The Earworm Thread

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  • Richard Barrett
    Guest
    • Jan 2016
    • 6259

    One of the odd things about shall we say "classical" earworms is that everything gets connected up in the wrong way, and sometimes even some earwormy bit from one piece gets connected to another one from a different piece, different composer/period/style etc.

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    • Joseph K
      Banned
      • Oct 2017
      • 7765

      Various excerpts from Miles Davis's Petit Machins have been spinning in my head today and recently.

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      • vinteuil
        Full Member
        • Nov 2010
        • 12797

        Originally posted by Richard Barrett View Post
        One of the odd things about shall we say "classical" earworms is that everything gets connected up in the wrong way, and sometimes even some earwormy bit from one piece gets connected to another one from a different piece, different composer/period/style etc.
        ... I'm not sure I understand this - tho' I feel there might be something interesting behind it. Could you be more specific - some examples?

        .

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        • Serial_Apologist
          Full Member
          • Dec 2010
          • 37617

          Originally posted by vinteuil View Post
          ... I'm not sure I understand this - tho' I feel there might be something interesting behind it. Could you be more specific - some examples?

          .
          Only today, listening to the Britten Violin Concerto, there were various points at which it could quite harmoniously have transitioned into the various influences on aural display: Bartok's two violin concertos, Prokofiev's second, and one of Shostakovitch's, can't remember which at the moment. Sometimes when "earworming" a particular work I find it naturally heading to something else by another composer, then wondering what both composers might have thought about such juxtapositioning!

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          • Bryn
            Banned
            • Mar 2007
            • 24688

            Originally posted by Serial_Apologist View Post
            Only today, listening to the Britten Violin Concerto, there were various points at which it could quite harmoniously have transitioned into the various influences on aural display: Bartok's two violin concertos, Prokofiev's second, and one of Shostakovitch's, can't remember which at the moment. Sometimes when "earworming" a particular work I find it naturally heading to something else by another composer, then wondering what both composers might have thought about such juxtapositioning!
            Quodlibetter than some, I suppose.

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            • Richard Barrett
              Guest
              • Jan 2016
              • 6259

              Yes, S_A and vinteuil, that's exactly the sort of thing I meant. I can't think of a specific example just now though.

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              • vinteuil
                Full Member
                • Nov 2010
                • 12797

                Originally posted by Serial_Apologist View Post
                Sometimes when "earworming" a particular work I find it naturally heading to something else by another composer, then wondering what both composers might have thought about such juxtapositioning!
                ... that seems to me to flow from our human tendency to (over-) find patterns in things rather than anything innate in such ear-worms


                .


                .

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                • Richard Barrett
                  Guest
                  • Jan 2016
                  • 6259

                  Originally posted by vinteuil View Post
                  ... that seems to me to flow from our human tendency to (over-) find patterns in things rather than anything innate in such ear-worms
                  No doubt. But if two pieces involve for example a very similar cadence, the mind easily hops from one to the other in a way that it wouldn't automatically do between arbitrarily chosen fragments. Also I think it might be characteristic of earworms that if they involve some kind of structural repeat there's no limit to how many times it might "loop".

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                  • Serial_Apologist
                    Full Member
                    • Dec 2010
                    • 37617

                    Originally posted by vinteuil View Post
                    ... that seems to me to flow from our human tendency to (over-) find patterns in things rather than anything innate in such ear-worms


                    .


                    .
                    I would have thought it had something to do with seeking affinity or affinities between things which "really" might be there between the things themselves, or at least analogous. We are mediated by divisions and subdivisions, resulting from the habit of starting from categories treated as fundamental realities, which may stand in the way of dealing with unexpected eventualities and have ways of catching us unawares. Like the apocryphal man shot through with an arrow refusing to have it removed until he knows everything there is to be known about his assailant. Any belief system is by definition not implicit* - which is what I would, as diplomatically as possible, tell a person who believed he or she had seen Jesus in glowing embers, or heard Beethoven or speak telepathically through a later composer - notwithstanding notorious cases of previously unlearned people spontaneously being enabled to play undiscovered Beethoven or Liszt on the piano.

                    Tendencies to see connections are a good thing so long as taken, not literally, but by way of compensating for over-analytical dependency. It would be nice were they to be true, but I wouldn't be putting my money on it!

                    *(By that I probably mean Sartre's term "contingent").

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                    • pastoralguy
                      Full Member
                      • Nov 2010
                      • 7740

                      Mrs. PG and I wondered why the riff from The White Stripes ‘Seven Nation Army’ gets sung whenever a goal is scored in the current European championships. It’s developed into a real ear worm for us and we find ourselves humming it at odd times.

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                      • Sir Velo
                        Full Member
                        • Oct 2012
                        • 3225

                        Originally posted by Sir Velo View Post
                        Monteverdi's madrigal Vago augelletto has burrowed deep into my auditory receptors recently. Alessandrini's version is voluptuously irresistible.

                        .
                        I should have added the caveat, do not click on the link unless you want to be similarly afflicted!

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                        • gradus
                          Full Member
                          • Nov 2010
                          • 5606

                          For some unaccountable reason my ears keep playing Sibelius's Melisande from P&M, it's the cor anglais solo and answering strings that have hooked me.

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                          • Jonathan
                            Full Member
                            • Mar 2007
                            • 945

                            Currently, the opening title music from "The Orville", on repeat, all the time!
                            Best regards,
                            Jonathan

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                            • Petrushka
                              Full Member
                              • Nov 2010
                              • 12241

                              At the moment it's the Mozart Symphony No 32 endlessly repeating! I've not heard it recently so no idea why it's burrowed its way in.
                              Last edited by Petrushka; 05-05-22, 19:53. Reason: missing letter
                              "The sound is the handwriting of the conductor" - Bernard Haitink

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                              • Beresford
                                Full Member
                                • Apr 2012
                                • 555

                                For me the most annoying earworm is Rossini's Thieving Magpie. I don't particularly like or dislike it, but it takes at least half an hour of my favourite music to displace it.

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