Semi professional musician here. Repetition goes way beyond what the author mentions:<p>- Most music is highly repetitive, often recycling 2 or 3 short segments (chorus, verse) with minor variations to fill out a whole song. Coltrane is known for his avant-garde composition, and even he repeats (often on a much smaller scale than a pop tune).<p>- The work of being a musician is repetitive. Learning (memorizing) songs takes reps! Then you've got to keep them fresh, teach them to new band members, etc. You probably have a limited book, and you know what the crowd pleasers are. Unless you're big enough to have a following cutting a song you're sick of isn't a problem, but filling out a set might be. Between rehearsal, gigs and practicing at home I probably play through most of my band's book at least twice a week.<p>- Being a musician is very physical, which means you're drilling exercises in your daily routine. As a brass player, I run more or less the same set of warmups, range builders and flexibility exercises every day. Drummers do rudiments. String players have their own shtick.<p>As far as listening to music, I don't typically put something on repeat unless I'm trying to transcribe it. But I'll listen to a song, and there's a chance it'll play on repeat in my head all day (or all week!). Steely Dan and LCD Soundsystem are particular earworms for me. It wasn't until college I realized this isn't true for many people.
I appreciate this. I’ve had days where at work I’ve played a new song I’ve gotten into at least 30 times, sometimes with a few songs to break it up, often not though. I’ve always assumed it was slightly strange, but also probably not that strange. I also relate to the authors explanation. I’ll get tired of a song eventually, for a while, but one day come back to it and get into another usually less intense loop.<p>I don’t really understand what happens, but to be honest, I’m not really sure I’m bothered by my lack of understanding either. It’s just an experience that I can explain simply “I listened to this song on repeat 37 times today”, and yet I can’t explain it at all “Why does this happen? Why this song from an anime I’ve never seen? Beats me!”
I'm terrified of this. I've no idea why, but if I hear a song too many times in a couple day period I have a night of fever dreaming where I wake up over and over again to the song in my head. It's like my brain has over conditioned the pathway for that song and as soon as it starts trying to dream it falls into it and the dream breaks and I wake up. It happens to me a couple times a year and when I hear any of the songs it's happened with before I feel a deep physical revulsion.<p>I kind of wonder if it's a symptom of something but am otherwise more or less 100% neurotypical so I think it's just a weird quirk.
OP here<p>Stumbled upon this article while researching reasons why Wes Montgomery is so good; Not because I was looking for an objective fact; Rather, just wanted to read some of the love others have for his voice<p>While reading this article it struck me how well written the article is. Certainly the subject is relatable and Wes is more of a grace note than the melody of this article, yet the article was written by a human who has found Wes and elevated him to his pantheon of "repeatability", making this article ultimately worth reading and sharing. Maybe even....more than once
Back in my first job we had a CD drive but somehow only one music CD, so me and the other guy in that office just kept listening to that one all day.<p>Now despite access to all the music in the world, I still have per-project playlists. So I might listen to the same ten songs again and again for weeks on end, as starting the soundtrack quickly puts me in the mood to resume work where I last left off.<p>I've also adopted a mild superstition that it's bad to listen to the soundtrack for a project that failed.
<i>" And is it cognitively normal -- not to mention socially normal -- to listen to so many songs[...]on repeat, day after day after day?"</i><p>Even provided it wasn't normal, how any person engages with art is up to them and it doesn't require someone else's approval. No need for your tastes to be normal.<p>And as Nabokov used to point out, a good reader, that is an active and creative reader is a rereader. Same goes for music. Many incredibly talented people spend their entire lives studying and playing a handful or maybe only even one composer, so why shouldn't listeners do the same.
Everyone should be able to enjoy art in the way they like - but be considerate of the people around you.<p>The article starts with the anecdote that his son was seriously annoyed by the song - and then goes on to counter him with basically "but it's such a great song, it would be a shame if I could only listen to it for 3 minutes!"<p>That's the musical equivalent of getting out your Triple Onionator with extra garlic for lunch and, when your coworker complains, shutting him up with "but it's so tasty!!"<p>Please be nice to your non-repetitionist fellows and wear some headphones.
This reminds me of this classic bit of radio I stumbled onto.
A WFMU DJ playing Bob Dylan's 17 minute long ballad about J.F.Kennedy 'Murder Most Foul' over and over for three hours.
It's archived here. <a href="https://wfmu.org/playlists/shows/92415" rel="nofollow">https://wfmu.org/playlists/shows/92415</a>
I'm opposite; more than one hearing of same song per day and something inside gets triggered. Books, movies, shows, I need to wait something like two years before I can enjoy them again. My mind for some reason dislikes repetition. For background music I put on chill-hop which has a lot repetition inside individual songs but the live stream doesn't repeat tracks.<p>I've noticed than my enjoyment in any song peaks at around 3rd or 4th listening. After that I can enjoy a (good) song for hundred more times but it will never exceed that feeling of familiarity combined with freshness.<p>I tried putting the "Impressions" track on loop for 20 mins. It's a great melody and quite engaging listen, but I was distracted each time the song jarringly looped back to beginning.
