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Especially the current chart songs stay in our memory quickly – and often for a very long time. Responsible for this are often targeted songwriting tricks. Ascending and falling melodic arcs, as they are usually known from children’s songs, are also used in many pop hits. In combination with this, striking, unexpected leaps in the melody help a melody to be remembered.
Repetitions are also important. Billion-dollar songwriters like Max Martin and Burt Bacharach have now elevated the catchiest song structures to a high art. High-gloss pop songs have been trimmed for decades with such and similar tricks to make them as memorable as possible.
What happens in our brain when a catchy tune appears?
In the case of an earworm, the melody is first stored in the temporal lobe. This allows us to hear them inwardly. This creates stimuli for the frontal lobe, which ensures that we sing along in our heads – similar to an inner monologue. From there, the impulses are conducted back to the temporal lobe. This creates an eternal cycle that we find very difficult to interrupt.
But what exactly does music trigger in our heads? Earworms are mainly created when we are unfocused or bored – i.e. when our brain is underchallenged. Some experts have already described the catchy tune as the brain’s music on hold. At full concentration, on the other hand, the cell connection between the temporal and frontal lobes is inhibited and earwigs have little chance of settling.
Listening to the catchy piece of music in its entirety should help
Fortunately, there are various ways to free yourself from the eternal inner singsong. A well-known strategy is based on the theory that catchy tunes can come from the fact that we can no longer remember the entire piece of music. According to numerous researchers, it can therefore be effective to listen to the piece from which the catchy tune originates from beginning to end. If you take the time to do this – and become aware that only part of a piece of music is haunting your head – you will be cured in many cases. Until, of course, one day a new catchy tune strikes.
Reading the lyrics should also help, experts say. Another common piece of advice is to counteract with another piece of music that has less earworm qualities than the catchy tune itself. Chewing gum is also said to help. In the meantime, there are some studies on earworms . Some have even shown that women are more sensitive to earworms than men.
