Music for coding

Carbon Based Lifeforms is my current favourite

For general coding, Chihiro Onitsuka, one or other of Yuki Kajiura’s projects (FictionJunction or Kalafina, for instance) or a Yoko Kanno soundtrack are good.

When it comes to debugging, or those times when something that patently obviously should work doesn’t, then I switch to Within Temptation. I find “Iron” is a good one for hardcore debugging, especially when it is somebody else’s code you gotta fix!

When the debugging is complete, a spot of MeatLoaf, particularly the early stuff. Call it a guilty pleasure. Except “Paradise By The Dashboard Light”, I hate that song… Though it is made up for by “For Crying Out Loud”.
And then we’re back to J-Pop by way of “Racing In The Street” (Springsteen) and “If It Be Your Will” (Cohen) and a dash of Sarah McLachlan just, well, because.
Finally, throw in some Erasure (“When I Needed You (Melancholic Mix)” / “The Two Ring Circus”) to ensure that my playlist will remain uniquely … mine. ;-)

My preferred styles are:

• Upbeat uptempo sad songs (“Secret Base” is a great example http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOlRSXtDNRk Originally by Zone, covered by many, the one linked is a cover (no, it isn’t in English)).
• Orchestral rock verging into Wagnerian rock. If you don’t know what I mean, listen to “The Promise” by Within Temptation and then anything Jim Steinman has ever written, from “Bat Out Of Hell” to “Holding Out For A Hero” and many more besides.
  But, beware, if you plan to turn it up to eleven, you have to do it properly. “Bohemian Rhapsody”, good. Muse, not so.

Things you won’t find on my playlist:

• Rap
• Lady Gaga or anything like that. Rebecca Black, Katy Perry, blah blah, NO.
• Most “country” (sorry, there is one Taylor Swift, I apologise…).
• Anything born of Simon Cowell. In fact, I tend to avoid most “look at me, I’m a pop star” types until we get to original material instead of covers.

I also have the pleasure of songs being in English, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Breton, Gaeilge (Irish), Gàidhlig (Scottish), Cornish (!), Swedish, Icelandic-gibberish (Sigur Rós), Estonian, Hebrew, Russian, Greek (at least, I think “Tha’ne Erotas” is Greek), Portuguese, Korean (no, it isn’t Gangnam Style), Mandarin, Japanese, and “Kajiuran”. The predominant language is 日本語. ;-)

There’s been a lot of Springsteen mentioned at work, a knee jerk reaction would be “I don’t like it”, but I don’t think I’ve actually listened to any of his stuff – I should correct that mistake.

I like Jazz FM for breaks whilst my expresso machine heats up, that’s my “Guilty pleasure”.

I should really listen to some Japanese music, which reminds me I thought what I’d do was, I’d pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes.

http://flashpointdump.com/laughing_man_elmex.png

Most “country”

Known as “Preston music” around this house, due to an old joke…

… which involves a few old folk that go to a club regularly with a regular musician, Harry, playing old favourites. One night Harry is sick and an alternate is brought in at short notice – beggars can’t be choosers and it’s a C&W setup.
The bar man explains to the first, rather deaf regular that the normal musician, Harry, is sick there wasn’t much choice so he and his friends would have to put up with some Country and Western.

Later others arrive and one late comers asks what happened to the regular music and what was this?
To which the deaf regular said “Harry’s sick, so we have some c*** from Preston”

Having (possibly) lowered the tone I’ll get my coat…

There’s been a lot of Springsteen mentioned at work, a knee jerk reaction would be “I don’t like it”, but I don’t think I’ve actually listened to any of his stuff – I should correct that mistake.

One thing that is notable about Springsteen is that his songs tell a story. It isn’t the usual few verses with a repeating chorus, there’s an actual plot going on. Try “Racing In The Street” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecunQO_uoIg (studio version is less ‘noisy’ than the live one) and “The River” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAB4vOkL6cE. Be warned, though, the other thing that is notable about Springsteen is that his songs can be quite lengthy on the album, and “epic-long” in live performances. [just skip over “Born In The USA” which is really cheesy!]
That’s just the way I like it, I don’t feel that your standard prepack three-minute-hit is enough time to get into a song and appreciate it for what it is.

I like Jazz FM for breaks whilst my expresso machine heats up, that’s my “Guilty pleasure”.

My “playlist” when I was coding years ago was basically to put ClassicFM TV on. But they pulled off of satellite and went streaming with IP region lock-out. A channel called oMusic took its place, but it didn’t last long. Pffft. Perhaps the last bastion of decent music videos on TV has gone. I’m glancing at the selection of Freesat music channels and…well…

I should really listen to some Japanese music,

What, though? There is a world of difference between Alan ¹ and Chitose Hajime ², and a group like nano.RIPE ³ or, even AKB48 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgESmgZ4ld8

which reminds me I thought what I’d do was, I’d pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes.

