Comment by dvh
5 hours ago
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.
The Winner Takes It All lyrics are great for commits and Pull Requests: I don't wanna talk If it makes you feel sad And I understand You've come to shake my hand I apologize If it makes you feel bad
Like others have said, for specific types of activity, I'll prefer no vocals or maybe even no music, but if vocals are fine Abba does have a great flow to it. I used to run to Abba too, at times, because it feels upbeat/positive with good enough tempo. Super trouper, for instance, makes for a great booster.
No laughter here, my brother in music. This is one of the few vocal groups that I could be in the zone with, except "Fernando", because one must release their inner theater kid with that one.
For real concentration I can't have lyrics but that's a great idea for other flow states. Mozart and Brahms are good for me ... Not slow enough to put me to sleep not fast enough or unusual to make me pay attention to the music.
Agree about the lyrics. Phillip Glass is one of my favorites for flowing. His style usually involves a lot of repetition, which I find meditative.
Steve Reich is my favourite of the minimalists. Electric counterpoint and Music for 18 Musicians are regulars in the line up.
I vary a lot but when I do classical music Mozart has occupied quite a lot of my stats, in particular a clarinet concerto by Katherine Lucy [1] and also things like Beethoven's 6th (pastoral, it's beautifully featured in Fantasia) or Grieg's morning mood.
- [1] https://open.spotify.com/album/1R6rh9My8CTK4DqZorJR0V?si=3Ct...
If you have specific song/interpretation recommendations I'd love to hear them.
> Don't laugh
I laugh (:
But good for you, whatever works. Personally, I can't do music with much lyrics or narrative; I find it distracting.
But to each their own!
Mamma Mia soundtrack also works well \m/
It would be impossible for me to not sing along to ABBA
ABBA is amazing