Melodic Contour

Melodic Contour

Reviewed by Faisal Zaidi

The overall rise and fall of a melody.

What it is

Tunes reported as earworms shared common global melodic contours and smaller average gradients between turning points than matched tunes. It is drawn from work by Kelly Jakubowski and colleagues (2017).

In effect

In the article on why jingles get stuck in your head, it is the shape of tune that earworms were found to share.

What it does not say

The shared contours were found by comparing reported tunes with matched tunes. They are tendencies and do not predict that any given melody will become an earworm.

Sources

  1. Jakubowski, K., Finkel, S., Stewart, L., & Müllensiefen, D. (2017). Dissecting an earworm: Melodic features and song popularity predict involuntary musical imagery. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 11(2), 122-135.