EARWORMS! Help, please...does anyone else have this irritating problem?

Question

EARWORMS! Help, please...does anyone else have this irritating problem?

Answer 1

I'm here to testify that nothing works! And it can go on for years!



We took our youngest daughter to Disneyland (California) 25 years ago and I still writhe in agony at the mere mention of -- dare I even state it here? -- "It's a Small World."



Forget waterboarding; I've heard they now play that song on a continuous loop at Gitmo with occasional interludes of "Itsy Bitsy, Teeny Weeny, Yellow Polka Dot Bikini."



~

Answer 2

You probably already know that when I visited my friend in Adelaide last Dec, I had the sunscreen jingle stuck in my head during the 2 weeks that I was there, and a few more weeks after that.



"Slip, Slop, Slap! Seek and slide, have fun outside, but don't get fried.

Slip on a hat, slop on sunscreen, slap on a hat!

Seek shade, slide on sunnies, simple as that.

Slip, Slop, Slap! Seek and slide, have fun outside, but don't get fried!"

......

...

..........



I thought I'd go mad. But then it went away after a while once I stopped thinking about it.



Maybe you can play another piece on repeat - one of your favourite works. Or maybe, put Florence Foster-Jenkins on repeat. I promise it will get rid of your current earworm very effectively, though maybe it'll wreak havoc on your sanity...

Answer 3

This morning I woke up with Io Tacero stuck in my head. As much as I love Gesualdo, humming the tenor part is not the best thing to do during a science test! All through school today I have been humming it, and just hearing it.... and driving everyone mad of course!



Ohrwurms are so annoying! To get rid of them I usually find music that is equally annoying, and completely negates the Ohrwurm. So to negate Gesualdo, I listened to Shostakovich (his first cello concerto to be specific). To negate Vivaldi, I recommend the Beatles.... but if you want something a bit more sophisticated, listen to Merulas Ciaconna, it is the most hummable tune I've ever heard, and is sure to get stuck in your head!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHrZlpdlxp0

(I will translate the whole Chaccone into the twilighters language: 'Dun Dun Dun Dun, da dum di dum!" lol)

Answer 4

(I can't possibly top Doctor Kat's reply so I'll try the wacky odd-ball humor approach:)



The only real solution is a tried and true old adage (that I just made up) called Deflection Or Diversion (commonly called, as of right now because it's recently coined, DOD).



You divert or deflect it's attention long enough to replace with a new driving you nuts nut driving tidbit.Once those notes have been tossed aside for the new improved brand they'll whimper away softly.



In layman's terms? Replace it with another set of notes that will drive you nuts until you replace those with still another set of notes, sic transit gloria mundi. Sic, etc., sic, etc., sic.



A link to the original Earworm Studios:



http://www.laughingdervish.com/itty_bitty.shtml



Edit: The last bug that bounced around in my ear was a few weeks ago and it was the opening bars friom Mozart's String Serenade No. 13 (the one called 'A Little Night Music') and I caught it from watching that scene in 'The Witches Of Eastwick' and I spent the next day driving some friends and co-workers nuts humming it all day.

Answer 5

I concur with my able colleges [did I say that right?] Doctor Kat and Doc Watson. There is a web site all about brain music and other stuff neilslade.com One of his things is reprogramming the brain. He does that by remembering something then changing the outcome of the memory.



Other than that I knew a lady who could hear a radio station playing in her head due to the fillings in her teeth. I had the warmies for her but I guess I must have been FM to her AM.

Answer 6

Been there, done that!



https://answersrip.com/question/index?qid=20080809213510AAYol9Z



It's annoying as all heck, especially when you can't place the piece.



... then you start looking for it



... or asking Y!A contacts for help!

Answer 7

Try some Prokofiev:



Any musical vocabulary antithetical to Baroque harmonic procedures and the typical melodic contours of the era will help erase the current tape, it is to be hoped the less familiar vocabulary and its sound will not 'replace' one worm with another.



Be certain to choose something which sits in an entirely different tessitura, or its most frequently used tessitura, than your beloved bassoon.



I agree with Alberich only a tiny bit, with a qualification: if you are actually a tich obsessive, any repeat repeat of a thought, including an ohrworm, could be a device to side-track you from other thoughts or feelings which should have your attention.



But, musical Ohrworms are basically something the whole world is prone to: Anglo and American pop music holds the Ohrworm as the ideal goal, the 'hook' in the pop song. Commercial music everywhere strives for the Ohrworm in every ditty or bit of theme music tied to product.



p.b.

Answer 8

LOL seems alot of us are inflicted with this deadly worm as of late

Answer 9

It's not just music. Phrases of speech, little parts of things that I've read, little details of ANYTHING, will get stuck on endless loops in my head. At the moment, it's part of the 2nd movement of Schubert's Unfinished Symphony.

It doesn't annoy me; I'd feel... lost if it stopped happening.

Answer 10

LOL! (((hafwen))) You made me laugh! I wish I could have such a sophisticated earworm stuck - I get ditties like, "You get the beeest of both worlds..." (Hannah Montana, per my 7 yr old daughter) or "Bob the builder, we can fix it, Bob the builder, YES WE CAN!" Sometimes it's a verse or two from an old song that a friend has suggested or played, and those aren't so bad. Right now I'm recalling many that I've whistled for days on end. My son plays the trumpet and I can't help it, I whistle along with him, and one will get stuck til something else takes its place. For about two weeks now, I've been singing a couple of verses from The Moody Blues, and I couldn't be happier, because they drown out the poptart Montana and both of her worlds. Distract, detach, replace. Hope it works for you. =)

Answer 11

Hilarious Hafwen! Hilarious!



Try playing it on the piano and memorizing it a few bars before and ahead. That might roll you along. You can listen to other pieces too. Pieces that get stuck in your head easily. How about Bolero? Four Seasons?



EDIT: This happens to me when I don't know the pieces well enough and I am searching for the remainder but I just don't seem to remember the pitches or the rhythm. Even worse are oddly syncopated rock song lyrics. It's as though no matter how many different ways I try singing the verse, it doesn't fall on the right beat at the end.



Learning it, in other words, will help. Analyze it, play it and memorize it.

Answer 12

Well, I'll give it a shot; but don't think you'll like my answer, and am certain I'll get lots of TD's.



My approach is a psychoanalytical one.



Essentially, it's an habitual mental device of subterfuge - one evolved over time - concocted by ones mind, to help them suppress a philosophical issue they're unwilling to face; even though they know it will probably have serious consequences if they don't.



A defense mechanism if you will, enabling them to attend to the requirements of daily life, that must be dealt with in order to survive.



No joke,



Alberich

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edit: I -BTW, from where did the expression "ear worm" originate? For me, one particularly unwholesome and rather distasteful, to say the least. arhhggghh !!!!!!!



edit: II -Thank you "MissLimLam"; but the German sounds even worse than the English to my ears.

Answer 13

OMG I get those all the time, especially when I'm trying to get to sleep and I have Pa-Pa-Pa-Pa stuck in my head! Sometimes I start breathing the lyrics, too!



I just try playing another song in my head... but that doesn't always work. Just watch TV or something!

Answer 14

Get totally absorbed in something else for a while. Find a really dense book and start reading it.

Answer 15

lol!! i, too have this problem



currently, i have the wieniawski's polonaise brilliante stuck in my head



i think do some yoga/ meditation to help clears the mind?

Answer 16

try playing something else, that helped me with a tv commercial lyric