What do you listen to while you work?

Mostly Indie, Americana, Gypsy and Bluegrass music! Day to day it changes a lot, but this is what I have been into for a while now…

A.A. Bondy
Calexico
Brown Bird
Fleet Foxes
Old Crow Medicine Show
Woven Hand & 16 Horsepower

Instrumental Music
Mogwai
Django Reinhardt
A Hawk & and a Hacksaw
Carl Stalling

I write music and play in a band, sometimes I work listening to recordings I have worked on the night before to let a song sub-consciously take shape…hehe. My tunes are here: http://northbridge.bandcamp.com/ (shameless plug). :slight_smile:

I often find myself switching up what I listen to depending on what I’m working on. A lot of Daft Punk and Shpongle if I want background noise, like when I’m coding or skinning. Or Pink Floyd and Depeche Mode when I’m really getting into rigs. I’ve been using Spotify a lot lately and listening through other people’s play lists when I get tired of Pandora’s selection.

I listen to… Alot of weird stuff… :):

Grails
Godspeed You! Black Emperor!
Sunn O)))
Steven Wilson
Nadja
Jesu
Nerurosis
Earth
Old man gloom

to mention a few

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good to hear most TAs love Daft Punk.

If not music, I like listening to this podcast called Nerdy Show. Keeps me up to date on things I miss out on by being too busy with grad school. http://nerdyshow.com/

This generation and its insatiable reliance on a 24 hour soundtrack through life. How about trying silence for once and seeing how much more work you can accomplish? But if you say, “There’s too much noise around me to do that.”, well, that brings up the main problem. We haven’t been doing a good job insisting that management provide us good workspaces. In this age of half-height cubicles and constant-midnight open-floor planning, every one is assumed to be an interchangeable cog in the process. Each job does have a certain level of focus required for optimum performance. If all you’re doing all day long is tedium and low level decision making, then music will block out distracting noise. But if you require more brain activity and active thought, any distractions will keep you from getting in the zone. It takes on average 15 minutes to get back into the zone after each distraction. So some people don’t ever get to peak performance. I now make it part of the negotiation process to let let HR know I require a space that is relatively quiet and free of distractions. Some of them actually get why it’s important for TDs.

I’ll echo: turntable! :slight_smile:

At times, I tend to just prefer silence between the daily interruptions that come up. Otherwise, turntable’s good for drowning out noise, focusing your attention and a bit of stress relief. It’s nice when coding or rigging.

I’m a big fan of some old fashioned techy mixes for code work: Datamix 06 being a solid intro, most of the data mix’s being good work tunes.

Most days, Silence would be better, but it seems impossible to find in the office. so we make due with noise canceling and loud repetitive awesome music!

Art, I tend to lean more towards old punk, and newer rock.

For me I need music to stay engaged in my work…silence is good when I’m incredibly focused on something tough, but otherwise, music keeps me from getting distracted with other things.

I listen to a lot of blues and metal…but pretty much anything goes.
I find downloading the (legit) SXSW music torrents every year is a great source of new music and keeps me from getting bored.
Otherwise I mainly listen to:
Eric Clapton
SikTh
Between the Buried and Me
Radio Moscow
Movie Soundtracks

Music, if it’s a repetitive, high concept or design task then maybe to a illicit a particular mood response and even then at a push. For everything else requiring problem solving it’s got to be silence hasn’t it?

I can’t multi task, so how can I listen to something and produce good work? I even turn the car stereo down at busy junctions or when I need to work out where I’m going. I know it’s about right and left hand brain dominance as much as anything, but for me there’s no way I can use a soundtrack to my problem solving.

I look around the office and see 75% of my colleagues listening to music and wonder how much better we’d be if this was thought about a bit more. For example; music with no vocals, at low volume and used as a tool to enhance a certain mood, rather than for personal gratification. Maybe.

As I’m seated amongst the design team (don’t ask) , maybe ear defenders would be better for me :wink:

Probably an oddball, but mostly talk radio, npr, or podcasts.

I can’t really tune out music as easily as people talking, etc. My wife hates that… :slight_smile:

Rob Zombie and Rammstein for (hardcore) development. Loud enough that no-one will even dare to tap you on your shoulder when you’ve got the headphones on.

Gogol Bordello, The Pogues and Frank Zappa for (obscure) debugging. Loud enough that no-one will even dare to tap you on your shoulder when you’ve got the headphones on.

For most of my usual development I can’t really listen to music as I’m one of these people who are constantly interrupted every 15 minutes. So people at the office know that if I’ve got my headphones on I’m either hardcore developing or obscure debugging. Better to stay away unless the house is on fire. :slight_smile:

SamiV.

I do not listen too much to music at work. I found out that people associate headphones with wanting to be distanced from other people. And it is not really my goal to give them the feeling I am not there to help.

But the nice thing about that fact is that when I have headphones on, people know I have to program something important and as fast as possible. So they mostly leave me alone.

So it is kinda a way of communicating with everyone around me and it has been working great so far.

well while i am working i don’t listen any thing because i have to focus on my work.and when i have not so much work burden i like to listen some good stuff

Here’s what I’ve been listening lately in repeat mode: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=FLfrj4QZVoM35DpDEoegFBhg

Flux Pavillion
Zeds dead
The Glitch Mob
Gemini
M83
and so on xD (Yes, I just found out about dubstep)

Game / Film :
Command Conquer 4 soundtrack
Starcraft 2 soundtrack
Tron Legacy soundtrack
World of Warcraft soundtrack
and more stuff :slight_smile:

Non game:
MaNga
Within Temptation
Evanescence
Nightwish
and more stuff :slight_smile:

just some stuff that came into my mind

Gosh just found this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=endscreen&v=Qq8PTCxuzTA

Perfect for programming and reminds me about the 1000s of hours I spent with it during my childhood =}

Start a Pandora station with the artist name “Mimosa” … good stuff to get in the zone.

Well if I am in office and if I am working I don’t listen to anything. I just work and concentrate on work. I don’t pay attention to any songs. Neither I carry any music gears with me. There is a new option for me to listen songs. My podcast gives me the opportunity to enjoy good songs.

Totally agree with cgjedi, but if I really have to drown out the noise it’s mostly world music. Something with rythm to type along but nothing in a language I can understand or it becomes distracting when my brain tries to make sense of the lyrics. For hardcore thinking - no music, if the surroudings permit.