Mozart Effect - Lightning Talk

Music has a profound effect on programmers - but how to find the right music to write code?

Transcript

1. Coding and the Mozart Effect PJ Hagerty @aspleenic Engine Yard pjhagerty@gmail.com
2. What is the Mozart Effect? • A set of research results that indicate that listening to Mozart's music may induce a short-term improvement on the performance of certain kinds of mental tasks known as "spatial-temporal reasoning” A set of research results that indicate that listening to Mozart's music may induce a short-term improvement on the performance of certain kinds of mental tasks known as "spatial-temporal reasoning" So basically, the idea is that listening to Mozart will make you able to perform better due to a better ability to focus.
3. What’s wrong with that? Researchers at Harvard and Oxford corroborated that the effect could be seen regardless of the source of the music. This means that Mozart isn’t really the cause of the effect...for example, if the subject was partial to say...
4. The Beiber Effect? ...Justin Beiber, a similar effect could be tracked. Let’s all try to control ourselves as we gaze open the future of improved programming.
5. What does *this* mean? What it boils down to is “whatever floats your boat”. The ability to “unlock” that cognitive ability means you need to be able to find what music that inspires you to move forward. Finding the right music can be difficult, even if...actually, especially if you’ve been in a particular musical groove for so long.
6. What floats my boat? The first instinct is to stay in the comfort zone and cruise. The best way to break out of this trough is to is to find something similar to the genre you are most comfortable in. Like hardcore and metal? Try Caspian, an instrumental metal band from Massachusettes. Into jam bands like Phish or the Dead? Try the instrumentals from Tea Leaf Green. And you can never go wrong with Charlie Parker. For anything.
7. Consider Getting in a Different Boat Take time when working on less time sensitive projects to explore other forms of musics, branch out the other genres. The key to unlocking cognitive abilities is being able to find the right combination of tunes that works for you.
8. Resources • Don Campbell (1997). The Mozart Effect: Tapping the Power of Music to Heal the Body, Strengthen the Mind, and Unlock the Creative Spirit. ISBN 0-380-97418-5. • William Pryse-Phillips (2003). Companion to Clinical Neurology. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-515938-1 • http://www.univforum.org/pdf/ the_mozart_effect.pdf • http://www.jrsm.rsmjournals.com/content/
9. Questions?