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🎶 Background Music to Get Into the Zone

Bas Steins on January 27, 2022

Maybe the most essential skill for a developer is having a crystal clear focus. Some call it "the zone", a state of mind in which your mind is genu...
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Bill Raymond

I don’t know why Wu-Tang Clan is on every list from nearly every developer who recommends music, since the band started. Their music is fine, but trying to code with their music does not work for me.

With that rant out of the way, I recently moved my desk to a window so now the outside noises are keeping me in the zone.

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Pedro

Do not forget the Donkey Kong Country soundtrack for SNES.

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Jason F

A true masterpiece.

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Jonas Brømsø

I can really recommend several of the streams from Somafm if you are into electronica.

  • Drone Zone
  • Deep Space One
  • Space Station Soma
  • Mission Control, where you can listen to conversations between astronauts and their mission control, very stimulating to hear other people work

And you are always welcome to checkout my Spotify playlist /Music/Hacking

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jrbirdmanOH • Edited

Don't forget their DefCon soundtrack, GrooveSalad, and GrooveSalad Classic channels. The first one is my favorite...they play funny soundbites from actual DefCon presentations.

Oh...and all their channels have streams, so you don't have to worry about closing a browser window or tab and loosing the music...

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David Parry

Highly recommend everything on Ambient Music Guide, in particular the mixes and podcasts. Low on lyrics, big on electronica, but immensely broad coverage of many down-tempo styles.

ambientmusicguide.com

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n-anselm

There's a really nice program for Linux, called Blanket. It can play nature sounds, as well as travel sounds and white/pink noise among others. The really neat thing is that you can mix the sounds and and adjust the volume for each one. You can also add custom sounds.

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Bas Steins

Is it this one? github.com/rafaelmardojai/blanket
I wasn't aware of it, but it looks nice ;)

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n-anselm

Yes, that's the one.

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Nicolas Carlo

Oh, thanks for these cool YouTube playlists! The Witcher soundtrack definitely goes to my favs ❤️

Since you are mentionning Pomodoro + background music, I suggest you give a look at Centered. It's an app that's designed to help you get in the Flow faster, and stay there longer. It combines background music + a virtual coach that nudges you from distractions + a rythm of work sessions/breaks and a couple more features…

I'm one of the developer being the project, and also a big user of it myself.

Hope that may help!

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Chelsie

Arcane's album is pretty much on repeat. Really brings out my inner Jinx. Also depressing piano covers, Rok Nardin and overall film, video games and etc music scores.

🧸Arcane via Spotify

🧁my personal rando playlist

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alfiks

Nice list. Also film music is great for focus especially Terminator 2 soundtrack.

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Giulliano Álvaro

Hi guys, I like so much this playlist: youtube.com/watch?v=-5KAN9_CzSA

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Koas

My 2 cents: I love “Purified Radio” by Nora En Pure, 1 hour episodes of great music, available in YouTube.

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David Boddie

When I go out to Youtube for music, especially to code by, I look up the Iron Man Soundtrack(s) and find a playlist. Something about coding next to Tony Stark gets me motivated. :D

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Cris

I used a lot of times brain.fm , for focusing it's a great tool.
Now I'm listening all the sets from Blume:
youtube.com/channel/UCq22aK0t0mrOEq676Be4ezw

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Marissa Douglass

This is a great list! I'll definitely be trying a lot of these out since I usually do movie soundtracks or classical music. Can't handle a lot of music with words because I'll start typing those!

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Bas Steins

I can relate to that! ;)

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Madza

Great list, Bas! 💯👍
I also created a fun side project some months ago 📻🎵

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Bas Steins

That looks promising! Unfortunately, I get a 500 from your API and can't hear anything... Maybe you want to have a look...

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Madza • Edited

Sry, had to redeploy due to maintenance, should be fixed now 😉

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Harshit Gangwar

Nice compilation!
Definitely going to follow some of these :))

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SoundWaveX81

I love rock and metal music, but when I really want to get focus I used to listen:

  1. Pan pot (EDM and deep house)
  2. Etta Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong (jazz)
  3. Howling wolf (blues)
  4. SOJA (reggae)
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Ross Kenney

Sim City soundtracks are great. youtu.be/5GCoc893Vt8
youtu.be/qkXOxLpdMds

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Chelsie

Also yes, to your suggestion of the Witcher Album! So much love.

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vlbn

I just put a Chopin Spotify playlist..

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Sergiy Yevtushenko

I've found that music specially "designed" to maintain focus works best to me. It allows to keep high productivity and concentration for several hours in a row. For example, this one is my favorite.

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Husen

Great list.
But, no post-rock?

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Bas Steins

You have a playlist you want to share?

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Husen

I usually listen to Deep Focus playlist on Spotify.

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Harleen 🏳️‍🌈

I love WoW.
Here are more Tracks:

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oeo2VCCtUZQ

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjTe0R2bREY
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Vicente G. Reyes

Awesome list!!

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Patrik Jajcay

I found that listening to background ASMR helps me focus on work.

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vdmokstati

musicforprogramming.net is a good one

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Ulises Rosas

NewRetroWave works for me 😀

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Sadi

take a look on my new migration concept
github.com/SadiWhite/laravel8february

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Zach

Wu-Tang is for the children.

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vit9min

Greate, always with Eminem. I born, grew up and will die with Eminem sounds ^_____^