I don’t know if this is a universal thing or just me, but I suspect there are many others that experience this same phenomenon. Even if a song is already firmly ingrained in my head and I know it like the back of my hand, as soon as another song is being played out loud in the background – even if it’s one I have no interest in or am not consciously paying attention to – I will ‘forget’ how the first one goes (by that I mean usually my mind goes blank when trying to recall the melody or chord progression).
Is there a fundamental reason for this? Perhaps it’s somehow a quirk linked to our ancient survival instincts whereby the human brain stops whatever it was doing to instead focus on auditory stimuli (i.e. potential threats) in the surrounding environment? Or maybe some of our brains just aren’t powerful enough to focus well enough on two songs playing at once, in the same way that it’s hard to focus on two or more conversations people around you are having?
In: Biology
I don’t know if it’s like this for others but I can very easily hum the tune of a song, or sing the words, while listening to another one, a thing that my gf says is impossible for her to do. I found that weird, like she can’t just switch channels in her head.
Maybe it’s related but I have adhd and life is very much like that all the time. Many channels, all at once. In public I can’t help but notice everything and every conversation around me, which I thought was normal for a long time.
Weirdly, on at least a couple of occasions I have found myself listening to both music *and a podcast* at the same time, just by accident.
I don’t think I was getting much of the podcast at all but it’s just weird (and hilarious) that somewhere in my brain I thought putting some music on while listening to one was a great thing to do. GF walked in the room and was like ‘what are you doing?’
Even as I write this I’ve had the 80s song [‘Be Near Me](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xmSK1DJeTg&ab_channel=CalVid)’, by ABC, rolling around in my head, I can recall the lyrics perfectly but have no idea when the last time I heard it was, it could be a decade ago… ‘The message is perfectly simple….the meaning is clear..’ Maybe it was playing in a store or elevator or something, somewhere, more recently.
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