Music To Code By
Max from {codesqueeze} tagged me last week with his "What music do you code to?" meme.
The timing of his question is perfect because I am just now rediscovering the joy of listening to music while coding. I used to always listen to music while I coded, but I’ve gone nearly cold turkey over the last year due to a traumatic electronic data loss episode coupled with switching jobs and not feeling comfortable enough to completely "tune out". Over the last several weeks though, I have become one with my head phones again and finding that my days are much more enjoyable because of it.
Unlike Max, my choice of music does often corresponds to my mood or situation, so I categorized my songs accordingly:
Top Reasons I listen to music:
- To block out the noise of cubicle hell: I’ve experienced the benefits of pair programming and am a fan of it as long as it is done in moderation. I also know how much wasted effort can be avoided when a team has mastered the art of high bandwidth communication, which an open environment can sometimes facilitate. However, there are still plenty of times when I really need to concentrate to get work done and cube farm chatter is a major productivity killer for me. There is nothing that helps drown out my well meaning, but noisy teammates better than some good music. When confronted with obnoxiously loud talkers babbling incessantly about inane personal stories, then I pull out the big guns like Tool, Nine Inch Nails, Sum41, and Nirvana.
- Lower My Stress: Whenever that rush of adrenaline that comes from an impending deadline starts to garble my thinking, I pull out some mellower music like Everything But The Girl, the Wallflowers, Jack Johnson, John Mayer, David Gray, David Mathews, or Sting to ease myself back into the productive zone.
- Boost My Energy Level: Caffeine is obviously my stimulant of choice, but sometimes after a late night of programming or blogging I need something upbeat but not quite as hardcore as my noise blocking music, so I turn to groups like Green Day, Beck, Weezer, and R.E.M..
- Cheer Up: Whether I’ve just had a meeting with the audit department, had an issue reopened for my code having excessive white space in it, or been informed by a user that they’ve changed their mind and my last month of labor will now have to be thrown away, there are times when I just need to be cheered up. That’s when I turn to The Strokes, The Hives, Gorillaz, and Proclaimers.
- Wallow: Let’s face it, there are time when cheering up just won’t do and a good bit of wallowing is in order. If I just found out that I drew the short straw and now have to do several weeks worth of documentation or am required to attend an all day HR meeting or have to inform management that the team is still 95% complete for the tenth week in a row on a massive waterfall project, then I resort to groups like Cold Play, Counting Crows, Dashboard Confessional, and Radiohead.
- Focus on Reading: If I have some massive concentrating to do (i.e. whitepaper to read), but still need some ambient noise, then I have a selection of classical music that I turn to such as Rachmoninov, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven or pretty much anything else classical.
I admit that my classification system isn’t perfect because several of the groups produce music that spans several categories and that I probably had a few particular songs in my head when I grouped them.
Of course, sometimes I also just like listening to music and that’s where all the rest of the groups that I can’t think of now come in to play.
I tag Justice, D’Arcy, Dru, Troy, and Rob (even though I forgot to respond to the last meme he tagged me with…:-)
When you just need to
Music. finally something I can understand. My latest programming music/ambient noise: aphex twin, explosions in the sky, burial, lcd soundsystem.
[…] Music to Code By (Russell Ball) […]
I drink mate while coding http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mate_(beverage) My Argentine roots make everyone in my office stare at me with a puzzled look!
I meant this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mate_(beverage)
OK, I give up; tinyurl please save me: http://tinyurl.com/2qsvts
You can delete the previous comment!
You might also like Opeth as background music it’s very heavy alternating with very restfull.
Might be a bit too heavy for your taste but it’s nice for when your dealing with hard code.
Hey Now Coder,
e4, tech pods are great too. such as PWOP or any & all.
Thx 4 the info,
Catto
Of course you still have time to do the one I tagged you for.
And you took all of the jazz music that I liked listening to.
http://geekswithblogs.net/robz.....oding.aspx
@Marshal - as my primary source of good music, I’ll have to “borrow” those from you as well.
@Adrian - Many thanks! I’m always looking for a new caffeinated beverage to sample, although I may limit my intake based on the the whole “probably carcinogenic to humans” comment in the wikipedia article…:-)
@Mirsha - Thanks for the suggestion! I’ll look around and give it a try.
@Catto - I think pwop podcasts are top notch too, but I just suck at multi-tasking, so I save those for when I am doing mindless tasks like exercising or work around the house.
@Robz - sorry about dropping the ball on that…I’ll bump it back up on my blogging TO DO list…
http://www.c895worldwide.com or http://www.1dance.fm
Grif pointed me to your site, love it!
@DaShaun - Thanks for the links!
Grif is a riot to work with. Did he point you to a couple of the posts that he helped inspire?
http://www.caffeinatedcoder.co.....workplace/
http://www.caffeinatedcoder.co.....-surprise/
http://www.caffeinatedcoder.co.....ng-skillz/
http://geekswithblogs.net/dsel.....20555.aspx
How come I never got to listen to the Jazz?
great bands. nice mood groupings too. i also like to listen to streaming kcrw from LA.
[…] Eric Whelchel wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptThe timing of his question is perfect because I am just now rediscovering the joy of listening to music while coding. I used to always listen to music while I coded, but I’ve gone nearly cold turkey over the last year due to a traumatic … […]
You should try Godsmack - I guess you’ll enjoy them
Good selection….ever think about putting these lists on Pandora? http://www.pandora.com.