I’m with you and being 95% retired I never work during listening hours! 
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There is a 24hour TNG version available, but this one is a bit more interesting.
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I like background music while I work and I rarely have silence. My go to is to simply have Radio Paradise on. When I hear something I particularly like, the volume goes up, workflow drops for some minutes, or I write down the track/artist ready for my next purchase.
I don’t see my line of work to be highly critical of intense concentration, so this works for me. Besides it quite often gets me jigging about a little or singing to myself which releases endorphins.
One must be happy in ones work.
And I much prefer radio stuff, if it’s something I have chosen myself, then it does not work so well as I get more involved with the music, and that becomes distracting.
When I shared an office with four people, we always had the radio on in the background, the problem then was the volume was so low you could not determine vocals or instruments properly, and the back ground noise was just mush, then it it annoyed the hell out of me.
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@litemotiv @Kryptos I agree with all you both have said, I’m the same.
But a difference is that I just use Radio Paradise Main mix, Radio Paradise Mellow mix or Blues FLAC Radio. I don’t want to have to think about what to play next when working.
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I’ve never been able to work with music going, the music takes over and I don’t do quality work. As a student I played music during my occasional periods of actually studying, I eventually had to be self honest and realise it meant I wasn’t taking anything in of the work.
Weirdly I can read and listen to music simultaneously, my brain seems to split into two paths and one is fully engaged with the music and the other with the book. This fails with lyric driven music where the “music half” seems to need the “word half” to engage, and also with reading poetry where the metre of the poem clashes with the rhythm of the music.
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Sorry, what is this “work” thing of which you speak?
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The only similarity I have is
“never been able to go to SLEEP with music “
Because I tend to concentrate on what’s going on …
( but as I can understand from the posts above is that the answer is different as the person itself )
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Oh, it’s a lovely thing. I can just sit there and watch people doing it for hours on end! 
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Shame Naim doesn’t do a portable DAC! I just picked up a “Cobalt” for my P9s. I usually work in silence if wha I’m doing is involving but will listen to absolutely anything if th ework isn’t too taxing
Even though I play in several bands and music is integral to my life, I absolutely cannot work with music on. Even quiet background music. My brain will tune in to the music and try and find something interesting be it Beethoven, Beatles or a car showroom advert on commercial radio. I’m instantly distracted.
Always been a point of consternation/confusion in open-plan offices where I’ve had to tell colleagues the very fact that I love music means I can’t work with it.
Hooray for headphones (on colleagues)!
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Ambient works well for me in the background. Biosphere (or a Pete Namlook/Bill Laswell project called “Psychonavigation”) has been a regular choice if I really need to concentrate.
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Did you know that this is just what Glenn Gould did when concentrating on the study of a new piece?
m.
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Nope, didn’t know that. I knew that a certain writer used this method and therefore I tried it myself. My best memory though is listening to the entire Kunst der Fuge lying flat on the floor in the midst of the room on a sunny Sunday afternoon. To accompany the kunst der fuge I also had one radio station switched on and - I think - Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue.
That’s all history now, I have a multitude of Aleatorists in my place in the forms of one wife, 4 children, one cat and three chickens. More noise than my poor being can handle.
Gould playing Bach when I was much younger. Now that would be too distracting. Generally Baroque or classical. Lots of Haydn, especially piano sonatas and piano trios, Vivaldi concertos, and best of all, Scarlatti on whatever.
Can’t work to vocal music. Can’t work to music at all (anymore) if the work involves a lot of analytical thinking. But I love listening to music if I’m doing some creative writing.
Again, when I was much younger, I wrote legal briefs to Beethoven symphonies because they got me worked up.
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Me too… the only background sound I can put up with is lowlevel in distinct voice discussion, or bird song!
But I seem to spend much of my time immersed in audio or video meetings or workshops these days.
Sometimes I need silence and sometimes I need music to focus. If I need music I listen to something I’ve listen to many times before and never something new.
My go to is anything by……
Boards of Canada.
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If I am working from home which has been the case for the last couple of months, I always have music in background. Mostly easy classical, piano sonatas or jazz. Either through headphones or my 2.1 system connected to computer. It allows me to focus better and lifts my mood while working.
Having background music can surely help me focus on the tasks I’m doing. Sometimes piano music which is soft and without vocals, but also sometimes music with strong beats. Just a bit weird I guess.
Welcome msdmck
I’m another who can’t work with music - I end up paying much more attention to the music than the work…no doubt because I like the music a lot more.
When I was doing chiropractic or pharmacy I could, because it was more interactive. But sitting at a desk NFW.