What specific element makes certain songs extremely catchy? i.e. pretty much every Disney song. What formula do they use?
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Certain sound combos are just pleasing to a majority of people. Usually this is a 4 chord progression essentially copied from Pachelbel’s Canon in D with some minor variations.
Comedy troupe Axis of Awesome has a fun skit about it:
Hundreds more songs/artists use the same formula.
I dont have an exact answer but formulaic and predicatable song patterns + ‘sensitive female chord progression’ (Google it!) makes it all very consumable.
I’ve quoted this in another post, but someone said, “Every great song has something wrong with it.”
The point is it’s the unexpected that catches the ear.
It’s melody and rhythm mostly, from what I have noticed. If you take the melodies of some of your favorite songs and play them on a keyboard or piano, you will probably find some patterns as to what appeals to you and probably other people. It’s hard to say when it comes to subjective things like art and music, but there is definitely a pattern and common element.
When I went to school for art I learned about what kind of things make something visually appealing, even though it was something I knew intuitively anyway. Music school probably teaches something similar.
There is no specific element that makes a song catchy. If there was, musicians would use it all the time! What Disney does have is a budget big enough to hire the best songwriters and performers for their songs, which undergo much editing and revising before they make it to you. So if there are any elements which make it into a successful song they are hard work, knowledge of musical craftsmanship, and (above all, I think) a great performance. *Let It Go* is an instant earworm when Idina Menzel sings it, not so much when it’s an off-key five year old.
The I–V–vi–IV chord progression is used very frequently in pop music, on top of that, you have pitch correction and enough money to buy any elite vocalist you can find anywhere on the planet.
So, a lot of people will talk about melody and chord sequence and rhythm etc. which are all extremely important but very general compositional elements that make a song sound ‘good’. Lot of people, for example point to the common I – IV – vi – V chord progression as being a very satisfying and ‘complete’ sound, but none of this answers what makes something *catchy*, specifically.
And the truth is, it can’t be narrowed down to just one thing, but I think there are a few things that make a melody catchy (and we will focus on lead melody, since this is typically the thing that catches people’s ears).
Firstly, repetition is often key. Repetition builds pattern recognition, something that humans are very attuned to. A one-off melody in a song can sound great, but generally the stuff that gets lodged in your head will repeat a few times to fully embed it. There is a reason why lots of pop songs, which strive for catchiness, use choruses to come back to a repeated lyrical and melodic motif.
Secondly, phrasing is very important in a melody. This is a hard thing to define, but it describes the small series of tensions and releases that go into making a melody feel satisfying. A well-phrased melody sounds almost lyrical in its own right, like it’s telling a story through notes alone. Melodies that are overly simplistic in rhythm or melody tend to lack this quality, since there is no “push and pull” to catch the interest of the ear.
In terms of the actual scales that catch music uses, there is a tendency towards very modal sounds, meaning that catchy melodies usually is simple major or natural minor scales, or even just pentatonic scales. More complex scales or modes are less common to hear and people can have a harder time wrapping their ears around them.
Lastly, that having been said, there is something about incongruity that does seem to be a feature of catchiness. Something a little bit odd or out-of-the-norm can make something more sonically interesting; however it’s worth mentioning that this is usually a very small piece of the puzzle.
Most enjoyable explanation(s) I’ve read are in
[Musicophilia](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0676979793) by the beloved Oliver Sacks.
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