"Music to Code By" by Carl Franklin

I heard about this music while listening to .NetRocks!, which is a three days a week podcast talking about different pieces of the software industry, particularly the pieces of interest to .NET Developers, with the occasional geek out on some other topic, like whiskey or space based power generation.  It is put together by Carl Franklin and Richard Campbell.

Music to Code By is music as productivity aid. You can either order the music either as a CD or get a download. If you buy the CD you get the download free. It comes with three tracks; Blue, Orange, and Yellow.

This isn't music you’re going to want to sit and listen to. The tracks aren't mind-numbingly boring, but it takes real effort to listen carefully to any of these tracks the whole way through. However, they’re really pretty good at encouraging focus on whatever task you’re working on. I loaded all three of them onto my phone and I've used them at work when I really need to focus on getting some work done.

All three are instrumental and all three seem to be mostly variations on a single motif. This gives each track a particular tone. “Blue” is really mellow. “Orange” is the darkest of the trio. It makes me think of sunset, maybe with storm clouds on the horizon. “Yellow” is the lightest with a cheerful tone.