Do you constantly hear music playing in your head?

[JohnoL]

I'm a low volume whistler.

And then they all moved away from me on the Group W bench.

[sgcim]

No, but I hear little voices telling me to ignore threads like this and "Is improvisation overrated...

[Tom Karol]

I hum quietly most of the time without even realizing it.
Many people find it quite annoying

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

I hum quietly most of the time without even realizing it.
Many people find it quite annoying

My father does a quiet whistle when he's nervous or uncomfortable. Just two notes: dee-dah dee-dah, endlessly. I don't think he realises he's doing it.

[ragman1]

Just two notes: dee-dah dee-dah

Like a police car :-)

[Markmann]

I wish I could change the pitch of my tinnitus. As it is the frequency is too high and as far as I can tell it's several notes and they aren't very musical.

[EllenGtrGrl]

I don't hear music all of the time, in my mental background noise, but I do hear it more than occasionally. For me it's especially bad, when I'm stressed, because it ends up being earworms of songs I dislike quite a bit. One instance of this that really stands out (even after almost 40 years), is "Loverboy" by Billy Ocean. While I was trying to study for finals at the end of the semester at the University of Wisconsin, the stupid chorus of that song kept on playing in my head. Ugh! I still hear it in my head once in a blue moon if I'm having a hard day at work.

[JazzSlob]

I don't hear music all of the time, in my mental background noise, but I do hear it more than occasionally. For it's especially bad, when I'm stressed, because it ends up being earworms of songs I dislike quite a bit. One instance of this that really stands out (even after almost 40 years), is "Loverboy" by Billy Ocean. While I was trying to study for finals at the end of the semester at the University of Wisconsin, the stupid chorus of that song kept on playing in my head. Ugh! I still hear it in my head once in a blue moon if I'm having a hard day at work.

I have a similar problem. When I'm very stressed there's this terrible sounding bit of 'music' that bubbles up in my head. I don't even know how to describe it but I would say that it sounds to me mostly like a backing track for a 90s rap-metal album. Ugh. There are times in my life where it's nearly constant but goes from louder to quieter in my head depending on my anxiety level. I do not recommend.

But I guess you have to take the good with the bad because I'm also able to recall beautiful music with a fairly high degree of accuracy and, on a really good day, I can do a bit of composing in my head.

[EllenGtrGrl]

I have a similar problem. When I'm very stressed there's this terrible sounding bit of 'music' that bubbles up in my head. I don't even know how to describe it but I would say that it sounds to me mostly like a backing track for a 90s rap-metal album. Ugh. There are times in my life where it's nearly constant but goes from louder to quieter in my head depending on my anxiety level. I do not recommend.

But I guess you have to take the good with the bad because I'm also able to recall beautiful music with a fairly high degree of accuracy and, on a really good day, I can do a bit of composing in my head.

I wonder if it's a side effect of the ear training I had when I was learning musical theory as a part of learning to play brass instruments (I played euphonium in symphonic band through my sophomore year at the university, jazz band on valve trombone during my sophomore year at the university, and marching band on valve trombone through my high school years). I remember as a part of our grade in marching band, we were REQUIRED to memorize the music, so we'd concentrate on our marching steps & patterns, rather than looking at a dinky sheet of music on the instrument's bolt-on lyre shaped music holder.

It's probably one of the reasons why I find it hard at times to tune out background music being played, that I don't like - I was trained to listen closely to the musical elements, and as a result, I oftentimes without meaning to, end up listening deeper than on superficial level. As a result, I usually do not play music anymore for background noise reasons, because it can become distracting to me, if I'm trying to do something else.

[JazzSlob]

That makes sense to me. I also think some people have better musical ears from the get-go. My dad, for example, is not very musical but he can learn languages more easily that other people do and he chalks that up to having a good ear.

I have the same issue when I'm in a bar or restaurant and I hear a song I recognize. It's hard for me to tune it out.

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

It's probably one of the reasons why I find it hard at times to tune out background music being played, that I don't like - I was trained to listen closely to the musical elements, and as a result, I oftentimes without meaning to, end up listening deeper than on superficial level. As a result, I usually do not play music anymore for background noise reasons, because it can become distracting to me, if I'm trying to do something else.

I think this can also be a personality/psychological trait. In a noisy restaurant, how easy is it for you to listen to one person? How easy is it to listen to many conversations going around you, all at once?


I'm way on the "focus on one thing" end of the spectrum. Once I was at a dinner and all the members of a family were excitedly relating a single family story. One would finish a sentence that another started, then a third would jump in with the next sentence. I found this so hard to listen to that it made me dizzy. I had to ask them to stop doing that,

[emanresu]

I was on "break" from playing for 7 months, then occasionally a thing popped into my head and kept on going and going.
It was mildly annoying, then started to sing and record to my phone. That made it stop instantly. I left the phone in the
car during a winter and it died completely. Dunno how many hit songs I lost. Probably 20.

[Mick-7]

I really hate to break this to you, emanresu, but Taylor Swift's agent found your discarded phone, copied the audio and several of the tunes on it became major hits for Taylor.

[emanresu]

I really hate to break this to you, emanresu, but Taylor Swift's agent found your discarded phone, copied the audio and several of the tunes on it became major hits for Taylor.

I don't care. These were probably the signals from the aliens. Who knows what we owe them when releasing and they caught us using their shit.

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

I don't care. These were probably the signals from the aliens. Who knows what we owe them when releasing and they caught us using their shit.

What if they are coming here to save this darn Earth ... and to dance?