Preachifying moved to ThinkingMusicConsideredHarmful. Testimonials moved to GoodThinkingMusicTestimonials. Idea that music makes you smarter / plants hear music deleted because outrageously false and completely irrelevant.
I don't care whether music prevents creative thinking because I know it does. And when I get down to coding the system I've designed up, that's precisely what I want.
Requirements for non-distraction
- nothing intense
- nothing with recognizable vocals; foreign languages don't work too well because you start to pick them up
- anything you're so familiar with that you've grown thoroughly sick of it
MP3 and streaming Sources that were recommended by wikizens:
- http://di.fm has a whole list of channels -- chillout trance and goapsy are recommended. "progressive" works well, has occasional vocals
- http://www.luxuriamusic.com
- http://somafm.com/ (The Groove Salad channel at soma works well if you've overdone it and you're tweaking from too much caffeine.)
- http://shesa.flightrisk.org/ -- see flight risk radio; good mixes, good story too
- http://pandora.com -- good to make your own music station (with a flash webapp) Music promoters pay to have their artists included.
- http://www.edgen.com/music/
- http://www.radioparadise.com
- http://grooveshark.com
- http://www.steveroach.com/ -- ambient music with tracks lasting up to one hour, will put you in the MentalStateCalledFlow, guaranteed.
- http://www.shoutcast.com/ - digital trance,
- http://player.streamtheworld.com/_players/entercom/player/?id=KXTR - mainly classical
- http://www.douban.fm/ -- there are two channels that may help one focus, light music channel and classic music channel
- http://www.wgbh.org/includes/playerPopStream.cfm?station=objAllClassical
- http://www.spotify.com/ -- available in the US and UK, allows listening through the web or a downloadable client (Windows, Mac, Linux through Wine)
- http://last.fm/ -- similar to Pandora, but also tracks music listening stats and has a lot of artist, song, and album information (owned by CBS)
- http://www.wfmu.org -- freeform listener supported radio station. If you tune in and don't like what's playing wait until the next DJ comes on and try again.
Reviewed and found to be BrokenLinks