I was just writing “aphantasia” out in a comment while you writing that because I remembered what it was called.
One of my great worries in life is that I’ll always be musically stunted because I have the audio version of aphantasia, too… but I also don’t think it’s necessarily THAT limiting practically, but it’s so frustrating knowing that there are people who can hear all the notes in a John Williams symphony just out there walking around.
It’s not all sunshine and roses. My brain is like a broken jukebox that’s permanently on and set to random. I’ll start singing a song that I literally haven’t heard in 15 years, and next thing I know it’s stuck in my head.
It can be maddening, though I have developed some coping mechanisms to “reset” if I can’t get a song out of my head.
Maybe fighting it is having a perverse effect. Have you tried singing the song to get it out of your system?
Here’s another exercise: Sing the lyrics to one song to the melody of another. It’s an older combo, but Tom’s Diner to the Meow Mix jingle is pretty engaging.
Fighting it is a new thing for me. It’s not really even fighting it, I’ve just chosen a “default” song that, as soon as I notice I’m starting to repeat an unwanted melody or lyric in my head, I’ll start thinking intently on my “default” song and it basically forces the other song out.
Then I have the intro to “Good Times, Bad Times” by Led Zeppelin (my “default” song) in my head for a few min before it fades away. I’m not sure how I came up with it, but it’s something I only thought about doing in the last few years. It kind of works usually.
I will often swap lyrics with other songs, or just make up my own which sometimes makes me giggle.
I was just writing “aphantasia” out in a comment while you writing that because I remembered what it was called.
One of my great worries in life is that I’ll always be musically stunted because I have the audio version of aphantasia, too… but I also don’t think it’s necessarily THAT limiting practically, but it’s so frustrating knowing that there are people who can hear all the notes in a John Williams symphony just out there walking around.
It’s not all sunshine and roses. My brain is like a broken jukebox that’s permanently on and set to random. I’ll start singing a song that I literally haven’t heard in 15 years, and next thing I know it’s stuck in my head.
It can be maddening, though I have developed some coping mechanisms to “reset” if I can’t get a song out of my head.
Maybe fighting it is having a perverse effect. Have you tried singing the song to get it out of your system?
Here’s another exercise: Sing the lyrics to one song to the melody of another. It’s an older combo, but Tom’s Diner to the Meow Mix jingle is pretty engaging.
Fighting it is a new thing for me. It’s not really even fighting it, I’ve just chosen a “default” song that, as soon as I notice I’m starting to repeat an unwanted melody or lyric in my head, I’ll start thinking intently on my “default” song and it basically forces the other song out.
Then I have the intro to “Good Times, Bad Times” by Led Zeppelin (my “default” song) in my head for a few min before it fades away. I’m not sure how I came up with it, but it’s something I only thought about doing in the last few years. It kind of works usually.
I will often swap lyrics with other songs, or just make up my own which sometimes makes me giggle.
Good TImes/Bad Times never turns into an earworm, though? It behaves itself, comes when bidden, then leaves when its job is done?