Well, you’ve already heard the music of Yoko Kanno then. She did the GiTS:SAC soundtrack. That said, I rather liked the spooky ambience of the soundtracks of the films, particularly “Innocence” (GiTS2). Kenji Kawai did a great job there, as with the original film.

Hey, can I pass the baton to you? I’m fed up of correcting people who “discover” Ghost in The Shell (1995) and comment on how some parts must have been inspired by The Matrix (1999)… ;-)

¹ Very cute Chinese/Tibetian singer who performs in Japanese. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_(Chinese_singer) Also possibly single-handedly introduced the Erhu into pop music. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erhu
If you can find a copy, look for “Megumi no Ame”. It keeps getting taken down on YouTube, so here is the PV on DailyMotion. http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xto3b0_pv-alan-megumi-no-ame_music
[crap… that’s a widescreen video in a 4:3 frame, I hate it when they do that! here, try this instead (some making-of stuff appended)… http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNTAyNzE5MTY=.html (just click on the play button and ignore everything else)]

² Chitose Hajime is from a little island near Okinawa and she sings in a traditional style associated with her home. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chitose_Hajime
The song “Ryugu no Tsukai” is, as Terry Wogan might have said, “a lovely little ditty”. Here is the copy from the PlanZet soundtrack, it contains a translation timed to the song. It’s a sweet story. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWvvOohnBWA

³ With a very love it of hate it style of singing (basically, sounds like a five year old!), nano.RIPE is doing great business making animé soundtracks. Given how distinctive she is, you can’t fail to notice her around a LOT if you watch animé. Indeed, one might suppose “animé? girls in a school? okay, it will require a nano.RIPE theme then!” Is basically how it would go in the design committee meeting. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nano_Ripe
The story I read somewhere is that Kimiko (lead singer) was disillusioned with being turned down by studios so she had a little bit too much to drink and set up a video camera and recorded her singing one of their songs in the style of a little child, and emailed the video to the record companies that turned them down, with a message saying something to the effect of “here, I am performing this to your intellectual level”. And they were signed the very next day.
It’s a cool story, but given the wiki version of events (namely, they made two albums as an indie band before being signed to Lantis), it is likely not true. Shame.

Rick, do you know about Beyond?

Beyond

(Not to be confused with The Beyond!)

won’t find Lady Gaga

Rick, is the Trois Petits Cochons version passable?

(Not to be confused with The Beyond!)

There are one or two differences, aye!

Alas, my Iyonix never produced properly audible sound, let alone music. My XP notebook can play music, but tinnily and with long silences if it is streamed (our village has been promised a faster broadband connection real soon). I shall have to shell out for extra hardware if my Rpi is to produce sound, and I have little expertise for making the right purchases. So for me, computers and sound have never sat at the same table. But if they could, I would be listening to Yorgo Bacanos (died in 1977) because I have never heard any player of a stringed instrument who can get anywhere near his talent, unless it be Subramaniam on violin or Hopkinson Smith playing ricercars of Francesco Canova da Milano.

Sorry, internet connection went down just as I clicked, with the message being sent twice as a result. So I edited the second one to this, as it appears that ordinary users do not have permission to cancel their submissions completely.

Orchestral rock verging into Wagnerian rock. If you don’t know what I mean, listen to “The Promise” by Within Temptation

Love that song, especially the live version on the Black Symphony album.

Well, I do use one computer or another to listen to music quite a lot. Recent favourites have been the 96k flac downloads of the Britten War Requiem, Jimmy Smith’s ‘The Cat’, and the Ellington / Hodges ‘Side by Side’ albums. However the drawback is that I can’t listen to music while doing anything like writing a program or an article.

Either the music is good and I stop writing or thinking about anything else because I’m listening. Or the music is poor, so I stop the music as it becomes at best a distraction! :-)

Jim

Today’s day at work just reminded me of Metallica…
“Landmine has taken my sight, taken my soul….”
Plenty of others of course (Slayer,Megadeth etc. etc.)
Sometimes, something nasty is good – just to relieve the stress.

Love that song, especially the live version on the Black Symphony album.

Oh, I couldn’t agree more. There’s so much… spirit …in the Black Symphony performance that it excels over the standard album issue in numerous cases. For me, it’s a rare thing to have a live recording be better, but I think the group just revel in putting on a show!

Sometimes, something nasty is good – just to relieve the stress.

Oh, yes. Had a terrible few days at work (two people off sick, and I alone was expected to cover with not a lot of help (the people they did send, some of them I wished I could have sent back – you ever deal with a person so dumb you would actually think you’d get the job done better alone? I mean, FGS, I don’t have time to be a nanny…)) so I came home and unwound with “Numb” (Linkin Park). That’s about as nasty as my playlist gets.
I have heard some Korn and Slipknot on the TV music channels, but I don’t really get the whole primal-growling thing. The two groups I mentioned seem so far over the top, I’m not sure if it is funny or extremely disturbing. If I want to dump a pile of pent up frustration, I don’t think music-to-murder-by is quite going to hit the spot.

