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Why we love repetition in music
- zxv 12y agoGreat article. It's wonderful to see rhythm celebrated for how it makes us feel. The Guardian had an article a few days ago on an emerging emphasis of bridge rather than chorus, and the role of repetition, in recent blockbuster hits by Ariana Grande, Iggy Azalia, Nicki Minaj and others. The article has a great quote from the founder of Motown: "Don’t bore us, get to the chorus!” Berry Gordy once joked, understanding that this is what listeners truly gather around. http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2014/dec/22/2014-when-songwriters-burned-the-chorus-and-built-the-bridge http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2014/dec/22/2014-...
- natejenkins 12y agoThis is a weird article. What is referred to as the bridge is the pre-chorus, a common element in pop music. Bridges are also common, but generally only happen once in a song (I can't think of any exceptions) and are typically a 'journey' to somewhere else before coming back to the original theme. An example of a bridge is about 2.5 minutes into John Mayer's Find Another You: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QcaHBTfGU8&t=2m38s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QcaHBTfGU8&t=2m38s.
- analog31 12y agoAmusingly, a lot of the tunes that are familiar as jazz standards, e.g., "Take the A Train," have a short AABA form, that the musicians refer to as the "bridge." But I suspect that jazzers abuse music terminology. The bridge is where you find out who really knows the tunes.
- enf 12y agoWould you consider the Beatles' "I'm Looking Through You" to be a counterexample? Its bridge is performed twice.
- NARKOZ 12y agoIt's called – stutter edit. > The stutter edit[1] is a musical production technique, most often known for its use in electronic music, in which fragments of audio are repeated in rhythmic intervals. Electronic musician Brian Transeau (better known as 'BT') developed the "technique", coining the phrase, and later released it as a standalone plug-in. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stutter_edit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stutter_edit
- skrebbel 12y agoNo it's not. A stutter edit is about much shorter pieces, and notably not about repetition. I'm not sure where Wikipedia got that from. It's about adding little silent gaps to tracks.
- pherocity_ 12y agoHava a source for that?
- NARKOZ 12y agoDid you even read the wikipedia page? Check out "Skylarking" and "Tomahawk" by BT for a good sample of what it sounds like.
- throwawayaway 12y agothat wikipedia page, not to put too fine a point on it, is complete bollocks and reads like a marketing script for the izotope plugin. check out the date on this announcement: http://www.kvraudio.com/news/dblue_releases_glitch_v1_1_9_3973 http://www.kvraudio.com/news/dblue_releases_glitch_v1_1_9_39... this program was "old" and wasn't the first. ableton added beat repeat in 2005, and there was vst's i can't remember the name of that did it before that. you've hit a nerve anyway, BT is easily my least favourite electronic music artist ever and so I am probably not capable of reasonable debate hereafter. i think he's possibly the most overrated producer in the world.
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- cryofan 12y agoread schumaker's book THE CORRUPTION OF REALITY. His thesis is that human beings are evolved to be able to go into trance state and thus compartmentalize/rationalize their foreknowledge of death. This helps them cope and better survive. This ability to enter a trance state was evolved by mankind and is facilitated by ritual ceremony accompanied by music.
- dirkk0 12y agoThis question might be slightly off-topic: some time ago I read an article (might have been on Wikipedia) which explained why music more than other art forms sticks with certain atmospheres, memories or moods. I unfortunately didn't bookmark it, and I couldn't find it again. Does anybody have an idea where to find it?
- dfan 12y agoAs a musician I was prepared to roll my eyes at this article but it's really good. When I was a kid I would play with Music Construction Set on my Apple ][, "painting" lots of random notes into one or two bars and then putting repeat signs around then. What sounded totally random and annoying at first became kind of catchy once you listened to it eight times in a row. The composer that I really admire for unabashedly using repetition before the Minimalists really took off with it is Olivier Messiaen (the Turangalîla Symphony has lots of great examples). Classical music is historically largely about continual transformation, and he was unafraid to just cut and paste big sections. It worked magnificently.
