Music for Programming

Re:Music for Programming by daviddaviddavid on Monday July 05, 2021 @12:34PM (#27739631)

I'm a big advocate of what might be called mindful or active music listening. Listen to music in the same way that you would watch an interesting movie or read a novel. It's actually kind of bizarre that such a rich artform is so often relegated to background accompaniment for some other task. At first it might feel as though you're wasting time if you're 'only' listening to music without your eyes/hands engaged in something, but I find that goes away if you are actively engaged in the musical narrative.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Music for Programming by xtracto on Monday July 05, 2021 @01:45PM (#27740199)

I have been like this all my life (39 years). When I was a kid my dad used to play us some children LPs. My brother and I sat down to listen to those stories.

As I grew up, I kept actively listening to music, (both classica/baroque that my dad played on CDs or heavy metal music I loved). Same thing happened with TV/movies.

Nowadays, my wife loves to turn on the TV when we are eating just as "background noise" but darn I find it difficult to focus on eaeting/table-conversation vs whatever is in the TV. For me music and TV have always been mindful activities.

>It's actually kind of bizarre that such a rich artform is so often relegated to background accompaniment for some other task

This is so true, and also sad. I used to go to the Gewandhaus Leipzig in Germany to listen to live classical music concert. The appreciation of richness of a lot of music is being lost.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Music for Programming by cmehdy on Monday July 05, 2021 @06:29PM (#27742406)

We tend to go more and more towards the opposite though, as it's common to watch netflix and do something else, or listen to a podcast or an audiobook while doing pretty engaging activities like driving or sports. So I don't think it's solely a music thing, it's perhaps just a bit older because the radio has been around for longer than podcasts or youtube. And I can't do most of those things myself (multi-task with artistic stuff).

I'm mostly like you in that I prefer actively listening to things (especially when searching for new things). But revisiting known things without searching for more can also offer different feelings, like a sense of comfort or some mental priming for a mood while you're doing something else. It's two different ways to listen to music for two different kinds of experiences.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Music for Programming by SuoDuanDao on Monday July 05, 2021 @08:27PM (#27743132)

I've found this is the only thing that works when I have a melody stuck in my head. Actively listening to it tends to fix it up fairly quickly.

[ Parent | on HN ]