The Long-Awaited Concert Series of the Original K3 Starts Tonight. After all that k3 news, do you still have oya lélé stuck in your head? Here’s how to get songs out of your head again.
Rebecca Schaefer Can Well Imagine That You Have The Songs In Your Head After All That News About K3. She is an associate professor of Health and Clinical Neuropsychology at Leiden University and Leads A Research Group Focused on Music and the Brain.
There can be several reasons why you spontaneously get songs in your head, Schaefer Says. From a scientific point of view, there is no single clear answer. One of those reasons is that a song has a certain meaning for you. Like a k3 song that is connected to memories of your childhood.
“It Sounds Cliché, But Such A Song Gives The Feeling of Coming Home,” Says Schaefer. “These songs are linked to life memories and evoke recognition.”
In Addition, Songs for Children Are Often More Predictable. “We can remember fairly predictable melodies well. The same applies to folk music. Songs that people can repeat well stay in the head and can be passed on well.”
‘You Can Imagine Music Yourself’
Erik Scherder, Professor of Clinical Neuropsychology at the VU University Amsterdam (VU), Gives Another Explanation for Why a Song Stays in Your Head: Mirror Neurons in Your Brain. These Mirror Neurons are also called mirror cells.
They were, for example, stimulated when you heard k3 songs in the past. When you are now reminded of K3, Those Mirror Neurons Ensure That You Get The Songs Back In Your Head.
“You can Imagine Music Without ActiveSyLy Hearing It,” Says Scherder. “Those mirror neurons can be activated when you think of a song or see something that triggers you.” This can also happen unconsciously. A song can thus “continuous to sing in your brain like an earworm”.
You Often Remember Music That You Hear In Your Teens Better, Says Schaefer. These songs Therefore Come to Mind More Quickly. “Songs that you hear roughly between the ages of 10 and 23 Stay with you three life. This is because it is songs from this period or more strongly connected to life events.”
More Likely to Have A Song In Your Head If You Walk
Maybe You Were Even Younger When You First Listed to K3. You remember all the things you do for the first time very well and they have a stronger, emotional charge, says sharder. So is the first music you heard. “Compare it to a first kiss. The umpteenteth becomes less special.”
If a song Stays in your head, it is always a song that you have heard often and know well, Says Schaefer. “People who make music themelves are also more likely to get a song in their head.” But even if you make a rhythmic movement, such as walking, you are more likely to spontaneously get a song in your head than when you are sitting still.
“Music is one of the most rhythmic things,” Says Schaefer. “I myself think that it is because you make a rhythmic movement you put your thoughts in a ‘time pattern’.” Accordance to the associate professor, you then feel a child or ‘beat’ while walking that you – unconsciously – link to a certain song.
But how do you get rid or such an ‘earworm’?
Both Schaefer and Scherder have two tips for getting rid of a song in your head. The First is to play a song, SLEABLE, SAYS SCHERDER. Do not do this in your head, but actual play it on your phone, your speakers or the radio. “Because you actively listen to it, the mirror neurons in your brain no longer have to imagine the song Themselves.”
Another Advice from the experts is to break the rhythm of the song by Chewing Gum. “The Chewing Center is also locationed in the brainstem where sounds come in,” Scherder Explains. “Every song has its own rhythm. If you start chewing, you rarely chew at the same rhythm as the song. This can make it disappear from your head.”
Accordance to Schaefer, you can also break the rhythm with another song. “But Choose A Song That You Like Better,” She Says. Because going from oya lélé to another, less catchy k3 song is probably not what you want. Then just ” Oya Lélé Once More”.