Listening to Music during Work

Pavlos, George and Kaja talk about what kind of music they listen to during work and how it helps them to get into the "tunnel". If you listen to this episode and get curious about examples of their described music, we have the links to the songs and playlists here!

Kaja' playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5G2JL58Ub6RrwlBY0Zpmjt?si=98adafce1dda4397
Kaja's favorite work song (Aliens): https://open.spotify.com/track/1Sk3itOeGmFFYHOosfrt6c?si=b45655df2fdf47e1
George' playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5ryLnMcPum6WeCr0FSV4oQ?si=256e7b50f61144eb
George's favorite band for work music (hubris): https://open.spotify.com/track/6NuQIYiZEoWXnErCScAbAG?si=31c8215337c24504
Amenra: https://open.spotify.com/track/0mfo3pSczHkPwlWbawU2uX?si=a84c1f9e8e0549f5
Pavlos' playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5EyGjQnVOv0ZLoaMzTX95g?si=78d59f20ac7441b1

Transcript

Pavlos Vinieratos: 0:07

Hello, hello, once again, my name is Pavlos Vinieratos. I'm here with Kaja Santro and George Kartalis, and you're listening to the Artsy Engineering Radio in this episode. It's an RFC episode. So request for comments, which means that it's a little bit more loose, a little bit more conversational. And we will talk about the music, or the songs or the playlists that developers like to hear or like to listen while we're coding, I guess. Do you want to both say hello, George?

George Kartalis: 0:39

Yep, sure. Thanks for having us. I'm George. I'm a software engineer at Artsy and I'm really excited for this conversation.

Kaja: 0:49

Yeah, I am Kaja. I'm also a software engineer at Artsy and Yeah, happy to represent some of the musical devs here.

Pavlos Vinieratos: 1:01

I mean, I guess, you know, I have some questions here. But whatever, we can go freely. What is the usual like the default? Like, if you had to put one song right now and just code anything? What would it be?

Kaja: 1:14

Maybe I could start. So yeah, I think I've shared my playlist with you. But like, the first song in the place playlist is called aliens. The instrumental version of it from Marteria. Marteria is a German artist, who usually is a rapper, but he has like, really good beats. And one of his albums has like, especially good beats for programming. And so I'm only listening to the instrumental songs without the music. And yeah, so it's called Aliens instrumental from Marteria. Yeah, so electronic beat that has, like, for me, it's, it has a very like visual part. So when I hear it, I'm seeing something. To me, it sounds like a construction site that is just building bricks on top of each other. And that kind of puts me in a mode of programming where I'm just like building stuff.

Pavlos Vinieratos: 2:21

Yeah, definitely heard it a little bit yesterday when you said it. And these aliens and the second one, I don't remember what it was yet. grosser. brooder or

Kaja: 2:31

Yeah. Große Brüder, big brothers. something?

Pavlos Vinieratos: 2:37

George, what would be your default thing?

George Kartalis: 2:40

Interesting. So I don't have a default then we borrow varieties from day to day in time to time. But I think that I kind of agree with Kaja because Kaja you mentioned that you prefer like instrumental songs, sometimes, like, I find myself being distracted from the vocals. So I tend to go with instrumental soaks as well. Although there's unraised pretty different these like mostly, either, like post metal Extreme Metal sounds in general. But yeah, most of the times instrumental, and it will depend on if I'm like, doing feature development, I guess, or debugging, I tend to go really different ways. When it comes to that. And for debugging, usually I go like, mostly with instrumental, like, let's say one of my favorite ones, would be hubris, which is our postrock band. And, like, if it's feature development, I can hear like, more intense stuff like extreme metal stuff, where if extreme vocals

