How many times does the chorus repeat in your favorite song? And, take a moment to think, how many times have you listened to it? Chances are you've heard that chorus repeated dozens, if not hundreds, of times, and it's not just popular songs in the West that repeat a lot. Repetition is a feature that music from cultures around the world tends to share. So, why does music rely so heavily on repetition? One part of the answer come from what psychologists call the mere-exposure effect. In short, people tend to prefer things they've been exposed to before. For example, a song comes on the radio that we don't particularly like, but then we hear the song at the grocery store, at the movie theater and again on the street corner. Soon, we are tapping to the beat, singing the words, even downloading the track. This mere-exposure effect doesn't just work for songs. It also works for everything from shapes to Super Bowl ads. So, what makes repetition so uniquely prevalent in music? To investigate, psychologists asked people to listen to musical compositions that avoided exact repetition. They heard excerpts from these pieces in either their original form, or in a version that had been digitally altered to include repetition. Although the original versions had been composed by some of the most respected 20th century composers, and the repetitive versions had been assembled by brute force audio editing, people rated the repetitive versions as more enjoyable, more interesting and more likely to have been composed by a human artist. Musical repetition is deeply compelling. Think about the Muppets classic, "Mahna Mahna." If you've heard it before, it's almost impossible after I sing, "Mahna mahna," not to respond, "Do doo do do do." Repetition connects each bit of music irresistibly to the next bit of music that follows it. So when you hear a few notes, you're already imagining what's coming next. Your mind is unconsciously singing along, and without noticing, you might start humming out loud. Recent studies have shown that when people hear a segment of music repeated, they are more likely to move or tap along to it. Repetition invites us into music as imagined participants, rather than as passive listeners. Research has also shown that listeners shift their attention across musical repetitions, focusing on different aspects of the sound on each new listen. You might notice the melody of a phrase the first time, but when it's repeated, your attention shifts to how the guitarist bends a pitch. This also occurs in language, with something called semantic satiation. Repeating a word like atlas ad nauseam can make you stop thinking about what the word means, and instead focus on the sounds: the odd way the "L" follows the "T." In this way, repetition can open up new worlds of sound not accessible on first hearing. The "L" following the "T" might not be aesthetically relevant to "atlas," but the guitarist pitch bending might be of critical expressive importance. The speech to song illusion captures how simply repeating a sentence a number of times shifts listeners attention to the pitch and temporal aspects of the sound, so that the repeated spoken language actually begins to sound like it is being sung. A similar effect happens with random sequences of sound. People will rate random sequences they've heard on repeated loop as more musical than a random sequence they've only heard once. Repetition gives rise to a kind of orientation to sound that we think of as distinctively musical, where we're listening along with the sound, engaging imaginatively with the note about to happen. This mode of listening ties in with our susceptibility to musical ear worms, where segments of music burrow into our head, and play again and again, as if stuck on repeat. Critics are often embarrassed by music's repetitiveness, finding it childish or regressive, but repetition, far from an embarrassment, is actually a key feature that gives rise to the kind of experience we think about as musical.
Kolikokrat se ponovi refren v vaši najljubši pesmi? In, pomislite za trenutek, kolikokrat ste jo poslušali? Možno je, da ste slišali refren nekaj ducatkrat, če ne stokrat, in niso samo popularne pesmi z Zahoda tiste z veliko ponovitvami. Ponavljanje je lastnost v glasbi, ki si jo deli veliko svetovnih kultur. Torej, zakaj se glasba tako zelo zanaša na ponavljanje? Del odgovora pride iz tega, čemur psihologi pravijo učinek naključne izpostavljenosti. Na kratko, ljudje imajo rajši stvari, ki so jim bili že izpostavljeni. Na primer, pesem slišimo na radiju in nam ni preveč všeč, a potem jo spet slišimo v trgovini, v kinu in spet na ulici. Kmalu migamo v ritmu, pojemo besedilo, celo naložimo pesem z interneta. Ta učinek naključne izpostavljenosti ne deluje samo pri pesmih. Deluje na vsem, od oblik do oglasov za Super Bowl. Torej, zakaj je ponavljanje tako unikatno pogosto v glasbi? V raziskavi so psihologi prosili ljudi, naj poslušajo glasbene kompozicije, ki so se izogibale natančnim ponovitvam. Poslušali so dele teh pesmi ali v njihovi izvirni obliki, ali pa v digitalno obdelani obliki, ki je vsebovala ponovitve. Čeprav so izvirne različice napisali nekateri izmed najboljših skladateljev iz 20. stoletja, in so ponavljajoče se verzije naredili na grob način z glasbenim programom, so ljudje označili ponavljajoče verzije kot boljše, bolj zanimive in da so bolj verjetno delo človeka. Glasbeno ponavljanje je zelo privlačno. Pomislite na klasiko Muppetkov, "Mahna Mahna". Če ste jo že slišali, je praktično nemogoče, da ne bi, ko zapojem "Mahna mahna," ne odgovorili z "Do doo do do do." Ponavljanje povezuje vsak del glasbe neustavljivo z naslednjim delcem glasbe, ki sledi. Ko torej slišite nekaj not, si že predstavljate, kaj sledi. Vaš um podzavestno poje zraven in ne da bi opazili, lahko začnete na glas mrmrati. Novejše študije so pokazale, da ko ljudje slišijo ponovljen glasben odsek, je bolj verjetno, da bodo zraven migali ali bobnali s prsti. Ponavljanje nas povabi h glasbi kot navidezne udeležence, ne pa kot pasivne poslušalce. Raziskave so prav tako pokazale, da poslušalci premaknejo pozornost med glasbenimi ponovitvami in se osredotočajo na različne vidike zvoka z vsakim novim poslušanjem. Morda prvič opazite melodijo fraze, a ko se ponovi, opazite, kako kitarist ukrivi ton. To se zgodi tudi pri jeziku, čemur pravimo pomenska zgostitev. Ponavljanje besede, kot je atlas "ad nauseam"-do slabosti, povzroči, da pozabite na pomen besede in se osredotočite na zvoke: na čuden način, kako "L" sledi "T". Na ta način, nam ponavljanje odpre nove svetove zvoka, nedostopne ob prvem poslušanju. Kako "L" sledi "T" morda ni estetsko pomembno pri besedi "atlas", a kako kitarist ukrivi ton, je lahko ključnega izraznega pomena. Iluzija govora v pesem pokaže, kako preprosto večkratno ponavljanje stavka premakne poslušalčevo pozornost na ton in časovni vidik zvoka, tako da ponavljajoč govorjeni jezik pravzaprav začne zveneti kot pesem. Podoben učinek se zgodi z naključnimi sekvencami zvoka. Ljudje so ocenili naključne sekvence, ki se ponavljajo, kot bolj muzikalične od naključnih sekvenc, ki so jih slišali enkrat. Ponavljanje nam omogoči, da se orientiramo v zvoku, ki ga imamo za izrazito muzikaličnega, kjer poslušamo hkrati z zvokom in smo namišljeno vpleteni v noto, ki sledi. Ta vrsta poslušanja je povezana z našo dovzetnostjo za "ušesne črve", kjer se del glasbe zakoplje v naš um in igra spet in spet, kot če bi se zataknila plošča. Kritike je pogosto sram ponavljanja v glasbi, zdi se jim otročje ali regresivno, a ponavljanje je daleč od sramotnega, pravzaprav je ključni del, ki ustvari izkušnjo, ki jo imamo za muzikalično.