help me finish this god forsaken paper

November 26, 2007 12:22 PM

your favorite music to write by? something energetic, and yet not distracting; funky/energetic/rythmic stuff preferred; maybe instrumental-only.
posted by jak68 to Education (44 answers total)

Mozart's Piano Sonatas.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 12:32 PM on November 26, 2007

When I'm behind deadline, I often head to Digitally Imported to get my music fix. It's mostly trance of some variety, so if electronic music does not suit you, then this will not help, either. I keep trying different stations until I get something that suits my mood at that time.
posted by Xoder at 12:37 PM on November 26, 2007

Miles Davis.

Kind of Blue is my favorite for this.
posted by daniel striped tiger at 12:38 PM on November 26, 2007

Seconding Mozart! I used to always play Eine kleine Nachtmusik whenever I had to write.
posted by Metroid Baby at 12:39 PM on November 26, 2007

Penguin Cafe Orchestra

Pavillion by Lineland

See also this previous AskMe.
posted by wemayfreeze at 12:42 PM on November 26, 2007

I like to listen to Moody Radio while I work. If you like that, you might also like the World Passport podcasts.
posted by waxboy at 12:43 PM on November 26, 2007

For me, instrumental post-rock is a good mix between being interesting enough to keep me entertained while still being low key enough for me to ignore.

My two favorites are Godspeed You! Black Emperor and 65daysofstatic.
posted by burnmp3s at 12:44 PM on November 26, 2007

Response by poster: wonderful suggestions! please keep 'em coming (I write for a living and can use all of these suggestions) ;)
posted by jak68 at 12:51 PM on November 26, 2007

WeFunk Radio
SomaFM
posted by wfrgms at 12:51 PM on November 26, 2007

See if you like this (ignore the video). If so, then try Rob Dougan. His main album comes in instrumental and vocal versions, the music is very similar to this. Or, perhaps, Massive Attack, especially the Protection album which is quite low on the vocals (as is Mezzanine).
posted by wackybrit at 12:55 PM on November 26, 2007

There are a lot of great suggestions in this thread too.
posted by sharkfu at 12:58 PM on November 26, 2007

I've got just the thing: Milton Banana Trio and Ursula 1000.
posted by kepano at 1:03 PM on November 26, 2007

Hybrid's most recent two albums powered me through my last manuscript. Though I like "I Choose Noise" better than "Morning Sci-Fi" for writing purposes.

It moves from thumpy to mellow and back again. Cinematic and unobtrusive, IMHO.
posted by angry.polymath at 1:15 PM on November 26, 2007

I've really liked the music of Edit for this purpose.
posted by drezdn at 1:18 PM on November 26, 2007

Two off the top of my head: Kronos Quartet's Pieces of Africa album, and Shostokovitch's 24 Preludes & Fugues as peformed by Keith Jarrett.
posted by aught at 1:22 PM on November 26, 2007

embryonic journey by jefferson airplane.
posted by kidsleepy at 1:23 PM on November 26, 2007

I swear by dots and loops by stereolab for this exact purpose. The rhythm chugs along, but the textures are such that they don't require your full attention.
posted by umbú at 1:25 PM on November 26, 2007

When I write, I like to listen to Paris Combo and other jazz music in French for a few reasons:

1. Since it's in French and I can't understand it, the lyrics don't distract.
2. It's often peppy. Not the classic jazz so much, but Paris Combo definitely fits all three of your adjectives--rhythmic, funky and energetic--to a tee.
3. It makes me feel writerly. Especially if I sip wine while writing.
posted by lampoil at 1:29 PM on November 26, 2007

I'm with a lot of the others here... When developing software, I listen to ambient techno (Orbital, Aphex Twin) or some kind of chamber music (Bach, usually). Rap is especially bad due to the prominence of the vocals, but some bands with vocals seem to be ok (for me, Radiohead, Muse).
posted by knave at 1:46 PM on November 26, 2007

I asked this question before.
posted by dobbs at 2:00 PM on November 26, 2007

Samba Soul 70!
posted by cashman at 2:08 PM on November 26, 2007

When I work on my novels, I can't have anything predictable nor anything with lyrics. I usually listen to solo piano music from this site:

http://www.solopianoradio.com/

Via iTunes.

Enjoy!
posted by willmize at 2:16 PM on November 26, 2007

I wrote my whole PhD listening to Glenn Miller.
posted by gaspode at 2:40 PM on November 26, 2007 [1 favorite]

When I'm fighting a deadline, Sparks' Lil' Beethoven is the perfect ambient music.
posted by Oriole Adams at 3:00 PM on November 26, 2007

Bond Born or Pink Floyd Animals. No, seriously.
posted by trinity8-director at 3:06 PM on November 26, 2007

NEU!
posted by koeselitz at 4:16 PM on November 26, 2007

the go! team
the thermals
lcd soundsystem

...basically, dancy energetic stuff that keeps me pumped.
posted by timory at 4:28 PM on November 26, 2007

I listen to mostly rock while I work. The heavier, the better. I'm really not sure why.
posted by cholly at 4:40 PM on November 26, 2007

Anything by Air, "cool school" jazz ala Dave Brubeck, and, lately, Daft Punk.
posted by Benjy at 4:45 PM on November 26, 2007

Dirty Three , Mogwai, Godspeed you black emperor, sigur ros, the necks, triosk, pivot

really anything instrumental. I always get way too distracted when I listen to anything with lyrics - try to sing along, start analysing it.