Pavlos Vinieratos: 3:48

okay, you're definitely at that thing on the one of the questions I had, which was, yeah, if you always listen to the same kind of thing, or if it depends on what work you're doing, and by the nods of the heads of it, like all three, we're doing this, right. Yeah, I definitely have the same thing. So I would probably put something from thievery Corporation, that's the one I was trying to find. Do you know this one, it's kind of like a seal band or whatever they have. They have mostly with lyrics. But all of the songs are pretty kind of down tempo situation, and I really liked it. But yeah, usually I put the songs without the lyrics when I need to, like think as well. And like do some, you know, more intense coding or debugging or whatever. But if it's something more brain dead, I definitely put some stuff with with lyrics and like that whenever I put stuff with lyrics, it's usually better for me if I don't understand the lyrics, or if they're not immediately obvious to me. So like if I put the Greek rap song I have it has to be like a pretty branded situation of like cola, you know, because I like understand the lyrics, I cannot think of other stuff at the same time. Whereas if it's, you know, like English, it's a little bit harder if it's like, you know, friends and I have no idea then create, like, it's basically like music. You know,

Kaja: 5:12

that's interesting. For me, it's the opposite. So, really, sometimes if I do more like, yeah, no focus tasks, and programming, then I can listen to German podcasts, which is like German lyrics. And, but only the German part. Because if I listen to English, once it were mess with my brain, because programming for me is usually in English. And it will mess with my programming words that I have in mind. And I feel like my brain is able to like split into language parts, because I grew up with two languages. So I grew up bilingual. And I feel like I'm able to, like, have half of my brain listening to German words, and then the other half can like think in english

Pavlos Vinieratos: 6:05

Wow, that's interesting. How is it for you? Is it like, one way or the other way?

George Kartalis: 6:11

I mean, depends. Like, I've, I've noticed that like, sometimes I've listened to foreign, like, languages, like I speak English, I speak Greek and I kind of speak German. So like, when the lyrics are one of the languages they kind of understand. It might like, distract me a bit. So I found myself like listening to bands that have like, that lyrics, for example, like the band called The amendoeira, which is really one of my favorite bands, which is like, post metal situation. But yeah, I find that these, like, with the lyrics being in dots, like I'm not getting that distracted from what I'm listening

Pavlos Vinieratos: 6:58

to. Okay. Yeah. Interesting, interesting. So bilingual, as a young kid definitely helps with listening to lyrics while you're interesting, okay.

Kaja: 7:09

One other artists I wanted to talk about as James Holden, and especially one of his albums that is called the idiots are winning, like, it has, like, very straightforward, minimal electronic beats. And then there's a reason why it's called the the idiots are winning. And like, one of the songs for example, is also called idiot, clap solo, and it's like, very much like, boo, boop, you know. And, it's, like, so nice, because most of his songs they have, like a depth to, to them, and like, some kind of orchestration, but because of the minimalism in it, it's really easy to consume in the background, and it speaks like, not to your brain, but I think to your spine, or something, you know, like, directly goes into, like, the other parts of your consciousness that you don't need for programming. And you can just, like, sit there and like, enjoy the beat, but you don't have to, like, pay attention to it or anything.

Pavlos Vinieratos: 8:15

Yeah, that's, that makes sense. I definitely, like sometimes I like putting, you know, getting more slow songs, or more classical or whatever. But sometimes I do put more kind of, you know, beat music or whatever, you know, like more clabby, or whatever you want to call it. But I definitely. And I haven't figured out yet which, which color music like I like to listen to and which one I don't. But sometimes I notice when I'm listening to that, I'm either just like, you know, going with my head up and down and just like enjoying and coding, and sometimes, like, the repetition of the whole thing just goes in my brain. I'm like, I'm bored of this, like, This is annoying. And then I just, but I haven't figured out yet. Like what is the thing that triggers this?

Kaja: 9:04

Oh, yeah, I can actually also not listen to the music for like, more than two hours because I were like, so programming itself already puts me in this weird tunnel, and then the music intensifies the tunnel. And then if I'm out of space like that for longer than two hours, it will really not feel good. I think it needs to be like, you know, two hours is like watching a movie in a cinema for two hours and you're like completely in this movie. But you have to at some point, have a break and go to the toilet drinking a glass of water come back to the real world. And yeah, I think for me, definitely like when I listen to music, working, I have to take breaks from the music. That makes sense.

