♪ Baby shark, doo doo do doo do doo ♪
Well, you're not alone.
But how do songs get stuck in our heads in the first place?
We're talking to music psychologists
to give us more insight,
and hopefully, they can offer some tips on
(upbeat music)
(soft music)
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- Officially known as
or stuck song syndrome,
long after you've heard the song.
They're generally 15 to 20 seconds long,
and when you catch one,
it can stay in your head for
When we listen to music,
it goes from our ears to our auditory cortex.
It then travels to all four major lobes of the brain
invoking many reactions throughout the body.
Your brain experiences positive psychological effects
when reintroduced to something it already knows
like a familiar beat, melody, or chorus.
So some research suggests that songs
may get stuck due to repetitive lyrics
which activate the brains reward system.
(dinging)
♪ Work, work, work, work, work, work ♪
♪ You see me I be work, work, work, work, work, work ♪
Researchers at Goldsmiths University have also
linked the frequency of earworms
So chances are if songs get stuck in your head a lot,
it means that your brain
has more thickness in the areas responsible
for auditory perception and voluntary musical imagery.
To understand more about earworms,
music psychologist Kelly Jakubowski
surveyed more than 3,000 people
to find out which songs most frequently
got stuck in their head.
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Jakubowski compiled a list of 100 tunes
and compared their melodic features
to some of the most popular songs in modern history.
The top three most frequently named earworms
in the study were Bad Romance by Lady Gaga,
Can't Get You Out of My Head by Kylie Minogue,
and Don't Stop Believin' by Jorney.
- They tended to be upbeat songs
The melodies were generally fairly generic
in terms of the pitch contour,
tend to have this sort of rising
and then falling contour
like you would get in nursery rhyme songs
or things like Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.
We also found despite the fact
that the overall melodies were fairly generic
that earworm songs did tend
to have some sort of interval structure
that maybe sat them apart
from your sort of average, generic pop songs.
It's kind of this combination
of assorted quite generic scaffold
but then some sort of little extra bit
to add interest that's a bit unexpected.
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- It's fun fact time.
Earworms can be triggered
by hearing a few notes as you might expect.
(piano music)
But it can also be triggered
by seeing something related to the song.
So if you see a man walking down the street
wearing a red leather jacket.
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♪ Cause this is ♪
It's possible that Thriller might pop into your head.
According to researchers, two out of three people say
that when they get earworms,
but if you're in the minority and can't stand them,
there's definitely ways to get around it.
Experts say you can go on a music diet,
or if a song is stuck in your head,
- You can also try singing
According to Jakubowski's survey,
people said it was one of the most popular methods
to kill an earworm.
♪ God save the Queen ♪
Still got that song stuck in your head?
Oddly enough, you might be able to
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- When you mentally rehearse
either verbal material or musical material,
you need your sort of articulatory system
which includes your sort of tongue and mouth muscles,
and so
as he asked them to do in the study...
(laughing)
Whatever chewing gum vigorously means.
Then they were actually less likely
to get the song appearing in their mind as an earworm.
I think this could kind of backfire
if you're not chewing vigorously enough
so if you're chewing to the beat of the music,
you might actually kind of
- So if a song gets stuck in your head,
now you know it's probably because
of the thickness of your brain,
repetitive lyrics, or the composition of the melody.
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But if none of these solutions work for you,
then I hope the tune you catch is a fun one.