Earworms

‘Shawty’s like a melody in my head that I can’t get out, got me singing like…’

Ever had that one song that weaves itself into the very essence of your brain, haunting your thoughts and bursting forth without command. It plagues the young and the old, the idle and the hardworking, like oxygen or a parasite, ‘Earworms’.

a piece of music or a melody that repeats itself like a broken record on replay, playing the same loop over and over and over until your favourite song turns into the bane of your existence. Earworms are quite a funny phenomenon, though have the capacity to become utterly irritating when the song seems to play over and over right inside your mind with no end.

They are songs or jingles that are catchy, upbeat and on the verge of just plain annoying, and are more common in songs that have a repeated rhythm and probably popular. you seem to hear it wherever you go and sing along even when you don’t know the words.

‘Na, na, na, na everyday, like my iPod stuck on replay (replay)’

Men and women are both just as likely to experience these unexplainable occurrence, but they seem to last longer in women and are more likely to irritate them.

Earworms have made several appearances in novels and TV shows as the main theme, such as books by Mark Twain and Arthur C. Clarke as well as the cartoon Spongebob Squarepants.

Join the cult.

Instruments

I still find it astonishing that we can  make music out of a  wooden object trussed up with strings or the haunting melodies that issue from a pipe with holes. These simple articles pour forth the sweetest of tunes and the most enchanting rhythms.

The shining surface of a well-polished lightly stained wood finish guitar, the elegant neck of curved and silky timber,  long and flawless, the strings scintillating with the brightness of a new copper penny, waiting to be the birthplace of the next timeless classic, the fret board dark and rich, begging with every fibre of it’s being for you to press upon the strings so it can gently kiss them to create a new harmony.

The majesty of a grand piano as it sits, spotlight-grabbing just off the stage-center of a large auditorium, the taut strings, hidden from view, just longing with passionate eagerness for the evening to arrive, at which time it deigns to fill the expectant audience with the fulfillment they never knew they needed. The black ebony of the sharps and flats, in stark comparison against the ivory keys of the majors, stretching out to meet the dazzling reflections of the limelight in its dark, glossy mirror.

A humble, yet powerful instrument of light wind and strong gusts, the flute chirruping with the gusto of newly hatched birds tweeting with the dawn of life after a cold, dark winter, singing with joy at the fresh bloom of spring. The flute, with tunes of a pliable nature, moving with one accord at the impediment of one hole after the other, drifting with ease to the heights of a new note.

The sound of violins as they complete the sounds of music by drawing on reverberations of angelic quality and soulful unity, the resonances formed by the pull of bow on strings pulled tight over the curvature of the slits that serve as sound holes. The bow flying, as if conducting an orchestra, fill a room with unheard beckonings to an unforeseen calling.

Or the awesome, dominating power of the drums as they boom without restraint, pounding a beat, along with which all must acquiesce, setting the tempo and the emphasis that a song or a melody necessitates.

It never ceases to amaze me at the mesmerizing awe these instruments command or the recognition and respect their players gain in escalating relation to their proficiency, pulling and plucking, skimming and strumming, blowing and booming to the sound of an eternal harmony.

Music transformed…

Words. Words that inspire.Words that express, intonating and intertwining with a melody, rhyming to a rhythm. Music.
A wide world of genres that has progressed from the large, black spinning gramophone records to the technologically revolutionised CDs, DVDs and even Blu-Ray discs with ever-increasing storage bases.

Along with the evolution of the storage forms, music has transformed too. Music used to be about feelings, emotions, special moments, teachings, wisdom and expression! Now, the radio stations are spewing electronic rubbish about clubs, money and ‘booties’. The music fallen over the edge into a darker, more R-rated world. Edgier and censored, or repetitive and just plain stupid, artists have reached a lyrical dead-end and often harp on about ‘eating cereal’ or the life-changing-decisions of sitting in the front or back seats in their 15-year-old-owned cars on the way to school; or they nag you to ‘turn up the lights, turn up the lights’. Some people forget their names and turn to a worldwide audience for reference in a song that goes ‘ Ooo, na na, what’s my name?’. I mean really? Do you have nothing better to do in your son-of-a-rockstar-blinged-out-Beverly-Hills life?

Music, I feel has turned away from its true essence, the genuine meaning of it. It has the power to unite the globe, to speak to the hearts of ethically, racially, spiritually diverse people, but, is instead dividing the populations with swirling, probing fingers of underworldly darkness.

I live for songs that dare to be different, songs that inspire you or take you to see the world from the outside, music that speaks the truth about what we can be and what we truly are. Though thoroughly over-used, Michael Jackson’s ‘We are the World’ and ‘Heal the World’, the Black-Eyed Peas’ ‘Where is the Love’, or even more recently ‘Pricetag’ by Jessie J and ‘Pray’ by the one and only *rolling eyes* ‘Bieber’. All these songs may seem cliché, but they are some of the very, very few musical pieces that hold a firm place in my timeless favourites. They highlight the division of humanity, our apathy towards the disintegration of our planet as well as our society, the ignorance in our daily lives of the suffering and despair of the less-fortunate, and the materialistic views of people these days. We are increasingly more obsessed with gadgets and money that we forget about the things that truly matter….like music.

Confuddled melody.

Has anyone else ever noticed that “Twinkle Twinkle”, “Baa Baa Black Sheep” and “A, B, C, D” have the exact same tune?

“Twinkle, Twinkle,

Have you any wool?

H, I, J, K,

Three bags full.

Up above the world so high (pronounced: ‘hiyeee’),

W, X, Y and Zee”

Either there was no such thing as copyright, or it was stuck in the respective inventors’ heads for a very, very, very  long time! (Who knows, maybe it was a combination of the two :P)

It’s a mystery to me, but, on the other hand, as we grow old it’s probably a good thing to have all of them sung to the same tune. It’ll save us the trouble remebering different nursery rhyme melodies, as we sing them to sing to our grandchildren. 😛