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.
你最喜歡的歌曲裡,副歌部分重複幾次? 花點時間想想 這副歌部分,你聽過幾次? 沒準有幾十次,甚至上百次 而且不只是在西方流行歌 有多次副歌的重複 重複性是來自世界各地文化中的音樂 所有的一項共同特點 為什麼音樂如此重視重複性? 一部分原因來自心理學家所謂的 單純曝光效應 總之,人們傾向於 喜歡他們接觸過的東西 例如,收音機播放 不怎麼喜愛的歌 但後來在雜貨店、 電影院、 街角, 持續聽到這首歌 很快地,我們會擊打節拍、唱出歌詞 甚至下載這首歌 單純曝光效應不限於歌曲 也適用於每樣事物, 從形狀到超級盃廣告 為何重複性會在音樂中 如此獨特地凸顯出來? 為了研究這個問題,心理學家請實驗對象 聽不完全相同但重複的音樂 聽到的音樂片段是原版的 或是以電子更改加入重複的版本 雖然原版的音樂 來自一些20世紀的知名作曲家 而重複性版本是由 音頻編輯強制組成 實驗對象認為重複性版本 比較好聽、有趣 更有可能是真人作曲家之作 重複性音樂十分引人入勝 想想經典「大青蛙劇場」中的歌 《Mahna Mahna》 你如果聽過 在我唱了《Mahna Mahna》 幾乎一定 會以《Do doo do do do》回應 重複性將一段音樂 引誘性地連接到下一段 所以當你聽到幾個音符 你已經想像到接下來的音符 在心裡不經意的唱著 而在不知不覺中可能開始哼出聲 近期研究顯示, 當人們重複聽到一段音樂 他們較有可能隨著律動或敲擊 重複性邀請我們進入音樂 成為想像中的參予者 而不是被動的聽眾 研究報告也顯示 在音樂重複時, 聽者轉移注意力 在每次重複中, 專注聲音的不同面 第一次聽,你可能只注意到一句旋律 但當旋律重複時,你會將注意力轉移到 吉他手如何塑造一個音調 這相當於語言中的 「語義飽食」 不斷地重複一個詞,比如 atlas (地圖集),ad nauseam (令人作嘔) 能讓你停止思考這個字的意義 而專注於聲音: “T” 奇怪地連接著 ”L” 聲 如此,重複性能開啟一個新地聲音世界 一個在初次試聽時無法觸及地世界 “T” 接著 “L” 對於 “atlas” 可能沒有審美性的關聯 但吉他手的音調塑造 可能具有關鍵的表達重要性 語音到歌曲的錯覺 是簡單的抓到 多次重複一個句子, 將聽眾的注意力 轉移到聲音的音調和時序 讓重複的口語 果真聽起來像是被唱出來的 聲音的隨機序列有類似的效果 重複聽過的隨機序列將被公定 比只聽過一次的隨機序列 更具音樂性 重複性給予聲音一種方針 使我們認為是有獨特音樂性的, 讓我們聽到聲音時 用想像力參與將要出現的音符 這種聆聽形態連結於 我們對音樂耳蟲的感受性 有音樂片段鑽入腦中 彷彿停留在 一遍又一遍的播放 評論家常對 音樂中的重複性感到介意 覺得這幼稚或具退步性的 但重複性,不是值得羞愧的事, 而是一個關鍵地特點