Just curious, what music (if any) do you listen to when you are studying chess, like for example doing daily puzzles, endgames, openings, etc.

Personally, I like music that helps me concentrate, after all in chess, you must have 100% concentration in order to be successful. That is why I don't listen to any Heavy Metal music (even though I'm a big fan of the NWOBHM - New Wave Of British Heavy Metal, movement), or any hard rock kind of music while studying chess.

My choice of music while studying chess is mostly free jazz/experimental jazz, Indian classical music and Western classical music like Beethoven. 

I also listen to a really cool radio station from the Netherlands that has many sub channels according to the music genre . Here is the link to the website of that radio station Concertzander (https://www.concertzender.nl/en/)

Here are a list of music I have been listening to lately while studying chess.

1) Maleem Mahmoud Ghania-The Trance Of Seven Colors. (1994)

  This album is a collaboration between legendary Moroccan Gnawa musician Mahmou Guinia and American jazz saxophonist Pharoah Sanders (who recently passed away RIP) 

2) The Wels Concert. (1996)

This is another album by Mahmoud Guinia and this time in collaboration with German Saxophonist Peter Brötzmann.

Edit: Found the full album!

3) Ustad Ali Akbar Khan Raag Nat Bhairav.

Ali Akbar Khan (14 April 1922 – 18 June 2009) was an Bengali Hindustani classical musician of the Maihar gharana, known for his virtuosity in playing the sarod.

4) Ravi Shankar at Monterey Pop Festival (1967)

This video has footage of American rock musicians of the 60s era including Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin.  Oh and I hope Ravi Shankar needs no introduction. And to my American audience, you can probably relate to him through singer Norah Jones because Ravi Shankar was her father.

5) Grateful Dead Live performance at the Bob Marley Performing Arts Center in Montego Bay, Jamaica (1982).

I discovered this album through the show Backtracks on KBCS 91.3FM, which is a small community supported radio station located in Bellevue, Washington. Disclosure, I use to volunteer at that station many moons ago.  Back then, (ok 2008/2009 to be exact), they had another show call The Grateful Dead Hour which ran for three hours!  That show since has been replaced by Backtracks which runs for two hours every Sunday.

6) And on the Seventh Day Petals Fell in Petaluma by Harry Partch (1963–66)

I first heard of the American composer Harry Partch in the 1990s through a BBC documentary show that focused only on minimal music of the 20th century (mostly from the US). And I instantly feel in love with his work because it was so different then the conventional music world. Partch's instruments now resides at the University Of Washington in Seattle! 

(https://music.washington.edu/news/2014/11/20/harry-partch-instrumentarium-takes-residency-uw)

7) Degung-Sabilulungan - Sundanese Music of West Java. (1998)

Sudanese Music is an umbrella term that encompasses diverse musical traditions of the West Java and Banten in western part of Java, Indonesia. 

This short documentary is from Miracle of Bali (1969) narrated by Sir David Attenborough.

This episode is about music and dancing from the Balinese village of Peliatan, the separate items linked by an appropriately illustrative detail from Balinese paintings. It opens with a virtuoso instrumental from the gamelan orchestra; next is a dance choreographed in 1951, The Bee Sips Honey; the 3rd section presents snippets from 4 different ensembles; and it closes with the unforgettable Monkey Dance or Kecak a form of Balinese Hindu dance. The dance performance depicts a battle from the Ramayana, in which the monkey-like Vanaras, led by Hanuman, help Prince Rama fight the evil King Ravana. Kecak has roots in sanghyang, a trance-inducing exorcism dance.

9) Symphony No. 1 (Schnittke) (1969-74)

By Russian composer Alfred Schnittke. 

"According to the composer himself, the title “symphony” in this instance is to be understood as partly serious, partly ironical. Written at a time (1969-72) when the lure of new techniques had led only to the seeming impasse of avante-garde serialism, Schnittke’s First Symphony evidently represents an attempt to clear a path into the future – demolishing the musical landscape of the late 1960s as a prelude to reconstructing it from fragments of a remote as well as a more recent past."

10) Midori Takada – Through the Looking Glass (1983)

Midori Takada is a Japanese composer and percussionist. She has been described as a pioneer of ambient and minimalist music.

She performs all parts on the album, with diverse instrumentation including percussion, marimba, gong, reed organ, bells, ocarina, vibraphone, piano and glass Coca-Cola bottles.

11) Ghédalia Tazartès – Diasporas (1979)

French artist Ghédalia Tazartès (May 12th, 1947 in Paris, France - February 9th, 2021 in Paris, France) was a nomad. He wanders through music from chant to rhythm, from one voice to another. Tazartès paves the way for the electric and the vocal paths, between the muezzin psalmody and the screaming of a rocker. He traces vague landscapes where the mitre of the white clown, the plumes of the sorcerer, the helmet of a cop and Parisian anhydride collide into polyphonic ceremonies. 

12) Alice Coltrane - Journey in Satchidananda (1971)

Journey in Satchidananda is important in that it marks a transition between Coltrane's first three recordings and her subsequent releases, which reveal a more personalized outlook. The album's title and title track reflect the influence of Swami Satchidananda, to whom Coltrane had become close while being his disciple. The presence of the tamboura, played by Tulsi, reflects Coltrane's interest in Indian classical music and religion.

13) Arvo Part - Tabula Rasa

Estonian composer of contemporary classical music. Since the late 1970s, Pärt has worked in a minimalist style that employs tintinnabuli, a compositional technique he invented.

Please let me know in the comment section which music (or radio station) you like to listen to when you are studying chess or just playing chess online for fun.

Cheers everyone and keep chessing!