A friend asked this on her FaceBook page earlier: “How do you start listening to music each day? What device? What app? What speakers? What time? How do you choose what to play?” Here was my response:
If I'm working at home (which is most of the time) I start listening to music first in the office when I start my day. It's either iTunes or binging something on YouTube. If my current project is really complex and requires focus, usually the music is instrumental — either old jazz (Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Chet Baker, etc) or electronic instrumental (Tyco, VCMG, Kraftwerk, etc). I'll also mix in shoegazer records because the vocals are so reverb'd out that it's basically the same as instrumental (My Bloody Valentine albums are great for this), or sometimes really loud metal where the growling/screaming is buried enough in the mix as to not be distracting whileI work (Napalm Death, Will Haven, etc).
For easier projects requiring less focus, I'll put the iTunes on shuffle and listen to whatever sounds good that day.
If I'm driving to a client's office, my day's music starts with the car stereo (I'm not sure the "off" button even works -- I always have the stereo on in the car, always). It's either the iPod on "shuffle" or whatever CD I'm currently into. (At the moment said CD is either the new In Flames or the new Meshuggah...both great, by the way).
Speakers in the office are currently just an old set of Altec Lansing gaming speakers, but they're on the list of things to be upgraded later -- they currently use a separate sub-woofer and I don't like those (personal preference).
At the gym I always listen to loud up beat things to keep my energy level high - Slayer, Hatebreed, Deftones, Helmet, 7 Seconds, etc. Though when on the treadmill sometimes I'll alternate that with recordings from techie conferences so I can catch up on Angular, Node, ColdFusion, etc.
iPod Classic powers the non-CD music in the car, and is the main device for the gym.
iPad is what's used for watching the techie conferences (yes I'm one of "those guys" that bring 2 devices to the gym. well 3 actually, but the phone stays locked up while I'm there).
In the office it's a Windows machine running iTunes and FireFox open to YouTube.
This was fun. :)