Sometimes I just get into these weird moods… sort of nostalgic, sort of melancholy… and when I do, I often watch this video or just listen to the song that goes with it.
It’s what’s known as an AMV - an “Anime Music Video,” a fan-made music video for a song made up of clips from Anime (sometimes one series, sometimes multiple series with a common theme). The song is by Modest Mouse and it’s called The World at Large, and the anime it draws from is called Kino’s Journey. This one was made by a person who goes by the name of Kwasek from a group called More Than Toast.
It’s a very well done video, and there’s something about it - about the music and the theme of Kino’s Journey, paired together, that always hits me in my “sentimental center.” It is a very moving piece of work.
Give it a watch, I think you’ll like it (and turn up your sound - the music is absolutely fantastic).
If you want to download the full video (rather than watch it on YouTube) you can get it from AnimeMusicVideos.org.
I read a post over at Coding Horror today about “Music to (Not) Code By,” and it got me thinking about the music I code by - which, let me just say, is not anything like the music mentioned in Jeff’s article!
There’s always been a sort of unspoken rule with me that the best music to write code by is some sort of techno-electronica type music - preferrably without lyrics. I wrote one of my earliest commercial programs almost entirely to the sounds of Digitally Imported’s “Chillout - Ambient Psy” SHOUTcast station.
Lately I’ve changed over to game music, thanks to the fine folks at Radio GOSU (The Gamers of Oklahoma State University). Of course, some people will argue there is little distinction between “game music” and “chillout techno.” But that’s neither here nor there.
The fact is, there’s just something… “right” about having that sort of music on in the background while pooring over thousands of lines of code, or while designing a totally new User Interface for your program. It’s not quite white noise, and it’s generally up-beat enough to keep you “in the groove.” And staying “in the groove” is, of course, very important for programmers - and any other sort of knowledge worker, in fact.
Maybe it’s the upbeat nature of the music, or the tempo, but I just find it much easier to program when listening to that kind of music.
So I guess the question now is… what sort of music do YOU listen to while you work?
Way back when burning CDs was still a novel thing, I used to derive great pleasure from compiling custom CDs and creating full artwork and whatnot for them. (Click on any of these images for the full-size image.)
This is one of the very first ones I did. The idea was, suppose my life was a movie… what would the soundtrack be? And this is what I came up with. I found it the other day in the back of my car - I wonder what it was doing there?
Let’s open up the CD case, shall we?
Ah, there’s the song list. Rather unusual - but then, I’m rather unusual myself, so it fits!
There’s the inside jacket - yes, I even went so far as to create a folded insert.
And there, of course, is the CD (sorry it’s crooked).
It all seems a bit corny now in retrospect - but at the time it meant a lot to me. And many (although not all) of these songs are still relevant - they haven’t lost their appropriateness as pieces in the soundtrack to my life just because a few years have passed.
It’s like a time capsule in a way… a look back at how I felt back then - through music.
I suppose the whole “soundtrack for your life” thing is not unique to me - I’m sure many other people have done exactly the same thing.
Keithius | October 22, 2008
