Index – Science – Almost everyone has a sovereign worm

02/06/2021 Science

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The other day, stripping in the middle

Look, I remember a song

I’m humming and I’m lost

I’m humming and I’m lost

Damn melody humming

I’m undressing her in the lobby

I’ll take my shirt off quickly

I’m humming, gesticulating for nothing

The shirt and then the pants

I’m already doing everything for a song

Damn melody humming

You caught me, I have no peace

(Tamás Cseh: Naked man)

If you can’t get an unwanted tune, a piece of music, a chorus out of your head, then you must have a worm. And as the science stands today, there is no sure way to remove a parasite from itself.

The Germans call the phenomenon Ohrwurm, the English the ear worm; We gave it a much nicer and more generous name:

We also mean the worm when we talk about the unexpected appearance of catchy tunes. However, the common eared catcher (Forficula auricularia) is an insect, and we made a mistake in our preschool when we raved about each other moving through the ear canals and piercing the eardrum.

The melodies, on the other hand, also move quite frequently, and if you think they resonate for a long time, even if no one has asked for them for this production.

After a well-lived music festival, of course

It shouldn’t surprise us if the music roars in our heads.

But it is definitely surprising that all kinds of songs suddenly sound in our bodies.

It is still not entirely clear why all this is happening. The investigation also began only in the 1950s. As early as 1876, the American writer Mark Twain wrote a horror story (Literary Nightmare) in which the protagonist can only get rid of the tinkling sound in his head by transmitting it to another person.

One of the first large-scale data collections was made by Vicky Williamson, a music psychologist and memory researcher at Goldsmith College, London. He wondered if there was a song that stuck in the minds of many people. He asked five thousand people and came up with a strange result:

almost everyone has a sovereign worm.

Only a few songs got stuck on more than one person. These were also details of the hits, series and soundtracks that were running. Aside from its popularity, however, it didn’t find any particular connection or pattern.

We also know that lyrical melodies of 15-30 seconds in length typically dominate, instrumental music is much rarer. Simple, repetitive chords are catchier, but you also need some originality, such as an unusual change in rhythm or pitch.

Enthusiasm for music, stress, and fatigue help with grip. But also neuroses and various obsessive-compulsive tendencies.

And for musicians, the earworm is an occupational injury.

Zoltán Kocsis, for example, said that in his mind the music goes constantly, without stopping.

According to research, almost all people (97-99 percent of us) have had a tune. In women and men with approximately the same regularity. For women, songs are stubborn for a long time and disturb them a bit more.

We can only guess what the sounds in us want from us. Anthropologists reason that while writing evolved only five thousand years ago, we have been talking for many tens of thousands of years. The vital information (whether it is worth the trouble to hunt wool mammoths or if it is easier to collect, but it is a question what is edible, what is toxic) and it was much easier to remember in songs, rhymes, rhythms. Today’s poems, rhymes or children’s plays may also retain traces of this.

The pasted melody can be a side effect of old memory.

But what can we do about the side effect?

First, the worm is a cunning monk. If we want to go beyond our minds and deliberately try to ignore it, we are only getting worse – it sounds even more persistent. We just make it hum with hum.
However, if you sing out loud with the sounds, the jammed disc may receive a shock.
The researchers also suggest moderately tedious activities: for example, solving crosswords or chewing (but by no means to the beat of the melody), possibly the two together.

But perhaps it is better not to resist and do nothing. For the most part, positive, pleasant and exciting melodies tend to bite the dick. For me, two days after the musical experience, the worm used to turn on the song, not knowing where it was wandering. Then comes another cooler and more relaxed one that forces you to leave the stage.

The number of applicants is almost infinite.