Music in my Mind

[holdouttrout]

On occasion, I've had the pleasure of waking up to a full-scale orchestra playing a composition just for me. It sounds as if I'm listening to live music--like the strings and woodwinds and brass and everyone is gathered around my bed to serenade me awake. The illusion is fragile--one breath that's too deep or a slight shift of my head, and it dissolves, fading into the background or dissipating entirely.

I've always assumed that not everyone has had that particular experience, but I was sitting at my desk today with my usual round of song snippets in my head* and thought: "Huh. I don't know that I've ever NOT had a song in my head."

I have songs playing in my mind when I am at work, or swimming, or reading, or driving (even when I don't have the radio on). And then I realized, based on how I've heard other people talk about having music stuck in their heads, that they MIGHT NOT have a constant low-level radio playing in the background of their thoughts. So I asked my coworkers.

One said she hardly ever has songs stuck in her head. Another said she had music in her head about 10% of the time.

So now I'm curious to know what other people's experience is.


*Currently I have about three songs that I'm switching between--and it's not like I listen to one song all the way through and then move on to the next--one song gets stuck in little pieces, and then all of the sudden it's a different song's pieces.

I also tend to add my own rhythm section by tapping my molars together in a way that makes my dentist despair.

Comments

[holdouttrout.livejournal.com]

HAH HAH. This happens to me! Also, if I was listening to a particular album or song or playlist when reading a book, that song/album/playlist always reminds me of the book. (It's even weirder if the book had a distinctive smell, because then that sensory memory comes back, too.)

[grav-ity.livejournal.com]

And let's not even get STARTED on my music/writing/reading associations. I hear the songs, and I am right back in the plot or the research for the paper. And once I've made that imprint, it's stuck.

ALSO! When we flew to Australia, my brother and I were both SUPER sick, and the projector was broken, and kept playing "That Thing You Do", and I don't know if you know this, but they sing that song ONE MILLION TIMES during that movie, and A DECADE AND A HALF LATER, every time we hear it (not often, thank goodness), we both puke.

[holdouttrout.livejournal.com]

Oh, man. That would be the WORST.