Comments on: help me finish this god forsaken paper

Question: help me finish this god forsaken paper

jak68 — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 12:22:06 -0800

your favorite music to write by? something energetic, and yet not distracting; funky/energetic/rythmic stuff preferred; maybe instrumental-only.

By: BitterOldPunk

BitterOldPunk — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 12:32:18 -0800

Mozart's Piano Sonatas.

By: Xoder

Xoder — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 12:37:35 -0800

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.

By: daniel striped tiger

daniel striped tiger — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 12:38:45 -0800

Miles Davis.

Kind of Blue is my favorite for this.

By: Metroid Baby

Metroid Baby — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 12:39:57 -0800

Seconding Mozart! I used to always play Eine kleine Nachtmusik whenever I had to write.

By: wemayfreeze

wemayfreeze — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 12:42:18 -0800

Penguin Cafe Orchestra

Pavillion by Lineland

See also this previous AskMe.

By: waxboy

waxboy — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 12:43:37 -0800

I like to listen to Moody Radio while I work. If you like that, you might also like the World Passport podcasts.

By: burnmp3s

burnmp3s — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 12:44:31 -0800

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.

By: jak68

jak68 — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 12:51:17 -0800

wonderful suggestions! please keep 'em coming (I write for a living and can use all of these suggestions) ;)

By: wfrgms

wfrgms — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 12:51:18 -0800

WeFunk Radio
SomaFM

By: wackybrit

wackybrit — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 12:55:55 -0800

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).

By: sharkfu

sharkfu — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 12:58:15 -0800

There are a lot of great suggestions in this thread too.

By: kepano

kepano — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 13:03:41 -0800

I've got just the thing: Milton Banana Trio and Ursula 1000.

By: angry.polymath

angry.polymath — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 13:15:51 -0800

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.

By: drezdn

drezdn — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 13:18:10 -0800

I've really liked the music of Edit for this purpose.

By: aught

aught — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 13:22:44 -0800

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.

By: kidsleepy

kidsleepy — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 13:23:56 -0800

embryonic journey by jefferson airplane.

By: umbú

umbú — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 13:25:19 -0800

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.

By: lampoil

lampoil — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 13:29:21 -0800

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.

By: knave

knave — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 13:46:27 -0800

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).

By: dobbs

dobbs — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 14:00:21 -0800

I asked this question before.

By: cashman

cashman — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 14:08:21 -0800

Samba Soul 70!

By: willmize

willmize — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 14:16:44 -0800

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!

By: gaspode

gaspode — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 14:40:42 -0800

I wrote my whole PhD listening to Glenn Miller.

By: Oriole Adams

Oriole Adams — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 15:00:24 -0800

When I'm fighting a deadline, Sparks' Lil' Beethoven is the perfect ambient music.

By: trinity8-director

trinity8-director — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 15:06:27 -0800

Bond Born or Pink Floyd Animals. No, seriously.

By: koeselitz

koeselitz — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 16:16:40 -0800

NEU!

By: timory

timory — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 16:28:55 -0800

the go! team
the thermals
lcd soundsystem

...basically, dancy energetic stuff that keeps me pumped.

By: cholly

cholly — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 16:40:48 -0800

I listen to mostly rock while I work. The heavier, the better. I'm really not sure why.

By: Benjy

Benjy — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 16:45:26 -0800

Anything by Air, "cool school" jazz ala Dave Brubeck, and, lately, Daft Punk.

By: robotot

robotot — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 17:00:57 -0800

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.

By: HeroZero

HeroZero — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 17:22:38 -0800

Glenn Gould doing Bach's Goldberg Variations.

I always grade papers to Clap Your Hands Say Yeah or the Strokes.

By: Doctor Suarez

Doctor Suarez — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 17:58:56 -0800

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.

By: GregWithLime

GregWithLime — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 18:11:07 -0800

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.

By: Joseph Gurl

Joseph Gurl — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 18:13:49 -0800

John Tilbury - All Piano (music by Morton Feldman)

other Morton Feldman

By: billtron

billtron — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 18:18:27 -0800

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.

By: pupdog

pupdog — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 19:28:52 -0800

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.

By: pupdog

pupdog — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 19:33:07 -0800

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.

By: quadog

quadog — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 00:39:52 -0800

You are looking for a band called Tristeza.

By: HighTechUnderpants

HighTechUnderpants — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 00:48:13 -0800

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.

By: jak68

jak68 — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 04:03:41 -0800

thanks, meta-friends. I'm going to refer to this great list for quite a while. ;)

By: deejay jaydee

deejay jaydee — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 09:49:44 -0800

these are all great suggestions . . .i used to write a LOT while listening to galaxie 500. but that was a long, long time ago . . .

By: salvia

salvia — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 17:29:28 -0800

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.

By: wackybrit

wackybrit — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 13:01:01 -0800

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.

By: jb

jb — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 06:18:08 -0800

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.