Music Playing in my Head Constantly... Anyone else get that?

Cyre2067

Cyre2067

The Living Force
Today's been exceptionally annoying, i've had Tool - "Hooker with a Penis", Weezer - "Don't let Go" and a live Oakenfold set from Ibiza taking places as the current noise.

Basically the phenomena is that of music playing in my head as thoughts. For example, if you think to yourself the phrase "I met a boy wearing van 501's...." that's the same way i hear these songs played in my head. They tend to repeat short fragments of the song, which is even more annoying, and i find i can change the song between a few different ones, but generally the repeating phrase gets annoying after a short while. I can tune it out if i focus on the ambient sounds, but if they are too soft, or too uniform the repeat plays again.

It's been so invasive today i've been thinking of it as a form of attack, all it does is distract/annoy me, but again that could be exactly what its designed to do. Anyone else experience same?
 
There was a big mention of this phenomenon when Kylie Minogue had a big hit with 'Can't Get You Out Of My Head'. Apparently if you can 'arrange' certain repetitive beats/riffs etc. on certain frequencies it tends to lodge itself in your head. There was a fair bit of news coverage including a graph featuring the best 'range' to aim for.

It's something that has been a problem in the past but the last one was 'Whole Lotta Love' by Led Zep back in April 2005. I have had it mentioned several times to me by different people since then, but no mention of it taking place whilst trying to concentrate.

I found the best way to 'combat' it was to find several tunes that were of different speeds and styles, it tends to get lost in the differing rhythms/beats. It can take the best part of a day to remove the offending tune with the possiblity of lodging a different one there being a minor consideration.
 
Hey paulnotbilly,

I have the same proble too from time to time. Sometimes even with music or tv ads that I don't like. So I decided to listen to music full time changing rithms and styles every now and then and the problem has been minimized.

Sometimes when I'm sleepy I hear a female voice or many female voices in my head like gossiping. This has happened twice in this year and it occured when I'm getting sleepy after a hard day.

Anyway end up shaking my head and the problem goes away.
 
Hello Cyre,

I had this problem last year. It starts with some nice song and it keeps popping up in my mind so many times. It took some effort to get rid of it. When that train of thought starts command yourself to stop. It took me months to finally get it under control.
 
I find that the tunes are interwoven with my thoughts, filling the tiny spaces between them. Scientists have said that we can actually think about only one thing at a time, so the brain actually multiplexes thoughts, like any number of phone conversations are multiplexed over a single line, or like process threads time-share a computer CPU. In this way, music tends to fill every gap, no matter how small, in my thoughts, most of the time. I can consciously stop it, but it will come back if I'm not vigilant. I know others who experience this, too.

There are some bad people on the rise
There are some bad people on the rise
They're saving their own skins by ruining people's lives
Bad, bad people on the rise
-- Morrissey
 
Well I have "Ring of fire" by Johnny Cash playing on my internal radio for the moment.

For a while when working on the computer I had different voices parasiting my thoughts.
That was really disturbing.

I'd really would not like to be schizophrenic.
Shut up.
NO, you shut up !!
Ok.
 
Well...i remember myself that on the news a number of years back that birds where singing kylie songs,thankfully i didnt recognise the tunes even if the birds where singing them.....

i have been recording some of my own music today so i have an reason for hearing stuff in my head....

i have in the past heard distant church like bells which others could not hear...and also at night...strange-
 
the rabbit said:
i have in the past heard distant church like bells which others could not hear...and also at night...strange-
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That's weird, that really made me sit up. When I was a kid I used to hear church bells or what sounded like a female choir at night, but where I live there was no obvious source of the sound. Nobody else could hear it, I used to look out of the window and I couldn't localise the sound, it was quite eerie but not frightening.
 
The only way that I have found to minimize 'the repeating song in the head' issue is to stop or limit listening to the radio and CD's and watching TV. I know pretty obvious. All major changes, since in the past I couldn't imagine a ride in the car without some form of music playing. The less exposure to the stuff the better. Even after a long period of no radio, etc. songs that I haven't heard in what seems years just pop up or in out of the blue. Almost like all the junk has to be played out. I also notice that when I ride in a car with someone else that has the radio on that I think less about things and generally am repulsed by it. The less noise in the mind the better, IMO.
 
