What’s playing in your head today?

Have you ever gone through your day with just one song stuck in your head? You can’t get it out no matter how hard you try. It wasn’t even a song you heard today! You could’ve just been thinking back to a certain memory you had, but it’s just one certain part of that song.

It turns out this happens to everyone, and if you’re like me it could happen almost every day. As it turns out, the more musical you are the higher the chance is for you getting songs stuck in your head. I recently read an article about this exact topic because I was interested to see what answers I could find. The person that wrote this article calls these little phenomenon “ear worms”, which sounds gross, but it sounds exactly how it feels. The part of your brain that percepts music, the auditory cortex, was shown to be active when this phenomenon is happening.

In their study they found that songs with longer notes and smaller intervals will stick easier to your brain. There was also another study that shown the easier the song is to sing will also make it easier for it to stick to your brain. It makes sense because we normally don’t remember something that is hard. They say it is easier to get a song stuck in your head during your daily activities, mainly just things you do consistently.

The only way you can get rid of an “ear worm” is to simply not think about it. It has been said to stay even longer if you try to think about it going away more. It’s hard being in an environment where you consistently listen to music everyday, but you can never get away from it. I guess a lot of people are right, musicians brains really don’t stop thinking about music!

One thought on “What’s playing in your head today?

  1. This is a really interesting topic! I think it is interesting as well what gets stuck in our head and why. Even as a child I remember hymns from church getting stuck in my head and the next morning waking up and signing them and my mom asking what I singing as I could only remember the melody of the hymn. I feel like to some extent more often than not I have something stuck in my head that I cant get out. It is interesting to learn that there are actually reasons why these things get stuck in our heads. The more you know! Also great article!
    Gabs

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