As I work, one of the primary things that keeps me going strong is the music I listen to. The previous sentence sounded like something straight out of a bad commercial.
I’m serious, though. Nothing helps me get in the zone more than a good song. With that being said, I find that the best music for programming is music that is not too distracting, but soothing, melodic, and rhythmic. Although classical music is a perfect fit for these expectations, I tend to favor something a little more electronic.
What do I mean when I say electronic? Well, electronic music has actually formed into its own genre. Whenever someone says electronic music, most people think of today’s standard EDM. What is this standard? Generally the tracks involve a catchy melodic build-up, a seemingly uncalled for shift (the drop), which is usually preceded by vocals such as “Jump”, “Get Down”, or other words suggesting immediate action, and then a melody with a very distinct beat that is easy to bob your head to.
Fortunately, this is not the type of music that I listen to. I like to listen to progressive house music or trance music. Why? Because it has a calm feeling to it. The songs are not derived from the party formula, but instead are composed to meet the creator’s expectations. I love consuming media that was created out of pleasure. For instance, deadmau5, Madeon, Daft Punk, and the new Porter Robinson are among my favorites, as they create music not for the fame, but because they want to, and they’re very good, too.
As I become more active on my blog, I want to share the music that I listen to. Inspired by posts by Sauropod Studios as they develop a game that I’ve been anticipating for a while, I also want to post music that I’ve been listening to. Not only will it allow songs that I like to get more exposure, but it will also allow other developers to discover new music.
I am really in love with Porter Robinson’s new album, Worlds.
As time has gone on, I have been trying to find the perfect program to listen to all of my music on. When Spotify first came around (somewhere around 5 years ago? It wasn’t even available in the US), I quickly signed up for the beta and used a proxy to consume all of the media that I could. However, one thing that always bugged me about Spotify was the fact that it didn’t allow local uploads to be synced across devices or shared in playlists. What good is music if it can’t be shared with others? Atleast, that seems to be the biggest selling point of the entire Spotify platform itself.
Because of this, I ended up going with Google Play Music (All Access) for about 6 months. I was very happy with the experience, and the ability to listen to all of my music from the web, upload all of my local music, and see how many times I’ve listened to songs made me very happy. However, the problem with Google Play Music (All Access) is the same problem that Google+ has. All of my friends use the competitor. What does this matter? Well, if I want to see what my friends are listening to, receive songs from my friends, and be “in the loop”, I need to conform and use the same service that they do. That is the reason that I have stayed on Facebook for so long, and that is the reason that I switched away from Google Play Music (All Access) and got myself Spotify Premium.
Of course, I was pleasantly surprised when I learned that Spotify offers a 50% discount to students, which allowed me to gain more profits than I was expecting, which is always a plus! Plus, being able to access all of my friends’ playlists is actually something that I really love.
All in all, I must say that both music platforms have their advantages. Both are solid. However, Spotify is currently the winner. Given enough time, I do believe that Google Play Music (All Access) will pull ahead, though!
