The science of music: Why your brain gets hooked on hit songs | Derek Thompson | Big Think
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- Опубликовано: 25 авг 2018
- The science of music: Why your brain gets hooked on hit songs
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There's a reason you can't stop your head boppin' to block-rockin' beats, and why you can't get a catchy song's hook out of your head. The Atlantic editor Derek Thompson lays down a spoken-word jam about the science behind music's appeal. Derek Thompson's latest book is Hit Makers: The Science of Popularity in an Age of Distraction.
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DEREK THOMPSON:
Derek Thompson is a senior editor at The Atlantic magazine, where he writes about economics and the media. He is a regular contributor to NPR's Here and Now and appears frequently on television, including CBS and MSNBC. He was named to both Inc. magazine's and Forbes's 30 Under 30 lists. He lives in New York City.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Derek Thompson: One of the questions that I set out to answer in the book is, why do we like what we like in music? What makes music catchy? Where do “earworms” come from?
And to answer this really complex question I started with the simplest possible question, which is: what is music? Why does the brain process some sounds as cacophony and other sounds very clearly as song?
And to start to answer this question you have to go to Diana Deutsch. And she is a musicologist at the University of California San Diego. And Diana was listening to herself talk at her house one evening, and she put a sentence of hers on repeat and she realized if you take a bit of speech stream and you take a sliver of it and you start repeating it again, start repeating it again, start repeating it again, start repeating it again, start repeat -obviously you can sort of hear it if you’re listening that the brain suddenly starts to hear a melody in this repetition, and a rhythm and a beat, and it starts to hear that which was formally just speech as song.
And so what she would say, what I would say, is that repetition is the God-particle of music, it is the thing that distinguishes the cacophony of the world from that which we cannot help but recognize as music.
So that’s interesting, but it’s not an answer to the fundamental question, which is: what makes music catchy? Because if I go into a music studio and I say, “start repeating it again, start repeating it again” I’ll be laughed out of the studio immediately. So there has to be a repetition and variety. What is the scientific way to think about the balance?
And to answer that question you have to fly northeast from San Diego to Ohio State University in Columbus Ohio, where David Huron did this famous study involving mice where he played a note for a mouse, let’s call it a B note. And the mouse would turn its head like this. And he would play B again, and the mouse would turn its head. And he would play B-B-B and the mouse’s head is just doing this thing.
And eventually the mouse habituates, it learns to ignore the stimulus. And habituation is common in culture and life. We learn to ignore things that are too familiar.
But if instead at the very moment the mouse is about to habituate from the B note he instead plays a C note, the mouse attends to the C note and is dishabituated from the B note. So now he can go back to scaring the mouse with the B note.
And it turns out that if you want to scare a mouse for the longest period of time with the fewest number of notes there’s a very specific pattern that you play, and it goes: B-B-C-B-C-D note to habituate from both from the B and the C note.
And as I was reading this study and talking to David I thought, well if you take the letter “B” and you replace it with the word “verse” and you take the letter “C” and you replace it with the word “chorus “and you take the letter “D” and you replace it with the word “bridge,” you have the following song structure: verse-verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge, which is essentially the most common pop song structure of the 20th century.
So what seemed so fundamentally interesting to me about this idea is that this same formulaic relationship between repetition and variety that can scare a mouse in a laboratory setting also makes us attend to Top 40 radio in cars.
But throughout the book I’m constantly thinking about what are the most important implications of each of these ideas, not only for entertainment, which is interesting but maybe not important, but also for something like politics?
And it’s interesting when thinking about repetition and speech and persuasiveness, and realizing that every great rhetorical device is essentially a form of...
Read the full transcript at bigthink.com/videos/derek-tho...
And start repeating it again 🎶
Someone needs to sample
*clap*
Bars
👌👏
Pro trick : watch series at flixzone. Been using it for watching lots of of movies lately.
Most common structure though, afaik, is
Verse - Pre-chorus - Chorus - Verse - Pre-chorus - Chorus - Bridge - Chorus
Familiarity is key aswell. If someone only ever listened to rap for their whole life, if they suddenly listen to a piece of Beethoven, they might hate it (with exceptions). But if they listened to it over and over and over again, they would probably enjoy it. Music taste is simply what music we are familiar with and what are brains consider to be ' normal '
I don't know, I listen to a lot of types of music as a child but I am more of a rap/hip-hop guy. I wonder if preference to certain types of music is also related to structure/neurons of an individual's brain too?
Soooo, songs like gangnum style got popular worldwide, because the world was familiar to listening to kpop in 2012, lol I don't think so🤔😂😂
@@jakari3327 aside from the Korean language Gangnam style is an attempt at a more popular global sound from a Korean artist so I’m not sure that is the greatest take, although I still disagree with the original take.