Also any music with foreign language vocals is good too. I don't speak french but I love Francoiz Breut and Mansfield Tya.
posted by robotot at 5:00 PM on November 26, 2007

Glenn Gould doing Bach's Goldberg Variations.

I always grade papers to Clap Your Hands Say Yeah or the Strokes.
posted by HeroZero at 5:22 PM on November 26, 2007

When I was writing for a now-dead show on Comedy Central, we had to pound out jokes for three hours a day. I eventually settled on Jimmy Smith. He's the grandaddy of Jazz organ, and has a ton of albums on Blue Note, then some later stuff on Verve. It's a good medium-up tempo, it makes you feel cool and confident, and is about 95% lyrics-free.

I'd buy a bunch of CDs of his, and it's really hard to go wrong with any of them. It's great music to have on for almost any occasion.
posted by Doctor Suarez at 5:58 PM on November 26, 2007

When I write, I very often do so with music on and earplug headphones in place. But, once I am in a groove and really writing, I don't even hear the music. It's just wonderful background noise that prevents me from being distracted.
posted by GregWithLime at 6:11 PM on November 26, 2007

John Tilbury - All Piano (music by Morton Feldman)

other Morton Feldman
posted by Joseph Gurl at 6:13 PM on November 26, 2007

I also approve of WeFunk. My brother-in-law hired Professor Groove and DJ Static to play at his wedding a few years ago. As good live as on the air.

Also, just set up a pandora.com radio station based on the one piece of music or artist that you would like to hear more of. I like to work listening to a station based on Brian Eno's Thursday Afternoon.
posted by billtron at 6:18 PM on November 26, 2007 [1 favorite]

I was coming in to recommend Sparks, but Oriole Adams beat me to it. Lil' Beethoven and Hello Young Lovers are pretty good 'in the zone' stuff for me.
posted by pupdog at 7:28 PM on November 26, 2007

Oh, and if I need something more 'intense', I go for Front242 and Ministry.

Art of Noise is usually pretty good for getting my head unraveled.
posted by pupdog at 7:33 PM on November 26, 2007

You are looking for a band called Tristeza.
posted by quadog at 12:39 AM on November 27, 2007

My favorite writing music falls into two categories: Trip hop and Post Rock.

Trip hop faves: Massive Attack (especially their album mezzanine), Portishead, Morcheeba, DJ Shadow, Lamb, Tricky, Thievery Coroporation...etc.

Post Rock faves: Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Explosions in the Sky, Do Make Say Think, Mono, Tortoise, Mogwai, A Silver Mt Zion.

Good luck! I wrote most of my senior thesis to Mezzanine, by Massive Attack, and Portishead's Dummy. Good times, good times.
posted by HighTechUnderpants at 12:48 AM on November 27, 2007

Response by poster: thanks, meta-friends. I'm going to refer to this great list for quite a while. ;)
posted by jak68 at 4:03 AM on November 27, 2007

these are all great suggestions . . .i used to write a LOT while listening to galaxie 500. but that was a long, long time ago . . .
posted by deejay jaydee at 9:49 AM on November 27, 2007

Three of my faves are DJ Olive, Amon Tobin, and Bran Van 3000. Kid Koala gets me started off (more jazzy and fast).

I'm with HighTechUnderpants on the TripHop bandwagon. My search keyword is actually "downtempo." One iTunes radio / Radio 365 station with this is Lazy8Radio ("jazzy and dubby downtempo"). I'm also highly partial to dub (eg "dr. dick's dub shack" on iTunes radio.
posted by salvia at 5:29 PM on November 27, 2007

Dunno why I didn't think of this before.. DaTempo Lounge, one of the Internet radio channels from sky.fm. I actually pay $6 or so each month for the 192kbps feed, but the free 96kbps one sounds good too (and the aacPlus one is really good). No ads (just sky.fm idents) and great music. They have about 50 other channels of other genres too.. trance might work.
posted by wackybrit at 1:01 PM on November 28, 2007

I cannot work or write to any words with music, as I get far too distracted from what I'm doing, but I like energetic pop music to work to, especially when doing data entry.

My solution was to find NON-English pop/rock/folk music. It really works, and also, I can listen to really cheesy pop (Eurovision!) and enjoy it, because I have no idea just how stupid the lyrics are.

This is the one and only benefit to being monolingual.

As for actual suggestions - this set of Mp3s of Uyghur pop music from China is amazing - Music Farthest from the Sea. (Mirror for the files is gone, but the original link seems to be still working). He named it Vol.1 - I'm really hoping he considers doing a Vol. 2.
posted by jb at 6:18 AM on November 30, 2007