If you listen to music, you instinctively know that a song sounds different the tenth time you hear it from the first. Repetition is an often overlooked yet powerful part of the way we process music
The Irish Times: Your dad was right all along: pop music does all sound the same
MIC.COM: Turns Out People Who Claim They Have "Perfect Pitch" Are Not So Special After All
Psychological research shows that perfect pitch may not be the game-changing musical ability we've long thought it was.
Buzzfeed: 13 Things You Probably Didn't Know About Listening to Music
There’s a reason you can’t get that one song out of your head.
Aeon Magazine: The Music in You
Twenty years ago, a pair of psychologists hooked up a shoe to a computer. They were trying to teach it to tap in time with a national anthem. However, the job was proving much tougher than anticipated. Just moving to beat-dominated music, they found, required a grasp of tonal organisation and musical structure that seemed beyond the reach of an ordinary person without special training. But how could that be? Any partygoer can fake a smile, reach for a cheese cube and tap her heel to an unfamiliar song without so much as a thought. Yet when the guy she’s been chatting with tells her that he’s a musician, she might reply: ‘Music? I don’t know anything about that.’
Boston Globe: Earworms
"Here’s what we do know: About 90 percent of people report having a song stuck in their head at least once a week — admittedly not all Swift-generated — according to Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis, the author of “On Repeat: How Music Plays the Mind,” and director of the Music Cognition Lab at the University of Arkansas....
I nodded as Swift serenaded me against my will. It’s like I got this music in my mind..."
Cafe.com: Humanity is Primed to Binge Listen
Article by Sophie Brickman:
"Drawing on neuroscience, music theory, and cognitive psychology, Margulis delves into why we are attracted to repetition in music, whether that be a repeated phrase within a piece, the repeated listening of a song or, at a macro level, the repeated listening of a full album. I read the entire book in one sitting, identifying aspects of my behavior in her analysis—everything from the fact that behavioral repetition, like hitting that play button over and over, can cause us to “become connected to the sound in a way that feels almost physical” (hello, conducting the drum clash in the middle of the street, or walking in rhythm to the beat) to having what the Germans call an Ohrwurm, or ear worm, a phrase of music that burrows into your head and inches around and around."
Brain Pickings: How Repetition Enchants the Brain
"In On Repeat, a fine addition to these essential books on the psychology of music, Margulis goes on to explore how advances in cognitive science have radically changed our understanding of just why repetition is so psychoemotionally enticing..."
Ted Ed: Why We Love Repetition in Music
"How many times does the chorus repeat in your favorite song? How many times have you listened to that chorus? Repetition in music isn’t just a feature of Western pop songs, either; it’s a global phenomenon. Why? Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis walks us through the basic principles of the ‘exposure effect,’ detailing how repetition invites us into music as active participants, rather than passive listeners." View lesson on TedEd >
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Science of Us / NYMag.com
OH AY AHHHH: Why the World Cup Theme Is Stuck in Your Head
"An earworm tends to be 10 seconds or less, usually just a fragment of a song, said Elizabeth Margulis, author of the book On Repeat: How Music Plays the Mind, on a recent episode of NPR’s Science Friday. Margulis also noted that the people who compose music for ads and TV are well aware of this and exploit it to their benefit. ..."
Science Friday
"Certain tunes are more than just appealing—they seem to get “stuck” in our minds. Song fragments that we can’t stop humming are called “earworms.” Musical psychologist Elizabeth Margulis describes what might cause these tenacious tunes and why repetition in music is so catchy."
Psychology Today
Introducing a new blog about music and the mind
"When I tell someone what I do, they often devote a lot of energy to explaining that they don’t know anything about music. “Music!” they’ll say, “I don’t know anything about music!” Yet these same people, so eager to disavow any expertise, might listen to music several hours a day. They might sing in their car, tap the steering wheel in sync with the beat, and be moved to tears by a song. These experiences rely on a remarkable array of highly sophisticated cognitive processes. The more I study the perceptual mechanisms underlying music listening, the more convinced I am that the vast majority of us, despite our protests, know an incredible amount about music. ..."
WNYC Soundcheck
You probably wouldn't want to listen to a person speaking the same thing over and over and over. So why would you want to listen to the same song again and again? Yet research has found that generally the more that people hear a song, the more they like it -- unless, of course, they listen so much that they end up liking it even less than when they started.
This topic is just one that's covered by Elizabeth Margulis, Director of the Music Cognition Lab at the University of Arkansas in a new book, On Repeat: How Music Plays The Mind. In a conversation with Soundcheck host John Schaefer, Margulis explains about why repetition and music are so closely intertwined.
NPR: All Things Considered
Play it Again And Again, Sam
"A couple of years ago, music psychologist decided to make some alterations to the music of . Berio was one of the most famous classical composers of the 20th century, a man internationally recognized for the dramatic power of his compositions. But Margulis didn't worry much about disrupting Berio's finely crafted music. After loading his most famous piece into a computer editing program, she just randomly started cutting.
"I just went in and whenever there was a little pause on either side of something, I grabbed that out and then I'd stick it back in — truly without regard to aesthetic intent," she says. "I wasn't trying to craft anything compelling."
The idea behind this vandalism was simple: Margulis wanted to see if she could make people like Berio's music more by making it more repetitive. ..."
To the Best of Our Knowledge
Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis talks with Anne Strainchamps, host of WPR/PRI's nationally syndicated "To The Best of Our Knowledge," about "On Repeat: How Music Plays the Mind."
KCRW Press Play: Repetition & Music
Elizabeth Margulis talks repetition in music with Madeleine Brand of Press Play on KCRW, NPR's flagship station for Southern California and Los Angeles.
Aeon Magazine: One More Time
"What is music? There’s no end to the parade of philosophers who have wondered about this, but most of us feel confident saying: ‘I know it when I hear it.’ Still, judgments of musicality are notoriously malleable. That new club tune, obnoxious at first, might become toe-tappingly likeable after a few hearings. Put the most music-apathetic individual in a household where someone is rehearsing for a contemporary music recital and they will leave whistling Ligeti. The simple act of repetition can serve as a quasi-magical agent of musicalisation. Instead of asking: ‘What is music?’ we might have an easier time asking: ‘What do we hear as music?’ And a remarkably large part of the answer appears to be: ‘I know it when I hear it again.’"