George Kartalis: 9:51

Interesting. I've never thought of that like that because I always like to have something playing in the background. Hmm, like, even if I'm programming or if I'm not working at all, like, I always like having something there. Like, whatever this music is

Pavlos Vinieratos: 10:10

related to this, do you usually, for both of you to usually put music in headphones or just like on the speakers over there, I guess if you're in the office headphones, but if you're at home, they usually put it like headphones or speakers, nothing speakers for me. Because I feel like with speakers, and I do the same, you can have it like a little bit more low volume and still have something in the background the whole day. And sometimes, you know, put a tire. But then yeah, that definitely needs a break after a while. Those same for you.

George Kartalis: 10:45

For me, like depends, again, because there are some some times where you want to like crank the music. I go in this case is I go with headphones in order to not have problems with my neighbors, you know, but

Pavlos Vinieratos: 11:00

seriously high volume notes. Yeah.

George Kartalis: 11:03

But yeah, most of the times I always like when I'm working from home, I have it on on the speakers here. Okay,

Kaja: 11:10

that makes sense. Yeah, for me. I mean, my headphones also have the noise cancelling and are really, you know, they kind of so good that it even intensifies the like tunnel thing. So I think that will be too much for for me, it's like completely shutting myself off from the rest of the world. So if like, there would be like a war breaking out behind me, you know, I wouldn't even realize it. I wouldn't be like programming and listening to. To minimal.

Pavlos Vinieratos: 11:44

Yeah, interesting. I mean, I definitely enjoy this kind of focusing like 100% Sometimes. And whenever I do, yeah, and you know, I'm very focused in this, like, flow and all that stuff is definitely, you know, definitely good. But yeah, I see, you know, like an hour passing or whatever. And then I'm like, okay, that's having the break.

Kaja: 12:07

By the way, this, this playlist that I have, I made it after, like when I already started working as an engineer, but actually, I was listening to the same music already, when I was still studying philosophy. And when I was writing my thesis, I was also listening to a lot of the songs. So they like for me, they're not just for programming, but like for any kind of focus total for

Pavlos Vinieratos: 12:36

this situation. I have never listened to songs while study because it was always confusing my brain, maybe some instrumental but very low volume. The you use it also for say you're doing the laundry or whatever, like this kind of focus work. Do you also put music in these cases?

Kaja: 12:57

Yeah, I love like, the combination of like vacuum cleaning and music on the headphones, because then you don't hear the vacuum. But you're like so much in the music and like drawing. And you almost don't feel like you're cleaning. Totally

George Kartalis: 13:10

agree. I totally agree with you.

Kaja: 13:15

It's also that music gives you a lot of energy. It's like, you know, if you feel tired and unmotivated. You can like drink a cup of coffee and listen to music and you will have so much extra energy suddenly like from somewhere you know that you didn't even know you had in some storage. And I think it just for me music definitely is giving me energy. And so like on days when I feel tired and the weather is bit gloomy just boosts my motivation so much.

Pavlos Vinieratos: 13:48

Do you ever listen to say podcasts while you code? Or I mean, I guess if you do just select stuff around the house, it's easier. But for podcasts, at least for me, it has to be like a very, like maybe I'm just making you know, zero tickets or like answering slack messages or whatever, like something and not even programming for me to listen to podcasts. Is that the same for you YouTube?

George Kartalis: 14:13

For me? Not that often. Usually I listen to podcasts when I'm not working generally, because I find them like they distract me so I don't go like with them.

Kaja: 14:26

What I do is like when I saw before I start working in the morning when I have my coffee and stuff I turn on the podcast that is like playing the news every hour. So it just continues playing the news over and over again right so if I don't turn it off and so I kind of in the beginning when I when I go to my desk it's still playing so I'm but I'm not really listening to it anymore because I already listened to it a few times this morning. And then I'm just like letting it play to get like two I have like a more smooth transition from like breakfast to work. Like the first things I do is like reading the Slack channels and getting up to date what happened in the US last night. So I think for that it's okay to have like this podcast running in the background. And as I said, it's in German, and like, I'm reading dislike messages in English. So it doesn't really,

Pavlos Vinieratos: 15:25

it doesn't conflict.