@@jakari3327 mainstream k-pop is made that way for a more vast global audience that's why you constantly hear English adlips and English words to make the song familiar...also it's heavily influenced by Western pop...
Most people don't even know hardcore pure Korean songs because it's tastes different.
@@jakari3327it got popular because the algorithm pushed it on everyone.
I think what a lot of people might be missing about this video is that it is an introduction to a concept...
could you provide sources that explore this concept more in-depth?
@@Manima108 The concept is Patterns. You don't need to find them, you cannot escape them my friend.
@@1995yuda you cannot escape patterns, but you can however develop pattern recognition skills to help you
@@karinanalbandyan3009I can’t help you out, know where I got to I belong
In a song so all along your pacing on a road we go
0:10 what makes music catchy
0:42 Diana Deutsch Sometimes Behaves So Strangely
1:10 Repitition is god particle of music
1:24 Repetition + Variety MAYA
1:55 Habituation - learn to ignore things that are too familiar
2:20 scare a mouse pattern BBCBCD = Verse Chorus Bridge VVCVCB
3:07 Top 40 in cars
3:24 implication is interesting but not important (I decline. It’s how misogyny gets a pass in Hiphop)
4:09 antimetabole ABBA
4:56 turns human speech processed into song by the brain
Great episode - thank you for the insight, and for keeping it short.
"Hit" songs are played 100000 times a day, that is why they are in my head. I refuse to allow others to play radio stations in the office due to the mental abuse being shot out over the airways
😂😂
This is THE best Big Think videos I've seen in a long while. I understand completely know why we are naturally drawn to hit songs.
This is why I love Once in a Lifetime, that 'Same as it ever was' repeated phrase is pure genius!
Lazy writing.
Writing can only be lazy if youre writing music for money@@iwontreplybacklol7481
this video is excellent. Finally, someone breaking things down and trying to make empirical observations about how the phenomenon of a "hit" works. Very eye-opening. The Patterns all resemble each other too, antimetabole is a fractal of the popular song structure, which is a macro version of the formula for the succession of notes that bugs mice for the longest period of time. Very cool observation of this pattern.
that was the most intereseting thing i've seen on bigthink recently
Thank you for your beautiful explanation.
0:47
Like a vocal sample in hip-hop. All makes sense.
Ad-libs
Oh boy by Camron
Thank you. Great talk.
Wow. I had to watch this for music theory class, and this man is ON to something
I really appreciated the editing.
start repeating it again went hard
🎼 Start
🎵 Repeating it again 🎶
🎼 Start
🎵 Repeating it again 🎶
👏👏👏👏👏
Hello! Thank you for the content! Very helpful :)
Awesome video!💓
Thanks for taking your time to do this study buddy
This is gold
This video is great and I would love to use it in my middle school music classroom but can't all because of the videos advertised right at the end. Please consider that for future videos.
2:29 learning these easy tricks could propel one's career ! Thank you for the video
I wonder is there a difference between those who are musically inclined and those who are more comfortable with spoken word? I do not have a musical bone in my body. Can't dance. Can't sing. Can't clap a beat. But I can hear patterns in speech. I've always been able to. Over the past decade, I've acted on this hunch and now speak professionally. I use these concepts spoken of in this video to great effect. I'm really interested in this discussion.
That’ll answer many questions!
Fascinating.
Repetition is to rhythm as rhythm is to time. Time brings order out of chaos and without Time all you have is chaos. The real question is what is musical harmony. Consonants.
this has to be one of the best videos ever
Repeated exposure to a melody will result in a listener "warming" to almost any song.that's how payola got started.
Very informative. A good reference to Identify not just music also a rhythm influencing for bullshitness.
Este video es increíble!
Wow, this is just mind-blowing facts. Very interesting.
Right now I got "Look what the cat dragged in" by Poison stuck in my head.
Bonus like to the video editor 👍
Makes a lot of sense
what is the name of the book please
This was a lot of fun. On this topic at least, I hope that the book isn't too periphrastic and roundabout.
The Loop n The Hook!!
Is like a lot of multiverse with different patterns but can still make a song with the same pattern.
Slightly off topic, but is anyone here aware of a site that allows you to put your own words to music to create earworms (to speed up/aid memorization)?
I only clicked cause of Michael
Haha ! Me too! Mj ♥ forever
hmm kanro
Hee Hee.
i understand😊
Very clever
This was fascinating, not sure I am 100% on board yet.. but the premise is definitely possible. I think that once we are conscious of this affect it may change the way we feel. Like when you get sick of a song.. or play it out. Hmm.. it just occurred to me that this has some pretty scary implications as well. Like do we get sick of ideas the way we get sick of songs? And we do, does this have more to do with the cadence than the structure of the idea?!
