questions on my meditation practice?

To answer the last part i.e. "my mind is calm but filled with songs and memories that I like but are not related to the task I am working on and as a result get me distracted from it. As such I wanted to make my thoughts silent at will so I can keep focusing on tasks which make me less happy than my thoughts do."

I wish I could just answer your question -- "what meditation practice improves my ability to concentrate on work?" -- without having to refer to other bits of Buddhist doctrine which you might not like.

However ...

I happen to know that the suttas do warn against music, for example -- saying that music can become an obsession, that when it ends you might obsessively seek more of it. Not that it's forbidden to laypeople, but still -- that can be a consequence. In fact that (i.e. to be "catchy") is maybe the point of music, that's (by definition) the kind of music people listen to and remember.

More sweeping/genrally than that, it warns against "delighting" in "pleasant" experiences, because you may become "attached" to those experiences.

It's possible that what you're describing -- distracted by pleasant memories -- is a symptom of that.

I think that some of the Buddhist doctrine (e.g. in the suttas) includes something like:

• Try to do things because they're morally good/worthwhile, not because they're sensually pleasant
• Beware that sensual delights are attachment-forming, which (attachments) can be debilitating and (eventually) a cause of suffering -- which is counter-intuitive at first, you might not think "sensual delights" would result in "suffering" or "unsatisfactoriness", you might think the opposite
• Become good at (e.g. by practising) detaching from or letting go of certain thoughts -- if you're addicted to something harmful then that thing will be a recurring thought, that thought will recur -- and maybe you need to be skilled at a) recognising b) abandoning the thought when it does occur.
• The Buddhist doctrine about abandoning "self view" or "identity view" might help with that -- because having views like "this is my music and my experiences which I like, which are part of me" makes it harder to discard them -- to say "that's just a thought" (instead of "that's my thought"), and to switch the thought off (or "cut it off at the root") instead of pursuing it ... you can do that with a sight, for example, if you see something attractive you can choose to look away instead of gazing at it, and similarly with a thought, just look away ... thinking is described as a 6th sense, like the other five, e.g. sights are visual objects and thoughts are mental objects.
• Concentrate instead on what's moral, on what's good to do -- and align what you want to do with what's moral to do (where "moral" might mean e.g. harmless, beneficial, generous, perhaps even liberating)

I might say something about "seclusion" too but who knows what -- and being energetic or active, determined, e.g. doing a variety of only good things and practising well or constantly, instead of only passively consuming sensual experience.

In that way, "focusing on tasks which make me less happy than my thoughts do" is maybe no longer a problem:

• Because thoughts (e.g. attaching to memories) don't make you especially happy, especially when they're distracting, and you're practised at dropping distractions
• Because what does make you happy is "focusing on whichever task[s] which you decide it's right and proper (moral) to focus"

It's hard to know what to reference as related, since I don't know how much technical vocabulary you understand. But for some further reference, see for example Improving Sati-Sampajañña (situative wisdom) which was posted recently.