Kaja: 15:28

It doesn't conflict so much. So it's, it's okay, but I'm also not really listening to it very deeply. Like, if I, if I would listen to the podcasts, I would definitely get distracted. And then at some point, I'm like, realizing, oh, there's noise. Talking to me in the background, I am already like, with my mind and work, so I'm turning it off or turning on the music.

Pavlos Vinieratos: 15:51

Okay. Okay. Yeah, so definitely focus is different. All right. I have one last question. And then we can just do whatever questions we come to mind. So prepare, if you have anything. But my my last question was, do you ever listen to I guess, you know, the radio in quotes, which means maybe just to the song, and just put the radio thing on Spotify, or literally, like, the radio, like radio station? You know, so basically, do you prefer pre selected songs, I guess, or a playlist? Or you're okay, with just random, I guess. But in a genre,

Kaja: 16:32

I think, both. So for me, the playlist is definitely also, again, more like a focus thing, because it's, my brain already knows that there are no surprises, you know, and it's like, okay to just to just have it on and like, get in the, in this certain mood and zone. And the radio is for me more like, it's also okay to put on like, radio, but then my brain will sometimes be surprised by a song and be like, oh, you know, like, catching my attention more, I think,

Pavlos Vinieratos: 17:09

which would be a good way, or would it be? Would it be like, Oh, I like this song. Let me just like, save it or whatever, and then go back to work? Or would it be, you're listening to the song now, and you're not coding anymore?

Kaja: 17:20

Depends on the song. So like, if it's really a song that I don't know, and I'm like, Oh, this is good. I need to save it in the playlist. But that's like, that's not good. Actually, if that happens, I will go down the rabbit hole of like, searching for new songs to listen to. And yeah, so I guess the ideal situation is that I don't realize that. And if I realized that it's, yeah, it's definitely gonna distract me.

George Kartalis: 17:46

Yeah, for me, I go with the Spotify radio situation where you can, like, you know, go to an artist radio, and it's pretty much fine, similar artists, with the one that you were listening to, or you picked. And like before, the Spotify era, I remember that. Like, I was using this plugin that was recommending music for you, in order to explore new new stuff for new artists, which was called Last fm. And I think it has changed now It tracks like your Spotify, history or something and also gives you recommendations. But yeah, I usually go with the easy option, which is like playlists curated for you from from Spotify. Most of the time. I'm not listening to radio stations, like during the actual

Kaja: 18:41

car. They listened to Cosmo. Cosmo Radio was the best radio station in Germany. To Cosmo. Yeah. If anyone ever.

Pavlos Vinieratos: 18:58

Yeah, in Greece, actually, there is the radio, similarly named Cosmos, I mean, or same name. And it's the one that I listened to, usually, because they have like, a lot of nice jazz situation. But yeah, okay. I also, I usually don't go for the radio thing. But sometimes I do if I'm, like, if in my mind, I have one song that I want to listen to. But then after that, I don't want to just repeat it five times, you know, then I usually go for with the radio of that song. One thing that I don't like is that you can only choose like one song. So sometimes I like pick a few and then make a little playlist and then use this, like, enhance thing that Spotify has. But sometimes it's suggests things. You know, maybe I start with instrumentals, but then it gives me something with lyrics and I don't really like that. So I wonder if there's like a better way or you know, like ask tippity or something. Give make a playlist for me or whatever. You know, I have no idea if there's a better way that I could do that.

Kaja: 19:58

I think a filter or a certain filter on Spotify would be a nice feature for that, right? Like, if you could, for example, choose tags like instrumental, or I don't know, like, how many BPM, you know, how many beats per minute you want or something like that. I think that would help me a lot to be more open for like, algorithm chosen random music.

George Kartalis: 20:28

For me, I don't have the same issue with Spotify, because, like, due to me listening to way too much postrock music, I guess, Spotify has reached to the point where in the top mixes that it suggests it has, like at least two or three playlists, which are, I don't know 95 98% instrumental music, so I really like that.

