Musing on Music

[anarchist_nomad]

I have been thinking about earworms recently. In particular, I have been wondering two things:

1. Why does a particular song sometimes get stuck in my head? Sometimes I wake up and find that an earworm has taken hold overnight, with no apparent rhyme[*] or reason.
   
2. Why do I get recurring earworms? There are several songs that just come back to me from time to time. For instance, I frequently find Suddenly Seymour, from Little Shop of Horrors, floating through my brain.

Does anyone else find themselves vulnerable to these things? Or is it just me?

While I am on the topic of music, here is another "Is it just me?" question: It seems that, for every romantic relationship of significance that has ended in a break-up, I have a song that conveys the spirit of the relationship ending[**]. Is this normal? Or is this just me being weird?

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[*] Besides one that might be in the song itself.

[**] And, no, I am not going to share the details of the relationships, or the songs, on LiveJournal. Though I might spill the beans if you strike up a conversation about it in person.

Comments

[posicat.livejournal.com]

I would guess that certain patterns in the music reinforce neural connections that recognize patterns. This may be one of those structures that have evolved in our mind to remember music, it is a method of archiving information in tribal man (us included). If this pattern is sensitive enough random background noise may trigger the neurons to fire rather than the song itself. Remembering the song itself may trigger that memory over and over as well, making the connection even stronger, this would be useful for archival as the song (in theory stored information) would be self-reinforcing. (Yes, I took an AI programming class in college, why do you ask?)

So, essentially we're neural-net core memory re-freshing it's memory state.

This has no basis in cold hard fact, but it seems a likely theory of the nature of the phenomenon.

[anarchist-nomad.livejournal.com]

Dude, what do you do professionally? And why isn't it cognitive psychology??

[posicat.livejournal.com]

I work Tech Support, working my way up to our development team. :)

My educational background is computer science and an emphasis on digital electronics, but my interests are more "jack of all trade", weather, psychology, computers, nature, society, physics, reading/writing. I guess my brain is wired to like large complex patterns where it can try to break down and understand them.

Who ARE you?

[frogcastle.livejournal.com]

I have no idea whether I've met you or not. Your icon does not help me at all. Who ARE you?

Re: Who ARE you?

[posicat.livejournal.com]

If Posi or Posicat don't ring a bell you probably haven't met me. I'm also in IL you're in OH, and while that decreases chances, it doesn't eliminate them. I've only been to the Event Horizon once for a party (saddly, I need to make more). You can take a look at my LJ profile and see if anything looks familiar.

So, this is likely our first meeting. "Pleased to meet you!"

Charmed, I'm Sure

[frogcastle.livejournal.com]

Good to meet you, Posicat.

[anarchist-nomad.livejournal.com]

I can well understand that. You may have noticed that I also have a diverse array of interests, apart from my professional field of choice.