Hacker News Reader

Comment by TriinT | Hacker News Reader

Bach. Any other music causes me to lose focus. Total silence drives me slowly insane. Bach is just perfect.

While I play a fair bit of J.S. Bach material in my free time, I find that listening to Bach over long periods of time rather depressing. It builds a heavy darker mood.

Ambient & lighter Electronica is easier on the mood and the repetitive patterns help pacing myself (it also works for working out/ running). Jazz gets too involved; HipHop as well; Rock has dominant vocals that grab attention.

And no other 'classical' music does it for you at all? You'll excuse me if I find that hard to believe.

Probably because I haven't really listened to Bach (youtube et. al. are blocked for me so I can't go and listen right this instant).

I like violin, cello and piano. No singing. I can't work when listening to opera, for instance. Italian opera is almost OK, but German opera is too distracting.

Classical composers other than Bach would probably work, but since most of the classical music CD's I have are Bach CD's, I can't say I have tried listening to many other composers, to be honest. I like Mozart, but his music is too "happy". Bach's music is more mature.

Let me recommend Franz Schubert. I think you'll find he meets your criteria quite well - the Pandora station for Schubert is fantastic.

My take on a lot of classical music is that they seem to be trying to hard, doing too much with the instrument (been listening to some piano pieces by Liszt, Chopin, etc recently). That and I really don't appreciate a lot of high treble sounds (it depends, but genereally flutes and violins aren't my favourite instruments).

My recently instrumental fascination has been the work of Yann Tiersen (Amelie soundtrack), which has recently inspired me to try my hand at the piano again after 20 years. Not sure if that'd float your boat though. May give Brahms a go though.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com