Dr Tirano said:
Hey paulnotbilly,

I have the same proble too from time to time. Sometimes even with music or tv ads that I don't like. So I decided to listen to music full time changing rithms and styles every now and then and the problem has been minimized.

Sometimes when I'm sleepy I hear a female voice or many female voices in my head like gossiping. This has happened twice in this year and it occured when I'm getting sleepy after a hard day.

Anyway end up shaking my head and the problem goes away.
Click to expand...
Hi, Dr Tirano

I can't help you with the female voices, you might try to tune into them to see just what they are gossiping about. The problem being that obviously as you 'awake' they go. I would advise you to tread with caution though, there is a mention of schizophrenia within this thread, I seriously don't know of any good being associated with schizophrenia.
 
As soon as I hit the shower in the morning, I notice there's a song already playing in my head! It could be anything - the worst are songs from musicals and folk music that I haven't head since my college days 30 years ago. Over the course of the day they change, but there's almost always some tune running around in there, like an unsupervised little kid.

Songs appear to have a several day period where the intensity is really high at the beginning then fades away after about a week. Hearing the song can start the whole process again. The more frequently I hear it the harder it is to disloge - Once I listened to Phantom of the Opera during a 10 hour car trip and it lasted in my head for at least a month afterwards. "Seven Nation Army" by the White Stripes was nearly as bad after only hearing it a couple of times. There is definitely a desensitiation where a song loses its ability to dominate my "ear-waves".

Has anyone else ever wonder about tunes - what exactly is a "tune" and why are some so catchy? What is it about particular combinations of notes that make them sound so good and make us remember them and make our brains want to play them over and over? Why is it that music seems to "play" us? Music can elicit all kinds of feelings, as if we are the musical instruments and our emotions are pouring out as the music plays us - we're the violins and the pianos and this external force is playing us.

Has anyone ever listened to something that was supposely very "beautiful" but the feelings it elicited were terribly sad and depressing? How about a major 7th chord the piano? I find this combination of notes to be just devestating (maybe I'm just nuts).

Back in 1973 I went to college as a music major because I wanted to find these things out. I assumed somebody knew, and I was really dissappointed to learn that none of my classes mentioned anything about why music caused people to "feel" things. Everyone just skips over this question as if it didn't matter. But suppose it does. I'm finding that the things that really matter are usually the things that no one is talking about.

Music seems to have a hook into our souls that we just take for granted, don't question. Everyone knows it happens, that we are easily manipulated by it, movies and advertisers use it incessantly, but it seems we don't know the why or the how.

I've got one more thing to add to this - does anyone thing that there's a musical aspect to the C's mention of the "3- 5 code"? Susan

Susan
 
tendrini55 said:
"Seven Nation Army" by the White Stripes was nearly as bad after only hearing it a couple of times.
Click to expand...
LOL. The line "From the Queen of England to the Hounds of Hell" does stick in the mind, doesn't it?
tendrini55 said:
I've got one more thing to add to this - does anyone thing that there's a musical aspect to the C's mention of the "3- 5 code"? Susan

Susan
Click to expand...
Now that you mention it it does make sense.
 
tendrini55 said:
"Seven Nation Army" by the White Stripes was nearly as bad after only hearing it a couple of times.
Click to expand...
Spot on.
and "Get behind me Satan" is also like a sticky mind glu.

There are rumours about Jack being involved with free masonery (They played at some masonic hall for example.).
Who really knows ?
 
sometimes I can hear a song in my head that I have not heard in ages
and later that day it plays on the radio.Like a mini timewarp .
I also used to hear the last song I heared on the radio before leaving for school all day
 
Usually when I get a song stuck in my head, I change it, the instrumentals, the effects etc, maybe add some backing singers, and echo, change the guitar, mix with some other songs... I just get creative with it, and it goes. I told some people that once, and I got called a weirdo. Good ;)
 
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