My wife plays the same song over and over. This may be acceptable for those who listen songs on repeat, but it's terrible for those who live with them.
I often listen to the same song on repeat for days in a row during periods of intense work. Usually "Djohariah" by Sufjan Stevens. It helps that it's like 17 minutes long. But I also listen to "Saturn" by the same artist, which is only 3 to 4 minutes long. It kinda puts me in a trance.
Sadly, the enjoyment of popular music has been so decimated by dynamic compression that I rarely repeat a song mastered (or, heaven forbid, "remastered") since the mid-'90s.<p>What should be very catchy music is now a fatiguing wall of noise that you just don't want assaulting your eardrums any more.
Related: Linkin Park Man <a href="https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/843/303/10e.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/843/303/10e...</a>
> I’ve listened to Montgomery’s <i>Impressions</i> recording for as long as an hour straight<p>I've spent many consecutive days with the same song on loop for several hours a day. Was hoping this article would validate that a bit more, but I'll take what I can get.
I do this. A lot. Play the same song over and over and over. Often this is just in appreciation of a particular song (do this a lot with Yeasayer tracks).<p>But these days, I most often do the repeat while I'm programming or writing; I want to keep in a particular zone-emotional and mental. Here are some tracks I've done this with (a good "music for programmers" list, actually).<p>Meeting in the Aisle - Radiohead<p>Sketches - Daniel Lanois<p>Jolie Cycliste Sous la Pluie - Galerie Stratique<p>In Threes - Loscil<p>Gelis - Natureboy Flako<p>Closed Circuit - Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith<p>Birds Fly by Flapping Their Wings - Biosphere<p>Unknown - Kutiman<p>Rainforest Suite - Robert Rich<p>Surface Currents - Kutiman<p>Structures from Silence - Steve Roach<p>Le Ballet des Mouches - Michel Moulinie **<p>No Partial - Rhythm & Sound<p>Mango Drive - Rhythm & Sound<p>Minus - Robert Hood<p>Echoes of Nothing I - Kyle Gann,, Aron Kallay from the Beyond 12 compilation<p>Night Vigil I - Michael Harrison<p>Sun Inside The Sun Loscil Remix - Souns, Loscil<p>Black Monk In The Dunes - X.Y.R.<p>** This (and the rest of the album Chrysalide) is a brilliant brilliant gem, and almost impossible to find, except here:<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUWvXb6jVpw&list=PLh2Bth4KYIoA_Oyk5uUkgLJdlx8v5mNGA&index=2" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUWvXb6jVpw&list=PLh2Bth4KYI...</a>
The brain looks for rhythmic and melodic resolution, and in lots of popular music – and popular classical music – themes tend to resolve in 4, 8 or 16 bars. However, in some Latin American music, themes continuously develop, telling a story with "jazzy" chords that don't completely resolve immediately, and in other music, such as some classical music and even black metal, the challenge is for the brain to be willing to go into unresolved dissonance; one famous example is the Tristan chord, where the resolution takes rather literally the time of a whole Wagner opera.<p>It would be interesting to see a study on the correlation between musical taste and delayed gratification in general, though of course different situations require different musical choices – one wouldn't pick something that requires mental focus when cleaning the house.
Before CDs, I laboriously made a tape with Queen's "We Will Rock You" repeated over and over. I wanted it for car stereo demonstrations, but when others found I had it I sold dozens of copies, mostly to people who just liked the song.<p>Nobody was interest in my Mozart supercuts, alas.
