Instead, I have what I call "loop songs", which are selected favourite tracks that span a range of genres from fairly heavy metal to Afrobeats. When I want to focus I pick a loop song and set it to repeat (the ideal volume varies per song, but is typically moderately loud). I can't explain how or why but it settles my brain far, far better than any white noise or "chill" playlist I've tried.
It's also a point of humour with my friends because they're horrified that I listen to the same song hundreds of times over a couple of days, while I'm perplexed that they can actually get tired of listening to a song to the point of disliking it.
Although I don't know if I would be able to loop just one song, I do repeat albums that I like. So I put a few albums that I like and have listened to many, _many_ times, on queue. Already knowing the songs makes my brain settle (or at least reduces the cognitive(?) load a lot), and sometimes I even discovered "new sounds".
My personal theory is the predictability allows you to tune it out, making it invisible to your conscious brain.
Based on my half-baked understanding of Jeff Hawkin's theory that our brains are wired to notice differences.
I loop GTA V soundtracks for driving, the curation seems to be optimized for it https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2YYOp3xA7HcgZQ5hhRJuK1?si=...
While I loop meshuggah's whole album for working. The polyrhythmical barrage of riff is cathartic.
I'm musical in general, having grown up doing various band activities, so there's always a song playing upstairs. Having something external to listen to simply allows me to switch tracks.
I find that a background noise app really helps me stay calm/lowers stress and anxiety, and I get a huge productivity boost out of it. Something about being at peace hearing natural sounds really does feel like it's deeply engrained in me, and I assume other people also. I wonder: (1) if there's a difference between the effects people generally get from various noise types (lofi, natural sounds, white noise etc), (2) whether something relevant about the individual correlates with preference among these, and (3) what is universal among these that makes background noise so commonly helpful.
(I use Noice for free nature/background sounds, off f-droid. I highly recommend it)
I use this this kind of background music as a way to drown other noises, because it's easily canceled by the brain.
It's basically a nicer white noise, better than silence because it allows me to ignore much better the noises around.
So for the 'need' for audible stimulation, it's actually the opposite : you cancel as much as possible the stimulation by having a constant and easily filterable input that drowns the unexpected noises that could be stimulating/break your focus
Certainly, people can point out that constant audible stimulation dates back to at least the radio craze near the beginning of the 20th century. So that gives us a place to start researching comparisons on the effect on attention spans and other aspects of human cognition.
a) No additional stimulus
b) Silence is easy to break. Both at home and in the office. And sudden noise during this silence kills concentration for me for good.
And selecting music I actually want to listen to is counterproductive - as is scrolling through playlists and youtube channels finding the "right thing" to put on and forget about.
Why would there be?
Are you implying that listening to music has absolutely no effect on humans ?
It's missing 2 key features that will prevent me from using it and recommending it to everyone I know:
1) No volume control. You could argue this is more a failure of my browser, but it's easier if you just add a volume control. Bonus points if up/down arrows controls work to control it. Really, all the youtube keyboard controls would be helpful here.
2) YouTube sometimes detects my bitrate incorrectly and I need to manually set it to highest. I don't know why this happens, but it does. Let me change that somehow on your site. Even if I have to opt-in to seeing a full youtube player to set it, that's ok.
I would also like a convenient way to get this on my TV. I wonder which android TV devices can install PWAs now.
It has volume control, you can skip songs, there are 4 different channels (Main, Rock, Mellow, Eclectic) and you can even make your own channel of songs that you rated 7 out of 10 or more.
No ads, purely listener supported. It has a phone app too where you can set bitrate per Wifi/Mobile data and you can also set up caching to listen when you're offline or during tunnels when travelling.
If you were to teleport 2003 me into the present, I would have no idea how to use most front ends of today's websites or smartphones.
I like the idea, and the app looks cool. I just wish there was a way to just get the audio streams from these channels and have the video constantly looping be embedded into the app or something.
The reason why I don't stay tuned to the YT channels is exactly because of ads, and I don't like my bandwidth being consumed by video when I'm not watching anything.
This is why God gave us ad blockers :)
As for ads -- I don't remember how we dealt with those. I don't think embeds show the pre-roll ads, only mid-video ads. Since this is a streaming video I assume it doesn't have those.
____..__._A_.___.___
Where A is the beat.
I'll try to do something using EQ (never though about this option for some reason)
I'd have this open constantly if it had a pause button. Bonus points if there's a easy keyboard shortcut.
This kind of music increases my productivity enormously. Part of it is there's no lyrics and rhythm is interesting but steady. The other part is my brain associates this music with productive coding so it's easier to get into the zone.
- A reminder to open in Safari and how to add to home screen. I opened in Firefox and the music pauses as soon as I switch tabs.
- Test the design on a small device please. The shuffle button gets on top of the other buttons.
- No obvious way of getting out from the hamburger menu. Figured out I can click on the title, but it wasn’t obvious.
If you mean the video part, wouldn’t it be a bit distracting? Still, I think webos-based TVs (LG) have a webkit browser that might be able to handle it. Edit: nope, they are not. Sadface.jpg
I enjoy a most of the music in this genre. But a lot of the tracks use effects that makes me nauseous, heavy stereo panning and some sort of woomwoom feeling sound (is this "ducking"?). Makes it impossible for me to listen with headphones. Bearable on low volume on laptop speakers.
doesn't get any better than that for me.
