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Most casual listeners have experienced an earworm before. Certain songs, such as The Knack's "My Sharona" or Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance," have the uncanny capacity to become lodged in our heads. And it's not just pop music – unshakeable musical repetitions have fascinated composers throughout the ages, from Carpentras to Berlioz. But why do some songs stick more than others?
In an attempt to find out, Kelly Jakubowski of Britain's Durham University directed a 3,000-person survey on the subject of earworms. Her study found that certain compositional elements – the combination of familiar melodic structures with unusual intervals, for example – were prone to "stickiness," independent of factors like radio popularity. But could these findings change the way composers write music? And if so, should they?
[...] Many earworms also contained slight musical quirks, such as an odd interval or repetition. "Bad Romance," which topped the list, contains such a quirk: The song's chorus, which was composed in the key of A minor, features an out-of-key E major chord.
[...] In the Durham University study, several participants reported that they could get rid of an earworm by listening to the British national anthem "God Save the Queen." Others suggested listening to the earworm itself in an effort to "unstick" it.
Gagh! The mere mention of the word "earworm" sticks the The River of Dreams (YouTube) in my head . Save me, "God Save the Queen!"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 09 2016, @01:32AM
What's that mean exactly? Does it mean E-major is an odd match to A-minor, or that it was "played" oddly? If played oddly, was it intentional?
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Wednesday November 09 2016, @06:17PM
The former. You can think of keys as different sets of frequencies (and combinations of frequencies) that each play nice together.
(I think music theory should be part of standard education. This kind of ignorance is jarring from the top of the ivory tower of the musically educated.)
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(Score: 2) by Pino P on Thursday November 10 2016, @04:57AM
It's not unusual. E is the dominant to an A tonic, and a dominant can be major even if the key is minor. A major dominant fits in the "harmonic minor" scale, which for A is A, B, C, D, E, F, G#, A.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Thursday November 10 2016, @06:14PM
Indeed, the Ionian heptatonic system is not the only way of systematizing what sounds good and is not comprehensive. There are many more modes, pentatonic scales, and so on. It's like having different natural or programming languages, each one has its strengths and weaknesses, but the way each language is constructed internally makes sense.
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