I really enjoyed this book which covers the subject deeply <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Repeat-How-Music-Plays-Mind/dp/0199990824" rel="nofollow">https://www.amazon.com/Repeat-How-Music-Plays-Mind/dp/019999...</a>
Interesting been hoping this topic would get discussed at some point.. I've noticed at certain times I get this happen to me. Nootropics can also seem to amplify the addictive effect.<p>A few of these I think I listened in excess of 200x in a week. Some being particularly more addictive whilst driving.<p><a href="https://youtu.be/Q-AAVX6Re30" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/Q-AAVX6Re30</a>
<a href="https://youtu.be/sN3C-CEJtyM" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/sN3C-CEJtyM</a>
<a href="https://youtu.be/frCVrHATnLo" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/frCVrHATnLo</a>
<a href="https://youtu.be/gPRtxgirjFQ" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/gPRtxgirjFQ</a>
<a href="https://youtu.be/FvzgtCpVzcA" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/FvzgtCpVzcA</a>
<a href="https://youtu.be/QxB0S6bxvEs" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/QxB0S6bxvEs</a>
<a href="https://youtu.be/sIn1asgcZEU" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/sIn1asgcZEU</a>
<a href="https://youtu.be/fPdKHueTseY" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/fPdKHueTseY</a>
I sometimes play the same song on loop for days; especially when I am trying crack a complex algorithm or trying to come up with the system design of a large pipeline.<p>My hypothesis being: with every repetition the song move toward the "background of my mind" such that I am not spending too much "compute time" on the song itself; the sound is still there, helping me ignore external noises and therefore I am able to focus more on the task at hand.<p>PS: 2 songs that have helped me
Between The Bars, Elliot Smith
Memorial, Russian Cirlce ft Chelsea Wolfe
I'm curious about other people's experiences with how they choose what music to listen to.<p>Many of my friends carefully curate playlists on Spotify, or listen to the playlists they make for you. Others listen to the radio and just enjoy whatever comes on.<p>On the other hand, I have a large library of music (~13k songs) and just kind of decide what I'm in the mood for on a whim. No playlists, just a large collection of albums that I manually select or tell Siri to play for me. This method doesn't even work with Spotify for me due to their 9,999 song limit for libraries so I had to change to Apple Music when it surpassed that amount.<p>I don't think I've ever met another person who manages their music collection the same way so I'm curious about how rare it is. Shockingly, I manage to not fall into habits of listening to the same thing over and over, but actually enjoy the majority of the music somewhat regularly.<p>If my entire library were put on shuffle, I could likely name the artist with around 80% accuracy and the song / album with maybe 50% accuracy. There are definitely ones that I get wrong, but with a library of that size, I don't think it's particularly realistic to memorize everything.
Back in the day, together with my friend we played this trance tune on repeat for straight 5 days at the office :) both of us remember of this till this day and occasionally I play it for 10 or 15 times on repeat to honour that week :)
James Holden & Julie Thompson (Nothing 93 returning mix)
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oD8cRAjFB1w" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oD8cRAjFB1w</a>
Neither the article mentions it nor is it somewhere in the comments so far: Common TikTok wisdom seems to be that listening on repeat is an ADHD thing.<p>I wonder if there is something to it or if it's just one of those oft repeated 'facts' that run by themselves after a while?
As a side note on the design of that website, I noticed that they play a rather unusually long confirmation animation when you click Accept on the cookie consent, prior to removing the banner. This feels like the exact opposite of what most users probably want, which is to make the banner go away as quickly as possible. Especially on mobile where the banner takes up a significant portion of the screen.<p>I don’t typically comment on UX design for HN links, but that one literally made me do a double take… I loaded it up again in incognito mode just to make sure I wasn’t imagining things.
I'm right in the middle of pretty much only being able to listen to Zac Zinger's Sanma Samba. I've listened to it for hours the past few days.
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=434xCyCSXBg" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=434xCyCSXBg</a><p>Another record I had this with recently was Change - Paradise (I've just put this on, and no I'm not at all sick of it!)
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9l4aSg3u0s" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9l4aSg3u0s</a>
<a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_in_psychological_operations" rel="nofollow">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_in_psychological_opera...</a>
It can be hell
Somewhat the opposite, but are there tips/tricks to get a song stuck in head -- sort of in a controllable manner? I enjoy having songs stuck in my head, but usually it's not the song I want!
I'll sometimes play a new song on repeat with some strange aggressive need to hear it over and over, and then the very next day wonder why I was so into that song.
> Usually, they’re what I’d call “creative types,” as with architect Zaha Hadid, who before her death in March told the BBC’s Desert Island Discs program about her propensity to play films and songs on a loop while she painted and did other work.<p>Maybe everyone listens to music on repeat (which is why every music app has that feature), including creative types, but creative types are more likely to be interviewed about what music they listen to and how?
"But this gem of musical dervish-ness"<p>Hits on the key point, in my opinion. Repeating songs, phrases, rhythms can by hypnotic and put the listener/performer into a trance-like state. Something that can be quite enjoyable and even addictive.<p>I find that listening to music with lyrics simply won't do it for me. It must be instrumental only. Something like Keith Jarrett, Earthless or a good Frank Zappa vamp. Time no longer has meaning. It's wonderful!
Can't abide hearing the same stuff repeatedly.<p>We have more material now than we could ever get through in several lifetimes.<p>No more than once a day per tune, please.
Very late to the discussion here, but I often put a single song on repeat and listen to it all day long. Well, "listen" to it -- it's usually something that I can tune out (heh) or fits as background music for whatever mood I'm in at the time. Could be anything from Timber Timbre's Hot Dreams to Air's Sexy Boy.