Kaja: 20:52

Now, Spotify cannot put a pin on my music tastes really confused, really varies a lot, you know, and then and a half, very, like specific. For example, I also like to listen to classical music, but I only like the Impressionist classical music, that is a little bit of the normal tunes, right? So like, I would not like Wagner and Mozart, but I would like Debussy and Ravel and are like Russian impressionist classical music. So, but but Spotify does not understand that and they will like suggest some weird like classical music that I'm a hate, you know, I'm like, No, I don't

Pavlos Vinieratos: 21:40

remember Spotify having like a while you were listening to like a radio, whatever, I remember it having like a thumbs up thumbs down kind of situation. So it doesn't sound like knows how to continue. And I feel like it hasn't been there for like, a few years now to I don't know, maybe they just removed it. And I was just like, skip is enough to tell it like I dislike this.

George Kartalis: 22:03

I also love listening to classical music as well from time to time. And also while programming, but like not with like singing involves mostly, you know, instrumental stuff again,

Kaja: 22:16

what do you don't listen to the Flower Duet with singing??

George Kartalis: 22:26

not my thing, that's my thing.

Pavlos Vinieratos: 22:29

Is definitely every now and then it's like, listen to some random song from like, 15 years ago, like, I was listening a few days ago, over one song from like, Psalm 41, which is like, super old, like, whatever kind of music. It's like, in my like, songs, you know. So, every, every year at the end, you know, when Spotify does this kind of like rap to whatever they call it. Like, my songs are just all over the place, like from comedy, like, Greek songs to like, you know, hardcore, whatever, what their music, it's, it's always good to see. And I go back to like, you know, three years back, and I'm like, oh, yeah, that was a nice song. Listen to

Kaja: 23:10

Yeah, definitely, like most of the music that I listened to, in my private life, I wouldn't be able to listen to it while working because it's just way too. Moving. You know, like, a lot of the music that I listen to is either making me want to dance, or like cry, or you know, like sing and be like, happy I don't know, it's it's a lot of emotions. And I don't need these emotions at work. Definitely don't want to like start twerking while Programming.

Pavlos Vinieratos: 23:45

It's something that's a little bit more neutral, a little bit more. Yeah, well, okay, maybe I can ask, we will have one playlist, I guess for each of us on on the links below, or wherever you're listening to. But yeah, can maybe Can I ask for one song that you have been like, kind of into it lately, or like your favorite lately.

George Kartalis: 24:06

So one song that I really love listening to is a song written by a friend actually, who also lives in Berlin. Another Greek friend, which is called the song name is dark flames and the band name is CBus. Sid us Yeah, I really enjoy listening to the song. It's also instrumental, Thoreau's an immigrant. So the name of the song is dark flames. And the band's name is seduce s ID U S.

Pavlos Vinieratos: 24:38

Nice. How about your car? Yeah.

Kaja: 24:40

So for programming a, like the song that I would recommend most as a from James Holden, that's called 10101. I don't know like it's a reference to binary but still it kind of makes me think of it and it also feels like that So the song that definitely has like this very nice, mellow technical feeling. And yeah, definitely can listen to it. What programming?

Pavlos Vinieratos: 25:11

Wow, that sounds super good. I remember there was a game on Playstation that had exactly this kind of music and I really liked the soundtrack of definitely send you guys the links. Okay, and then maybe I can say mine which sometimes it totally is like music from games. But lately, I've been listening to one called Ultimate test by think of the combination of tests per year from CT and MDC with Mzs is also a friend like he made the music and the other guy. I don't know. But he has a nice voice, I guess. But yeah, super good son. I thank you both for joining me for this. Thank you, George, for the idea for this episode as well.

Kaja: 26:05

You're welcome. Thanks, so nice to talk about music.

Pavlos Vinieratos: 26:09

Yeah, we will have a bunch of nice links for the people. Thank you. Thank you, and I'll talk to you soon.

Matt Dole: 26:16

Ciao. Thanks for listening. You can follow the Artsy engineering team on Twitter at Artsy open source and you can find our blog@artsy.github.io This episode was mixed and edited by Jesse Ganya. And our theme music is by Eve Essex who you can find on all major streaming platforms. See you next time.