Interesting video but some of this is a bit of a stretch and as a musician I don't ever remember hearing that song structure at 2:57 that supposedly is so common. A bridge is usually well...a bridge between two parts of a song, it almost by definition is not the very last part of a song. If it were it would be called an outro instead
I Write A Song A Day
I was thinking the same thing. It seems accurate, but incomplete.
Quick question: how would you finish the pattern he started with “B B C B C D”?
Thanks for the heads up. You're right about his "bridge" reference. That's simply wrong. Too bad as it diminishes his over all message.
Chris Mcpherson repeat first verse & chorus.
I don't think his argument fails because there needs to be something following a bridge. His key point still seems valid: that the research on mice seems to mirror what we often see in popular song structures. Even if it's only part of a song structure.
I think the bridge is the part where the sequence loops back around to the beginning. This whole thing about repetition/loops.
Once you hit the bridge, you loop back around to the first verse and have at least one more go at the sequence for the second half of your song.
My mind is blown.
Super 💓❤️❤️
LOL@this dude discovering "break beats" during the video.
This is a good video. A good video this is.
Can we see more of this guy
At 3:26, after having talked about music for a while, he says that this is [interesting not only for entertainment ]. It is very sad for me to see that most young intellectuals as well as people with the power to influence public opinion consider Art, which is what allows all of us to relate with our deepest and most subjective emotions in such a profound way since the time we became humans, is being equated with entertainment. This entertainment thing is just an industry that doesn’t even have 200 years of existence and has had the same influence on the Arts that the Fast Food industry had on our health and the Oil industry on our planet, etc, etc, etc.
Truly heartbreaking.
Id love to watch a whole 30 minute video on this. 😮
I was already dancing
I know this guy is better educated than I am, but in 35 years consuming & making music myself, I have pondered & studied what makes a "hook." And I can assure you that this guy is missing the trees for the forest, because he doesn't even discuss melody. Melody - the relationship with notes to other notes - is the key to understanding this, and it can be broken down mathematically. How can this guy gloss over that? Pffft.
Reuben, good catch. I agree. There are a few catchy rhythm and harmony items out there. But they are rare.
Reuben Kincaid He approached it from a scientific perspective, he points towards cognitive behaviors.
And yes you are more precise with your professional knowledge.
Even if it can be broken down mathematically, that falls short of explaining why certain mathematical patterns are catchier. It merely states that they are. Also, this video was 5 minutes so I think it's appropriate that he only had time to go through a high level analysis of pop song structure, rather than delving into the infinite minutia of music theory.
The point is that there are different ways of looking at a song. To use the analogy of a movie, you can break down individual scenes, or you can look at the overarching storyline. Neither are 'wrong', but they're looking at entirely different aspects. You could have a fantastic story but uninteresting scenes, or you could have a pointless story packed with awesome scenes. To have a great movie you should have both, but that doesn't negate the study and improvement of each aspect individually.
I don't think the two art forms are analogous. It's apples and oranges, and most of what you described has no corresponding attributes in music. Sorry, but it's a false comparison. Movies don't have "hooks."
As an artist, I feel like thinking about this too much and analyzing too closely takes away from the experience. EXPERIENCE music! Lol interesting science though. Just I feel it takes away from the point of the art form
So speaking in song makes everything more catchy or is everything more catchy in song? (ABBA)
I’m a simple person, I see Michael Jackson, I click! :)
This was fascinating, I didn't know these patterns had names. But I'm pretty sure this go far deeper based on my musical choices vs the people around me.
p.s. - you tend to stay away from tacks with a cheesy bridge & generic tone.
Mindblown ......
The reason why I watched this video just because I saw the king of pop
Great video, very intelligent and interesting and as far as the song structure goes many songs do indeed have this structure up until and including the bridge. Longer verse / chorus / shorter verse / chorus / bridge so there may be a connection as he suggests...I suppose it depends on why the mouse stops attending to the B note. If it is because it is used to the sound and thus, in a sense bored of it, then the argument is an interesting one.
Thank you! Cacophony is not the same as hearing voices. So, please know the difference.
Repeating it again 🙀
Repetition, Repetition is always the answer, just like propaganda being shown by a group of select individuals
I loved how they used Michael Jackson for the thumbnail
I like that guy
I believe you. But I think it's those same formulas that put me off Top 40 radio music. Then again, it could be the lyrics and the musical...I guess, technique...that I don't like rather than how the music is flowing.
This is like that episode in spongebob the ear worm lol
Question was not answered, but cool video
1:07 just another observation that substantiates the Clockwork Universe Theory.
Not me dancing to "repeating again" thats a hit bro when is the release of "start repeating it again"😅😭 jk
1:24
Brains are cool.
So he's got
A
A
B
A
B
C
It would be more common to break out the 4 unit structure that is the foundation of western pop/rock. You see the bridge hanging out there to go any number of ways. I'm not sure about his discussion of adding a "D" because that starts to get complex. But it might depend on the style. And it makes his point.