And then there's this. People making 10 hour long videos of the same song on repeat:
<a href="https://youtu.be/4T0QUdQu7RY" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/4T0QUdQu7RY</a>
<a href="https://youtu.be/xm3YgoEiEDc" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/xm3YgoEiEDc</a><p>It must be a challenge or something.
Recently seen to happen to a DJ in a Canadian radio station [0]<p>[0] <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/29/canadian-radio-station-rage-against-the-machine-song-nonstop" rel="nofollow">https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/29/canadian-radio...</a>
This guy found an interesting way to repeat-but-not-repeat a favourite bit of music.
<a href="https://medium.com/@alexbainter/generating-more-of-my-favorite-aphex-twin-track-cde9b7ecda3a" rel="nofollow">https://medium.com/@alexbainter/generating-more-of-my-favori...</a>
Somewhat related - I've been listening to Snarky Puppy on repeat on and off for months now. Highly recommended for the modern jazz fan.<p><a href="https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL52RKVKBFM328OwddSMRQS9BYOA3oVDgl" rel="nofollow">https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL52RKVKBFM328OwddSMRQS9BY...</a>
haha, i literally have been playing a song on loop all day today. I've probably heard it 30 or 40 times. I wasn't aware other people also do this. It's like the music is stuck in my head unless I listen to it. Then after listening enough I can let it go.
Some bands specialize in extended cover versions of songs, like this 45 minute version of Witchita Lineman, which is a similar phenomenon:<p><a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MorgJwbBhe4" rel="nofollow">https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MorgJwbBhe4</a>
It occasionally happens that I put a song on repeat and leave it running for hours, much to the annoyance of many past roommates. I have no explanation for why I find it appealing, but I'm relieved to read that it's apparently not uncommon.
I do not agree at all. It's just not normal to listen to a single song for 35 times in a row unless you are musician working on it. It's even weirder when you play it loud, harassing your coworkers.
Reminds me of a cool hackathon project I saw a few years ago, The Infinite Jukebox. It finds pairs of beats in a song that sound alike and during playback has a chance at each beat with of jumping to its paired match, creating a seamlessly looped version of the song with added novelty from verses and choruses having varying order and length.<p>The original hack, done on song that works particularly well, is still up: <a href="http://infinitegangnamstyle.playlistmachinery.com" rel="nofollow">http://infinitegangnamstyle.playlistmachinery.com</a><p>The playback code often gets stuck looping the first beat when loaded for the first time or when the tab loses focus, which is fixed by reloading.<p>It works quite well on songs with repetitive elements and instrumentation divided cleanly between beats. The original site for submitting arbitrary songs is broken, but a fork is hosted by someone else. Here with an instrumental piece it works well on: <a href="https://eternalbox.dev/jukebox_go.html?id=1LaCW0R8Q7oIY3tKtDgZOw" rel="nofollow">https://eternalbox.dev/jukebox_go.html?id=1LaCW0R8Q7oIY3tKtD...</a><p>An interesting series of posts on the creator's blog explains it works, how it interacts with the structure of pop songs, and how the parameters can be tuned for individual tracks.[1] And it's open source,[2] though the beat splitting is based on an API from (a company since purchased by) Spotify. It seems that once the initial processing is complete, the playback is purely client-side; this is probably why snapshots of the site at archive.org are fully functional, quite remarkably for such interactive content.[3]<p>There's also a variant where one playback 'needle' skips to similar parts of the track and one plays straight through, so that verses and choruses overlap as in a canon: <a href="https://eternalbox.dev/canonizer_go.html?id=7GhIk7Il098yCjg4BQjzvb" rel="nofollow">https://eternalbox.dev/canonizer_go.html?id=7GhIk7Il098yCjg4...</a><p>[1] <a href="https://musicmachinery.com/2012/11/12/the-infinite-jukebox/" rel="nofollow">https://musicmachinery.com/2012/11/12/the-infinite-jukebox/</a><p>[2] <a href="https://github.com/UnderMybrella/EternalJukebox" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/UnderMybrella/EternalJukebox</a><p>[3] <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/2016/http://labs.echonest.com/Uploader/index.html?trid=TRORQWV13762CDDF4C" rel="nofollow">https://web.archive.org/web/2016/http://labs.echonest.com/Up...</a>
I do listen to some songs over and over.<p>Though after 3 or 4 times I usually switch it up. I do like albums..<p>Or sometimes one song can last like 30 minutes. (Phish does this). It’s great to drive/work to because it does have a rhythm that moves.<p><a href="https://youtu.be/UuzclQBJwWs" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/UuzclQBJwWs</a>