Every productivity YouTuber says listening to music while studying is really helpful. But what kind of music exactly?
It depends on your mood and the thing that you are doing.
Non-music:
You don’t really have to listen to “music.” You could just listen to sounds. The brain just needs something.
- Ambient noises (of all kinds): MyNoise
- Binaural Beats: MyNoise generator, Brainaural.
Also try a combination of MyNoise’s Polyrhythms generator paired with some ambience like Tibetan Choir.
Music:
The key is to not listen to music which has intelligible vocals. They tend to activate the language centers of the brain and take away the bandwidth that’s better spend on working, or tackling a problem. One exception to this is when you’re doing a menial task, like copying some notes, folding clothes, and sending that annoying friend a reply.
Another trait of this “kind” of music, is that they are repetitive and rhythm focused, often using polyrhythms to induce trance.
Also try a combination of MyNoise’s Polyrhythms generator paired with some ambience like Tibetan Choir.
Hardest
Progressive Metal/Djent/Thall bands with no/unintelligible vocals work very well.
- Entire Discography of Meshuggah (esp Catch Thirtythree)
- Vildhjarta
- Animals as Leaders
- Cloudkicker
Harder
Post-rock and post-metal bands:
- Russian Circles
- We Lost the Sea
- Caspian
- Some albums of Cloudkicker
- Polyphia / Steve Vai core.
Softer
Jazz/Nu-Jazz/Acid Jazz bands, or adjacent:
- GoGo Penguin
- Mammal Hands
- Ruby Rushton
- Yussef Dayes
- Yussef Kamaal
- BADBADNOTGOOD
Or trip-hop mixes, chillhop.
Also this is why LoFi music works brilliantly, and Video Game OSTs
Softest
- Classical Music
- Cinematic.
Hope this helps!!