediately.

    I do much the same thing with the collected Star Wars soundtracks (played in film sequence, i.e., Eps I through VI; and the soundtracks for the prequels are much better than the movies themselves) and the three LOTR soundtracks (again, played in film sequence).

    If I'm getting sleepy, I'll put on "Wireless Barenaked Giants", a playlist containing all my Thomas Dolby, Barenaked Ladies, and TMBG songs, played on shuffle.

    Ambient electronic would probably put me to sleep.

    • My best coding/writing playlist is...the entire set of Moody Blues albums, in chronological order. (I've been listening to them for nearly 50 years. Crap I'm old.) The albums have to play in correct order, and the cuts on each album have to play in standard order. It just pretty much becomes a musical cocoon.

      My programming routine is exactly like that, except the songs are beers and I don't listen to anything. The Moody Blues are pretty good, though.

    • My best coding/writing playlist is...the entire set of Moody Blues albums, in chronological order. (I've been listening to them for nearly 50 years. Crap I'm old.) The albums have to play in correct order, and the cuts on each album have to play in standard order. It just pretty much becomes a musical cocoon. I've found that if I'm avoiding doing some necessary writing or coding, I can put the playlist on, and I start working almost immediately.

      I do much the same thing with the collected Star Wars soundtracks (played in film sequence, i.e., Eps I through VI; and the soundtracks for the prequels are much better than the movies themselves) and the three LOTR soundtracks (again, played in film sequence).

      If I'm getting sleepy, I'll put on "Wireless Barenaked Giants", a playlist containing all my Thomas Dolby, Barenaked Ladies, and TMBG songs, played on shuffle.

      Ambient electronic would probably put me to sleep.

      I'm a network guy. My band of choice used to be Savage Garden when I was performing network upgrades, etc.. It's not harsh or demanding so was great for background music. Today it would be Daft Punk: Random Access Memories or maybe Guardian's of the Galaxies Soundtrack.

    • Congratulations, you have successfully conditioned yourself into productivity! Dr. Skinner would be so proud :)

    • I have a similar playlist with all of the Alan Parsons Project albums. But for coding at high speed, nothing beats power metal.

  • Japanese Music (Score:5, Interesting)

    by TechyImmigrant ( 175943 ) on Thursday March 05, 2015 @10:38PM (#49194029) Homepage Journal

    I've taken to coding with Japanese music. I don't have a clue what they're singing, so they don't interfere with the language processing in my brain.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by mfearby ( 1653 )

      For the same reason Bach cantatas do it for me. I have 60 CDs of them (performed by the Bach Collegium Japan conducted by Masaaki Suzuki... the best there is). Not exactly Japanese music, though :-) But I hear you.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by rnturn ( 11092 )

      I've done the same thing streaming French or German sites. The music is way better than anything I can get on local radio stations and the ads are innocuous because I can't understand 99.9% of what they're saying.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jez9999 ( 618189 )

      SNES SPCs. No lyrics, and plenty of good relaxing music. Although I play them in Winamp; I'm not aware of an SPC player for Android.

      • Is there a good SPC library somewhere? I'm thinking about something like the High Voltage SID Collection, which aims to contain just about every single bit of CBM-II/C64/C128 music ever and seems to be doing well in that regard. SIDtunes are compact enough (and sufficiently conveniently packaged) that one can easily download the entire HVSC and listen to tracks from games/artsts one didn't know yet. Anything similar for SPCs?

  • One way to architectural strength (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Bach. Well Tempered Clavier, Musical Offering, Art of the Fugue. This music will lead you to good, tight and elegant design.

  • It better include Saved By Zero by The Fixx

  • How to totally screw up my ability to code:

    (1) Play music
    (2) There is no step 2

    I find that code is processed through the same part of my brain that processes music. If you play music, my code will go to crap, since I'm trying to do two things with the same set of neurons.

    I totally can not understand how people can produce code while listening to music.

    OK, I lied; what I can't understand is how people can produce GOOD code while listening to music.

    • Musician and programmer here (see shameless plug below). I completely agree. One of my colleagues always has music playing in one of our coding labs. It's nice music, often Mozart, but it just yanks my concentration. When I code I like to be able to immerse myself in it. Music keeps me buoyed up at the surface.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by digsbo ( 1292334 )
        Funny, as a musician and programmer myself, I think Mozrt's various tafelmusik is ideal, since it was originally designed as background (table) music.

    • If you play music, my code will go to crap, since I'm trying to do two things with the same set of neurons.

