You would have noticed that some songs,may be any Genre,Classical,Light Music or Film Music, or tunes get stuck with you.
On would try to explain away by saying that the Lyrics,Composition,BGM, or in the case of Cinema the visual presentation of the song or the acting that goes.
But this can not explain why some tunes/songs remain with you or become a Hit.
Take for instance the song(?) Vaazhvil Kolaveridi’ in Tamil!
It is a classic case of a Hit for unfathomable reason
Arguably it is a very poor rendition in terms of Lines(I would not call them any thing else) or picturization.
Yet even people who do not know the Lyrics were captivated by it.
I am attached to some Tunes/Songs in Tamil,Kannada and Hindi.
But those are the songs, including Classical Music, that are rich in Lyrical content, Melodious tune and the Bhava or the expression with which the songs were sung.
As is usual with the West some people have researched into this, coming up with fancy terms like ‘Earworms’!
To me the reasons for any tune or song being attached to you, even to the extent of being heard in your mind are,
1.Quality of the Tune.
2.Lyrical richness.
3.In the case of a Movie, either any of these or all blended together with nice Visuals and acting.
4.A catchy tune, normally a simple tune, with few instruments.
5.Repetition of the song / tune to your ears , normally by TV, Radio Commercials.
6.There is yet another case where the lines’ or tunes keep being heard in your mind.
Add to this the Images which are formed in your mind when you listen or watch the songs in Films.
The slokas or mantras of Hinduism
Some slokas or Mantras have this attribute.
This also depends on the individuals’ disposition.
Sri Rudram , Soundarya Lahari .Sri Lalitha Sahsranama have this attribute.
My eldest sister , who is no more, usd to tell me she is hearing non stop the sloka ‘Bhavanithvam Dasemai'( Soundarya Lahari )in her mind.
The reason for this is that some Mnatras. Slokas are locked ina Mystical way, even Letters are locked in a Mystical way to penetrate into your consciousness.
That is what Mantra is all about.
I will be posting more on this,
Mean while read this from the Atlantic. com on ‘Tunes getting stuck with You”
Story:
On some of its replays, I might be driven to sing along, or hum a bit, or tap the rhythm on the table, and it’s usually only when the music breaks into the external world in this way that I become aware of the extent to which it has ensnared my mind.
This odd cognitive phenomenon, although quite common, remained unstudied until recently, and even the handful of studies that approach the topic have remained at the descriptive level, failing to provide a theoretical account. There is, however, no shortage of words in general circulation that attempt to capture the experience. Germans call it Ohrwurm, and the English language has adopted the translation of this word, earworm. It can be called musique entêtante in French and canzone tormentone in Italian, which translate respectively to “stubborn music” and “tormenting songs.” Among scholars, James Kellaris refers to it as cognitive itch, Daniel Levitin as stuck song syndrome, Oliver Sacks as sticky music, and Lassi Liikkanen as involuntary musical imagery (INMI).
In 2008, Liikkanen surveyed 12,420 Finnish Internet users about their experience with INMI. An amazing 91.7 percent of them reported getting a tune stuck in their head at least once a week. 33.2 percent said a tune got stuck in their head at least once a day, and 26.1 percent said it happened several times a day. The fact that more than 1 in 3 respondents identified earworms as a daily occurrence, and more than 1 in 4 reported experiencing them several times a day, suggests that the phenomenon is not only widespread but also relatively frequent.
In 2007, University of Hull musicologist Freya Bailes used a different methodology to see if earworms are really as pervasive as Liikkanen’s account claims. She contacted participants at random intervals over a weeklong period and asked them to report their experience of musical imagery at the moment they received the request. The prevalence rate varied widely among participants, but was still surprisingly high, with the participant who experienced the least frequent imagery reporting it on 12 percent of the sampled occasions, and the participant who experienced the most reporting it on 53 percent of them. Between 10 percent and half of randomly selected moments throughout the day, in other words, were moments when people were experiencing musical imagery.
Source:
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/01/why-songs-get-stuck-in-your-head/282997/
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