
Why songs get stuck in our heads - fogus
http://www.mindhacks.com/blog/2009/12/cant_get_you_out_of.html
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nollidge
Title's a little misleading. From the article:

"...the reason why such tunes keeping buzzing around our conscious mind is
still a mystery."

~~~
ars
Title's a _lot_ misleading. It doesn't answer 'why' in the slightest, it just
mentions that earworms exist, and that's about it.

Note that the article itself does _not_ have a misleading title. To the
submitter: please don't editorialize titles.

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presidentender
What about getting _part_ of the song stuck in your head? I've got the
"Bravestarr" theme running circles up there, but since I don't know the
lyrics, it's just "Bravestarr... Bravestarr..." over and over.

I wonder if this is more or less common with songs designed to appeal to small
children? "Bravestarr," for instance, is one of those late-80s toy commercial
programs a la "Transformers." In my experience, the other easily stuck songs
are mostly pop or classic rock, and almost never classical. Perhaps Knuth's
"The Complexity of Songs" ought to be recommended reading for these
researchers.

Edit: of course, if one of you has Rachmaninoff or Bach stuck right now, my
point isn't so valid.

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pohl
It might also depend on the musical experiences of the person. (Edit: I
finally got the article to load, and this is essentially what it's saying, I
guess.) I can easily get fugues by Bach or Shostakovich fugues stuck in my
head, or Steve Morse (Dixie Dregs), but I've been a student of music. For
example, I had this stuck in my head, and I can - in my mind - hear this all
the way through:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgre8dqZYa8>

But what always gets me the most, it seems, are doomsday-calibre earworms like
We Built This City or It's a Small World Afterall.

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aaronblohowiak
I think it is harder to have more complex tunes stuck in your head. I will
sometimes recall fondly shotakovich (symphony 11, movement 3 usually) in my
head for about a half hour or so, but that is nothing compared to the
unrelenting mind-invasion that old-time (traditional appalachian folk) tunes
have.

Regardless of the individual variance in the complexity of the "earworm", one
of the very interesting things is this interplay between short-term auditory
memory and the loop being replayed. It will be even more interesting to see if
their are ways to exploit this to effectively keep more things in working
memory.

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ZitchDog
I can't remember where I first heard this, but I've always been able to get
songs out of my head by singing them like Bob Dylan. I don't have to actually
sing them out loud, but if I change the voice and cadence of the singer to Bob
Dylan, the song goes away.

If it's an instrumental song, however, I'm screwed.

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john_oshea
Do you like Bob Dylan, or is that a form of aversion therapy?

Have you tried "Bob plays harmonica" for the instrumentals?

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samuarl
My personal experience is that "earworms" are caused by not hearing the ending
of a song. For me its usually the song that is playing when I walk out of a
store, or the song thats playing on the radio when I turn it off.

If I know the song well enough and I am able, playing it out to the end in my
head gets rid of it.

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RiderOfGiraffes
Four words: Smoke on the Water.

More often, though, I get a Bach Fugue - they can last for days. If I'm really
serious about removing an "earworm" I recite poetry, ad I've specifically
memorised a few poems for that purpose. It was one of my earliest "Mind
Hacks".

~~~
joshkaufman
Strange but true: James Kellaris, one of my marketing professors from college,
is the guy who coined the term "earworm" - it's his primary research topic:
<http://www.business.uc.edu/earworms>

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philwelch
In a sense, but "earworm" is a literal translation of the German "Ohrwurm",
which predates it.

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blogimus
"Come Sail Away." But it only lasts for 37 seconds.

On a more serious note, it would be interesting to find out how many
"earworms" (read the blog entry) are viral (almost all, most, few,...). Sing a
bit and get it stuck in someone else's head.

~~~
nollidge
Or you could just mention the title. Thanks a lot :)

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teeja
I found an earworm-killer. It's a more 'powerful' piece of music you really
like that _isn't_ an earworm. Just play it, it 'reverberates' for a minute or
two, and voila.

