April 2, 2013 (Tuesday)
“I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well” (Psalm 139:14 KJV)
I woke up one morning last week and a song was dancing in my head. “Hush!” I said to my head. But it wouldn’t listen. It kept singing one line from that song. Over and over. “Well, if you’re gonna be singing that song all day, please sing the whole song,” I said to my head. With my help, my head tried to remember the tune and the words, but to no avail. All I could hear was “..among my souvenirs” again and again.
“If I am ever going to use my head for anything else,” I’ll have to tell it the words and tune. So I looked up “among my souvenirs” on the trusty old internet, which rarely fails to tell me what I want to know. It was right there on the job, telling me that “Among My Souvenirs” was a song made popular by Connie Francis many, many years ago. It also told me what the rest of the words are.
After humming it to myself and mentally inserting all the words, my head seemed satisfied and was willing to go on to other endeavors for the rest of the day.
Ever happen to you? Couldn’t get something off your mind? Kept singing the same song over and over in your head? What causes that to happen?
Research scientists have found that the auditory cortex, the same part of the brain that passes information from the ears to the brain, also holds onto musical memories. These researchers have found that people who tend to listen to music frequently and have neurotic habits, such as biting pencils or tapping fingers, are the most susceptible to this experience, but getting songs stuck in our heads happens to most if not all of us.
William Kelley, assistant professor at Dartmouth, said, “It’s fascinating that although the ear isn’t actually hearing the song, the brain is perceptually hearing it.” Perhaps this fact explains how Beethoven could hear his symphonies although he was deaf.