Of course, just for fun – I have a file of YouTube links of songs. One of them is Rick Astley… ;-)

Sometimes, something nasty is good – just to relieve the stress.

I was feeling the same way this afternoon, but I’m not sure where to hide the body :-)

However the drawback is that I can’t listen to music while doing anything like writing a program or an article.

There are two types of people in the world. For one type, things such as music are a distraction, as you comment. For the other type, and this describes me, we actually perform better with such a distraction.

http://occonline.occ.cccd.edu/online/ssterner/Research%20Paper%20Example.pdf
In this, a test is performed using “punk rock” as the distraction.

What would be a better test, and what works for me, is to perform a long term (like a whole day) assessment of productivity with no music, and then a test of the same duration with the person’s playlist playing at a comfortable volume. It is vitally important because while the PDF looked for if music is distracting, hence the punk rock, it does not consider the potential benefit of a person being in their “comfort zone” with familiar music.
When I have nothing but silence, I try to remember lyrics of songs, and given a hell of a lot of my songs are in foreign languages, I am probably wasting a massive number of brain cycles on misremembering (hence less productivity).

Okay, it is a special case given that I work in a factory, and in the production area you wouldn’t hear music anyway……but the generic cheapo ear muffs we have. Well, I suspect I might be able to fit in the board of a small MP3 player, an AA battery, and an earphone and, hey, would anybody notice? ;-) I’d need to be just a little bit smarter and have a micros witch pressing against the padded bit that goes around the outside. Switch activated, pad being pressed due to head in the way, so connect earphone. Switch not activated, pad not being pressed, ear muffs either not being worn, or ear exposed to hear something. Mmm, I think I’m thinking about this a little too much!

“micros witch” – hey hey iOS’s autocorrection feature!

I was feeling the same way this afternoon, but I’m not sure where to hide the body

Be careful, remember what happened to the guy that “threatened to blow up an airport”.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/05/10/twitter_bomb_joker_guilty/
and
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/02/09/twitter_joke_trial_appeal/
and
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/07/27/high_court_overturns_twitter_bomb_joke_conviction/

Yeah, finally somebody understands that a tasteless joke is not a credible threat! but not before two years of harassment from the powers that be, the loss of two jobs, and god knows what other impacts on his life.
Sometimes I’m glad I no longer live in the UK.

But don’t take offence…
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/05/02/florida_girl_cuffed_in_harmless_explosion/
I’m always glad I don’t live “over there”!

But don’t take offence…

Take up a bed space in the facility at the front of the site maybe:
http://www.covwarkpt.nhs.uk/Pages/Caludon-Centre.aspx
On reflection²

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/05/02/florida_girl_cuffed_in_harmless_explosion/

Hmmm, many years ago my headmaster simply introduced me to a friend of his, very senior constabulary lots of decorative bits on the uniform and cap. Told me my interest in chemistry was misdirected.¹ I promised not to do it again and not to tell other people how.

So much better than the US over-reaction don’t you think?

¹ This might be an over-simplification.

² I tend to make flippant comments more often when pressured/stressed so there may be a part of my mind warning me here.

So much better than the US over-reaction don’t you think?

Indeed. Plus, isn’t stuff like that (maybe not toilet cleaner and alu foil; but certainly coke and sweets) pretty much the sort of thing that gets a child interested in chemistry in the first place?

Plenty of others of course (Slayer,Megadeth etc. etc.)

Sounds like my playlist at work, mine includes Overkill, Rammstein and even some slightly less relaxing like Iron Maiden.

Iron Maiden

Is “Two minutes to midnight” a late coding finish or an early coding start?

Iron Maiden
Is “Two minutes to midnight” a late coding finish or an early coding start?

Well, when the radio alarm turns on in the morning and Planet Rock play “The Full English” (after I’ve fed the cats¹, visited the bathroom and returned to dress properly) then IM means it’s a B-list morning.

¹ Priorities – serve the management first.

Not exactly coding, but trawling through stuff for work tonight.¹ My wife’s just come in the front door and said “I hear you like working to relaxing music.” Had she been a couple of minutes later, it’d have been track 5 of Sepultura’s Chaos A.D. which (for anyone who knows the album) stands out as a rather mellow (sounding)² track. As it was, it was track 4.

¹ Teachers’ strike meant I was babysitting for some of the day, while supposed to be working from home… hence still doing things now as didn’t get enough done during the day.

² Not a particularly mellow backstory, though.

Carbon Based Lifeforms

Top marks to that man, although I’d lean more towards Traced in Air.