Nice to see music and psyc brought up here!
In America, man eats hot dog. In sovechunion, hot dog eats man.
A B, B A
you forgot chorus at the end
2:30 😂
Better to fly a little longer and back in time to London, the Beatles and the TAVISTOCK Institute of "Human Relations" (B.S. deceiving label) to learn a great deal where/when the game of modern westernized music started.
I like it I like it I like it for all of you habituated I love it I love it I love it
No understanding with no likes and no likes with no understanding 😁
this is so interesting wtf
The fact radio stations and malls play the same song over and over and over and over and over ......
like that
0:30
2:29 And it goes BBC
In the description: “… lays down a spoken-word jam …”
The more you know, the less you need to say. 🎼
I have been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder and Dependent Personality Disorder. Both make my moods and anxiety highly unstable and extreme. I have undergone therapy that included mentalization, reframing thoughts, DBT therapy (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy), and mindfulness (plus a few others). I learned how to practice these therapies and coping skills with music.
When I was young, my father was a tiger parent and a narcissists, my mother still is an active alcoholic, and my brother fled and stayed with his friends most of the time. Being an INFJ, I wanted to counsel my parents, make them better. For dad, that meant doing everything he said and attempting to live up to his perfect expectations. I got multiple awards in music and got a 3.85 GPA graduating 17/580 in my class. I was in the top 3%. Surprise, surprise, that wasn't good enough for him. My negative self belief I formed from that was that I wasn't good enough. For mom, it meant constantly walking on eggshells trying to help her, by manipulating and persuading, quit drinking. Again, surprise, surprise, it didn't work.
I started playing music when I was three to cope with this immense stressor placed on me. I joined band in 6th grade, jazz band in 9th grade, concert band in 6th grade, and finally percussion ensemble in 9th grade. I filled my life with music, and school of course, to cope with the immense turmoil happening in my young, developing brain.
Music has been a life saver. I quit playing as much when I turned 19, I'm 25 now, and had 25 suicide attempts. One left me with nerve damage because I cut a nerve in my wrist, so I live with that pain constantly now. When it's too much, I listen to music. When my mood goes sour, I listen to music. When my mood is great, I still listen to music. Soon, I'll have my keyboard (I played piano since I was three) in my apartment and can play again. I desperately miss it. I desperately want it.
Music is something different, something so mysterious that I think science cannot truly ever understand it. Music is life. Literally.
Go listen to 'sagun - i'll keep you safe' and you understand.
And what about Prog?
Labels pay radio stations to play "their" song over and over again until it sticks in your head, imo. #repetition
Thumbs for this guy saying, cacophony.
The partition should be mounding you in Lome tess
*moulding ( editors mistake)
Wowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!!!! Thanks
Well now I know how to scare a mouse thanks
My question is why we understand if a song is sad, happy, or scary?
I was skeptical at first, but the first thing of which i was skeptical, of which i was skeptical, of which i was skeptical, quickly dissipated as you made your insightful intelligence be known, insightful intelligence be known, intelligence, intelligence be shown.🎉❤
2:28 if your scrolling before watching :)
The smart person's buzzfeed.
What’s a little disturbing to me although is that the http address ends with Cuk.
I understand that human brains are simple and like repetition and that the "verse verse chorus verse chorus bridge"scheme is the simplest and most efficient way to keep someone's attention with music for a long time, but its not the only way to structure a song or to accomplish that same goal. I simply don't understand why most modern pop songs don't try to differentiate themselves from other pop songs by using a different structure, its not like the songs were designed with a specific limit on the structure nor does adding variety come at a specific cost (monetary or creatively) to make the song. So why then do most pop songs incorporate the same structure over and over again?
I would think familiarity plays a role as Aerial J said but at a certain point wouldn't/ shouldn't people behave just like the mouse in the example and start to get desensitized to not just the specific song but the lack of structural variations in pop songs ( at least nowadays) as a whole and consequently the pop genre?
Thats the case at least for me and thats why I hate 99.9 % of all pop song :P
The answer to your question is: because producers & labels love formulas that work. And they have all the power, so they get what they want.
Yea I know that much already I can see doing that for the majority of songs from relatively lesser known to extremely popular artists, but you'd think if they see that a certain artist who works for them isn't doing well under the formula for some reason that they would risk doing something else with that artist to try and keep them relevant or to explore novel music structures/ techniques to still profit from that artist. Worst case scenario you end up dumping the artist anyway but at least you also gained insight to what your audience doesn't want. Best case the artist recovers and you profit and can adapt this new sound into your other artists cuz lets be honest pop artist are too busy acting like douchebags to stay media relevant , they don't have time to come up with interesting music :P