What specific element makes certain songs extremely catchy? i.e. pretty much every Disney song. What formula do they use?
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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.
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