Given the various jobs that people do on these forums, there are a fair few people that have to concentrate fairly hard for a large part of what they do (programming etc). For those who are allowed to listen to music when this is happening, what sort of thing do you tend to go for?

I must admit I either like silence and I mean silence or I set the machine to random select from my entire collection and that covers everything from Classical to Rock and all points in between !

I suspect I just use it to zone out other distracting sounds though as I can rarely tell you what has been playing.

I pretty much have an MP3 player filled with classic rock (or stuff close to it) for my dull-ass office job...

At home if I was tinkering with the PC's internals and it was something specific I was doing for the first time, I wouldn't have any music on for instance, but any other sort of stuff about the house I would

On a normal day i just hit random on my 500gig hdd and see what pops up .

I normally just whack on the radio (Pirate FM) since it's almost guaranteed to be "easy listening" stuff.

At work I listen to really angry music; dirty dirty grime, wobbling fat dubstep & raging violent dark DnB... I don't kow why, but it just makes me concentrate and disappear into my modelling.

At home though I often go the opposite route and listen to very chilled, relaxing music - the only constant with both is that I can't really do vocals when I'm working.

Fauré, Bizet, Mozart, Chopin, Haydn, Beethoven, Purcell, Schubert, Brahms, Offenbach, Handel etc etc etc..

As others have said, radio (though can be too distracting). Listen to hiphop mostly (whether to relax or to concentrate).

The only times I listen to classical music are during breaks in between bouts of revision, or when reading the Sunday newspaper.

I can't listen to music and concentrate at the same time. It either one or another, can't do both. I don't even listen music when I am doing something at home on pc, it distracts me no matter what I do.

However I listen to Sheryl Crow when I can't fall asleep. After 3-4 songs I mellow out completely and my brain is nearly switch off so I can to sleep.
And Rage Against The Machine puts me in a good mood and pumps me up with energy so I listen to in the morning...

I listen to Ella Fitzgerald, Loius Armstrong, classical (last night of the proms), or whatever I'm currently into (Jethro Tull atm).
Though usually classical, if I don't feel motivated and need to concentrate, I can't do things with words...Code could end up lyrics in

If I'm getting a bit stressed out then I put some classical on. Mellow, chilled out classical though - not the faster more dramatic stuff.

If it's not classical, then it's usually one track on repeat. I find that I get distracted every time the track changes otherwise, but with one track on a loop I sort of zone out as someone put it. I could never listen to one track on repeat if I was listening to it properly, but it really works for me when I'm busy doing something else.

I know one thing for sure, never install Counterstrike on a PC that you also work on.....causes a distinct lack of workplace efficiency

Classical has been proven to be good brain food in studies. Works for me and the 2 disc ESB soundtrack is probably my most effective.

Classic FM works just fine though.

classic rock, stuff like lenny kravitz, lynyrd skynyrd and ZZ Top, makes me feel really relaxed and concentrated whenever im doing something really difficult

Ska/Reggae or pop punk stuff like Sonic boom six, random hand, awuabats etc