Can't Get It Out Of My Head!

Recently someone sent me this interesting article about "earworms" which is "a term for a song stuck in one's head, particularly an annoying one," according to Wikipedia. I had absolutely no idea that there was a term for this particularly irritating phenomenon! What struck me most about this article is that researchers were able to confirm the existence of these so-called earworms and that at least 98% of people have had songs stuck in their head! Apparently, musicians/music lovers and those with "compulsive tendencies" may be more affected than others. Not only that, this "stuck song syndrome" is more frequent and lasts even longer for musicians! One of the reasons being that they are more exposed to music and encounter more repetition during rehearsals. The areas of the brain that are involved in listening to and creating music also plays another role for musicians. Another interesting point about earworms is that women are more susceptible to earworms than men! There haven't yet been any reasons as to why this is. As for now, it'll remain a mystery...

My earworms come in various degrees of intensity and levels of aggravation. What is the absolute worst possible scenario for me is when I have a song stuck in my head and I don't know the lyrics. So what happens is that the same part keeps repeating over and over again and I can't for the life of me get that song out of my head. The song simply bores into my head, it won't let go, and even worse, there's simply no known cure. What I usually end up doing is to try talking to someone about it (and hopefully pass the song along to them) or I try humming a different song (only to find that the new song gets stuck in my head). There is a web site called "Maim That Tune" that picks a substitute earworm for you (this is like hitting yourself in the thumb with a hammer so you can forget about your backache).

Despite the fact that these tunes are just so unbearably memorable, there are surprisingly positive things that can come out of earworms. Singer-songwriter Neil Diamond says those repetitive notes that won't go away have spawned some of the greatest hits of his career! I'm waiting for that day...

Here they are, the top 10 earworms!

1. Kylie Minogue, Can't Get You Out of My Head
2. James Blunt, You're Beautiful
3. Baha Men, Who Let the Dogs Out
4. Mission Impossible theme
5. Village People, YMCA
6. Happy Days theme
7. Corinne Bailey Rae, Put Your Records On
8. Suzanne Vega, Tom's Diner
9. Tight Fit, The Lion Sleeps Tonight
10. Tiffany, I Think We're Alone Now

A Different Way of Playing

I'd thought I'd share this neat clip. It showcases a person playing the piano a different kind of way. Not the traditional way of playing with two hands on the keyboard. I won't describe just how he plays, but I'll tell you it's definitely a very creative way of playing the piano. Towards the end of the clip, he starts playing really fast and it's simply amazing to watch! While playing, you can see that he truly is enjoying himself. It's nice to know that people are enjoying what they're good at doing. As I've heard people say, "enjoy what you do, and do what you enjoy." Something to keep in mind as we go about our everyday lives...

So do check out this clip when you get a chance! The guy is pretty funny, he definitely made me smile a few times! A very entertaining clip, definitely worth watching!



Quite talented if you ask me!

Pandora

Recently I came across a really neat online application. It's an internet radio called "Pandora" and it was created by the Music Genome Project, a group of musicians and music technologists. Pandora is not your average internet radio where you listen to random songs and artists. The really cool thing about Pandora is that when you create a radio station it lets you type in a song or artist you like and it instantly finds other music that might fit your taste, or what some may call "genetically similar songs." In other words, having analyzed the musical structures present in the songs you like, Pandora creates a radio station that will only play songs with similar musical traits to the song you typed in. It relies on a Music Genome that consists of 400 musical attributes covering the qualities of melody, harmony, rhythm, form, composition and lyrics.

Another neat feature of Pandora is that you can give it feedback so it can refine our station based on our likes and dislikes. You can give any song the station plays either a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down, and providing this feedback instantly changes your station's playlist. The result is a progressively personalized radio station that really does play only music you want to hear. It's always nice to have a personalized playlist based on our own musical preferences!

Some of the other things you can do with Pandora: you can create up to 100 stations, share a station with a friend through an e-mail link, register for RSS feeds to find out what your friends are listening to, what the top 20 artists are, add a song to your favorites list so you can keep track of the music you like, etc. And who knows? Pandora may even help you discover new music that you'll like!

There's definitely a lot going on with the Pandora player, but it's all pretty easy to access once you get the hang of it. Do check it out when you get a chance!