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
To be honest I don’t think this is a proven fact of life. I remember once I was able to get away from the house and go to the bar with friends like in old days. The bar was playing some trashy kpop I think. And in my mind I kept hearing “one little two little three little Indians” because that’s what my son was listening to that afternoon.
With that in mind, maybe it’s like how you can’t draw a square with one hand and a circle with another. In many ways we all have one-track minds that can only concentrate on one thing at a time.
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