      Some of the most amazing brain work is done by /dampening/ the neurons, not hyper-exciting them. For me, music distracts enough of them that the rest can stay focused on the code. aka "in the zone".

      For some reason, instrumental is fine for me and talk radio is fine for me, but lyrical music does not work at all. Maybe I'm programming more in the 'song' region.

    • Wow!

      I have been using Pandora Radio at work for over a year now. I have "trained" one station such that I skip tracks only about once or twice a day.

      It helps me focus. Perhaps it blocks out other distractions, I really don't know. All I know is that I have much better focus when the music is playing.

      As for what music: it's quite a wide range. New Age/Celtic/Progressive Rock/Folk/Folk Rock, etc..

    • Yep, same here. I typically require silence to do my best work. College was a nightmare, because college students (and crappy neighbors in general) seem to think they have a God-given right to inflict their music of choice on everyone else around them.

      The *only* thing I can tolerate is classical, movie soundtracks, or maybe some sorts of ambient/synthetic/trance music, and I generally only do that when I need to drown out other noise in the environment. It still tends to affect my concentration and produ

  • Video Game Music (Score:2, Interesting)

    by pitchpipe ( 708843 )
    Why not just listen to video game music? Seems like it was made for the same purpose. When I am coding, listening to video game music doesn't distract my brain, energizes me, and makes what I am doing feel really important. It's awesome.

    • TOTALLY! all the time. in fact I wish my game music would play 2 or 3 times longer for each song.

    • When I have a design decided, and I just need to develop = Megaman youtube playlist.
      Master Blaster is good too, except for level 7--that is just too much.

    • Because video game music is unlistenable drek that is pumped out by less-than-talented musicians?
      • O'RLY? Nobuo Uematsu Jeremy Soule Harry Gregson-Williams Jack Wall Inon Zur Jesper Kyd Kou Otani Michael McCann ...

  • In related news: Purity Ring released a new album this week: "another eternity".... it's been a good coding companion for me this week...

    And of course... there is my Spotify station based on Skrillex... must have good beats while coding...

  • We each have oour favorites. (Score:3)

    by Sir Holo ( 531007 ) on Thursday March 05, 2015 @11:35PM (#49194259)

    My fave is Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here – on infinite repeat.

    Its ebb and flow, and my knowing it by heart, together synch-up with the mental cycles of idea and follow-through, as the hours pass by. It's just as useful for writing.

  • I followed the link to his web site (Score:3)

    by tyme ( 6621 ) on Thursday March 05, 2015 @11:36PM (#49194265) Homepage Journal

    and listened to the samples. All I can say ZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzz.

  • I just put on EDM and code to that.
    I do the same when working out.

    What if I told you pirated copies of this are already out there? I wouldn't know, but i do believe it's probably not worth the bandwidth. Also why not offer FLAC?

  • Chances are you have seen that picture used at the top of the article - I had in a few places, and then ran across the guy in the photo, which is for some reason spreading all over... He's keeping track [github.com] of where it appears.

  • With which programming language and version is this compatible?

  • Any album. They are all good.

  • this is what i've been digging lately for computer work...it has no words but is not 'ambient' proper...if you want to get technical, this sub-genre is known as 'chillwave':

    http://comtruise.bandcamp.com/ [bandcamp.com]

  • Silence is golden... (Score:3)

    by DerekLyons ( 302214 ) <fairwater.gmail@com> on Friday March 06, 2015 @02:09AM (#49194639) Homepage

    Learned to really concentrate while serving on a submarine in the USN - to the "music" of fans and humming power supplies... so, for heavy brainwork at the computer all I need is the noise of the computer. Music just pulls me out of what I'm doing.

    Oddly enough, the opposite is true when I'm working out in my woodshop, there I like to have music.

    • For the 'harder' coding silence is definitely golden. But for the monotone 'this is the boring part' coding, just give me a couple of Tool CDs, they are great for keeping focus.

  • I recently read somewhere (but now can't find, of course) a study that indicated people are less likely to come up with creative solutions/leaps of thought in a noisy environment. This included listening to music.

  • Apparently, video game music is supposed to be good for coding to, as it is designed in such a way as to not distract the player too much.

  • ... anything. All of it.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • If you're a fan of ST:TNG, try this [youtube.com] or that [youtube.com] for background noise.

  • downloaded and listened to some of the tracks — not bad — liking the orange sample..

    but this has already been done more excellently by professional musicians —

    try this for coding to — SLOWDIVE — https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

    enjoy :-D

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