Earwormery

[muninnhuginn]

Just out of interest, dear reader, have a question or two:

1. Is your earworm only occasional or pretty much constant?

2. Are there triggers that start your earworm?

3. Can you hear more than one track simultaneously?

4. Does your earworm play you particular tracks or arrangements of whatever tune it wants to irritate you with?

5. Does your earworm have a playlist?

Or, do you not have an earworm and not understand what the heck I'm going on about?

(For extra credit, what is the cure for a month-long infestation of early Chris de Burgh?)

Comments

Your earworm may vary

[hilarita]

My earworm experience is a little bit different. I do get earworms, but not usually the same earworm all the time. Also, frequency of earworms depends on lots of things, like how tired I am, how stressed I am, how bored I am. I can get earwormed when I hear particular songs, or people reference particular songs. There's a shortlist of songs that are particularly likely to earworm me if they come up in conversations, or on TV or something.
I don't precisely hear multiple tracks, but one earworm can morph into another one. Things mostly earworm me if I only know short phrases - anything where I know the whole song/tune/piece of music tend not to, because I can get past the sticky phrase and onto the whole thing. If I can remember more than 8 bars (and it's not the same 8 bars over again), I tend not to get very earwormed, or I can move it on a bit.
If something is very annoying, I'll play a literal playlist of earwormy songs that I know well, so I can displace the earworm with something I can get rid of. Or I'll play something complex (like Mozart's Requiem) to attract my attention instead.

Re: Your earworm may vary

[muninnhuginn]

Fascinating. I also get the fading from one track to another.

I find a good dose of Radio 4 sends most things away. If I listen to classical music I can still have an earworm on top.