Ear worms

[Kbiggs]

Ear worms. We all get them. What’s your favorite or most effective way to get rid of them? Listening to that piece until the ear worm is extinguished? Listening to something else to replace it? Standing on your head with your fingers in your ears shouting, “I’m not listening! I’m not listening!”

Also: If it’s a piece you enjoy, is it an ear worm?

[Burgerbob]

I have this habit of getting something even as small as a measure of music stuck in my head for hours. Repeating and repeating.

I've given up on doing anything about it.

Honestly, the largest problem I have is having music I'm working on stuck in my head for too long- I'll start to change little parts without knowing and memorize it incorrectly.

[Doubler]

It's always ear pollution, isn't it? I try to shove it out with something worthwhile, but the ear worms are strong, and there are only so many good tunes strong enough to replace them, and after a while, they lose their effectiveness.

[harrisonreed]

It depends. If it's something you know is dumb and you can't get it out of your head (like the theme to Tellytubbies), the best way to do it is through some real social interaction. Game night or something with a few people (if you're vaccinated now). You need to get at the root cause of watching Tellytubbies as an adult to begin with, even if it's because you have kids.

If it's something that you aren't sure of if you should be worried or not, like Taylor Swift or some pop star playing over and over in your head, and you feel like you have failed because it's not Mahler that you're hearing in your head, that just means you're a normal person. Embrace it. Pop music is popular for a reason. So... Invite people over for game night, and put on Taylor Swift. The first time the loud, drunk spouse blabbers about how much she "LOVES Tay-Tay", you should feel the ear worms die pretty fast.

[Doubler]

So... Invite people over for game night, and put on Taylor Swift. The first time the loud, drunk spouse blabbers about how much she "LOVES Tay-Tay", you should feel the ear worms die pretty fast.

[imsevimse]

I've never had melodies stuck for long like that. Shure melodies turn up in my head but I can always make them go away with very little distraction. I guess I'm lucky.

To be obsessed with negative thoughts whether it's bad unwanted music or struggles with life is no good. A few nights of good sleep helps to solve these things. I tend to have those thoughts just after I wake up and I guess it's because my mind process those problems. In time the bad thoughts fade. I guess it's the same with unwanted melody fragments.

/Tom

[biggiesmalls]

Several years ago, a friend shared her brilliant antidote for earworms: replace the offending tune in the mind with "The Star-Spangled Banner."

After a few choruses, I can turn "the Banner" off in my head at will, and the offending tune is gone. I use it successfully to suppress repetitive thoughts as well. Works every time. YMMV.

Maybe other national anthems will work for those of other nationalities? I'd be curious to know.

[Kbiggs]

Currently, it’s the first and last mvts of Sibelius’s 5th symphony, with occasional bits of his 1st and 2nd symphonies to boot. I always enjoyed playing those symphonies. Certainly not negative, and thus maybe not an “ear worm,” per se. It’s been several weeks, though, which is... unusual...

I’ll try the SSB—the 3/4 version. For me, pop music just replaces one ear worm with another.

I can always try listening to something very different like Monteverdi, Schütz, or Haydn, or perhaps some jazz.

[VJOFan]

Worst ear worms I’ve ever had were two unidentifiable bits of “classical repertoire.”

One I was sure was a snippet of a Mozart opera. The other had to be Russian.

Every time they came back I “remembered” more and soon I had these two cool 8 bar phrases in my head.

I could not come close to identifying what either was. I even went through recordings of entire operas to find the one riff.

Then one day my laundry finished, and there was the incipit of the “opera” phrase.

A day or two later I shut off my new Hyundai Ioniq and it played a little shut down tune like the little thing at the end of their TV commercials- the “Russian” phrase.

The hazards of a music degree. My brain picked up these environmental tidbits of music and made them into logical wholes.

Fortunately my dishwasher only chirps out the odd perfect fifth so I haven’t been infected by it... yet.

[PhilE]

Biggiesmalls mentioned The Star Spangled Banner and it brought back memories of an ear worm I experienced.
Some of you may remember the rendition of SSB back in March this year described and commented on in the thread Triad Trouble.
Towards the end she holds a high note for a very long time and has a bit of a wobble in it midstream.
For some reason that part of the song got stuck in my head for a few weeks.
The primary earworm disappeared briefly if I recalled the Canadian quartet's brilliant version of the same part.
It was a memorable ear worm.

[Cotboneman]

I hum a few bars of The Girl from Ipanema and my current ear worm is all gone (replaced by that tune)!