- theOnliest 12y agoI had the same reaction when I saw the title, but then I saw the author. Her book on repetition won the outstanding publication award from the Society for Music Theory this year. I haven't read it yet, but I've heard her present and she was really fascinating (even though I'm normally not interested in cognition at all).
- dfan 12y agoI didn't realize she had a book on the subject (although of course now I see that it's mentioned in her byline). Thanks for calling my attention to it.
- svantana 12y agoSee also: Acid House. An astonishing number of classic tracks in the genre are based on "random" sequences on the Roland TB-303 synth, repeated hundreds of times. (The synth's sequencer is tenuous to program, so just pushing the buttons randomly is a quick way to get a sequence of notes)
- pistle 12y agoOh, but that filter, glide, and accent circuit can elevate. They sometimes behave so strangely.
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- jen729w 12y agoI heard somewhere - reference long lost, sorry - that repetitive music makes us happy, but slightly unpredictable repetitive music keeps us really happy. It's like the brain has a threshold; under the repetitive threshold is boring, but too far above it is also boring. We need this middle ground where breakdowns or middle-eights or whatever they're called have this magical property. This supposedly explains the popularity of jazz. Which leaves me personally baffled, but there you have it. The sciences!
- mushishi 12y agoIf you are interested in this kind of psychological phenomena in music, check out book "Sweet Anticipation": http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/sweet-anticipation http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/sweet-anticipation
- Springtime 12y agoThere was a Nautilus article about this posted on HN recently [1], it's an interesting read about our mental expectations of musical patterns. [1] http://nautil.us/issue/2/uncertainty/composing-your-thoughts http://nautil.us/issue/2/uncertainty/composing-your-thoughts
- bitwize 12y agoOne of the most exciting things about Imogen Heap's music is that her songs tend to be repetitive enough to allow our brains to grasp the pattern, and just as we had done so, they take a left toin at Albacoikey and do something completely different. Imogen Heap is a fucking genius.
- edgyswingset 12y agoFantastic article. For those interested, certain artists like Swans[1], Godspeed You! Black Emperor[2], and ISIS[3] really take it to the next level with subtle changes in each refrain. As an added bonus, they are all fantastic for programming. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HKIjG9JH6c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HKIjG9JH6c [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NivY_iRdSBQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NivY_iRdSBQ [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3S3zuHRqlk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3S3zuHRqlk
- z3t4 12y agoWhen I watch or listen to anything for the second time I only get about 75% of the enjoyment out of it. But it might be something wrong with me ...
- kosoy 12y agoNovelty effect is strong, but there might be a u-shape there. Have you ever tried to get past the valley?
- z3t4 12y agoI really enjoyed Spotify and had many play-lists with my favorite music. But when the discovery of new music declined and I got bored with my play-lists I closed the account and have never opened it again. The curve never go up, but with some songs it have flattened and those are my favorites. But it has more to to with the feelings associated to those pieces then the music itself.
- xpda 12y agoThe sequence "sometimes behave so strangely" exhibits syncopated notes on a diatonic scale, 2/4 type meter, and a progression that adheres to chords of a melody. It seems unlikely that something this musical would often appear in normal speech, never before noticed.
- pistle 12y agoGive me any person speaking any sentence and I'll make you a song.
- kosoy 12y agoYeah, the sample was quite clearly handpicked for increased impact (and faster habituation, probably). But the argument is (I believe) about the fact that you can easily handpick such samples from perfectly normal spoken phrases.
- shmerl 12y ago> this illusion demonstrates what it means to hear something musically. The ‘musicalisation’ shifts your attention from the meaning of the words to the contour of the passage (the patterns of high and low pitches) and its rhythms (the patterns of short and long durations), and even invites you to hum or tap along with it. In fact, part of what it means to listen to something musically is to participate imaginatively. That's exactly how mysticism sees music. As a level above speech.
- rdlecler1 12y agoBoots and pants and boots and pants and boots and pants
- donaldtravels 12y agoInteresting question on this article. I do not normally question myself what I think is music and what really makes music to my ears. But I think it makes sense when the author suggested that we think it's music when we hear it again. And there must be repitition otherwise, it would just be some random sound or something.