1 - What makes a music memorable?

2 - Relationship between the quality of music and its memorability?

3 - Is making a memorable music your concern?

4 - Who decides which music is more memorable than others?

5 - Are new human beings able to memorize any music for decades?

6 - Why should we take up the free space of our brains (almost 99%) by memorizing tunes?

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Suit yourself but please don't clash with each other.

 

Well this question is easy friend.

Memorable music is quality music and music of quality is memorable, now of course, memorability and musicability are two different processes born in the fusion of the heart. But that's only possible with a particular type of oxygene. Or it doesn't work. Just like what happened on venus, in 200 bc.
Pretty easy, I'm surprised you didn't get there by yourself. I guess it's fortunate enought zarbians are here to help through our troubles.

Good travel to you dear sir, always nice to have those great conversations together.

 

Our brains look for patterns.
We love familiar patterns.
We love simplicity too. But not TOO simple, because then we get bored.
See what I did there, with the patterns?

The end.

 

Do you remember the rules of this site? Maybe they will become easier to remember if you put music to them and sing them out loud.

 

Very interesting topic.
I am looking forward to having people discuss about what they think. Especially because I am a progressive metal and rock composer, which is not appealing to lots of listeners.

 

Definition: memorable; "worth remembering" ...That being said here's the answers:

1 - What makes a music memorable? ...A: If it was "worth remembering"

2 - Relationship between the quality of music and its memorability? ...A: Quality is subjective so the relationship is individualistically memorable (Example: the quality of music on vinyl is much less than on CD, but there are some songs that are more memorable on vinyl, and not on CD)

3 - Is making a memorable music your concern? ...A: That too is subjective, as what is memorable to me, might not be to someone else.

4 - Who decides which music is more memorable than others? ...A: The only person that can decide what is memorable to you is yourself.

5 - Are new human beings able to memorize any music for decades? ...A: New human beings haven't lived for decades because, well, their new, and most "new humans" wear diapers and memorize sounds like GooGoo and such. As for older human beings, I think so, but that depends on individualized brain function.

6 - Why should we take up the free space of our brains (almost 99%) by memorizing tunes? ...A: We should do whatever we want with the free space in our brains, but that being said, the human brain isn't an installment of RAM, and there is no possible way to know if it's ever 99% full if ever. There isn't an App for that. No one knows just how much the human brain can store unfortunately.

 

I Love Metal ...It's not appealing to a lot of listeners because it doesn't have "airplay" anymore, like it did in the 80's. The majority like what they hear without effort. If all the radio stations on Earth started to play metal 24-7, I bet it would be very popular

 

I think we have a frontrunner for our "Foster Replacement Competition"

 

Deleted...

 

Last edited: Nov 6, 2018

I'm afraid success lies in repetitiveness,
people like what they can remember, so they remember what they already remember, so they like what they already like,
radios nowadays play songs where you can't tell if it's same artist or not, actually most hits are written by only a few hitmaker producers/writers;
on the other hand people also like unknown, but only if enough people like same weirdo stuff, so it can be then called genre/culture/cult, complication of this approach is often artists are appreciated after they die, or at least end active career, change their mindset etc.., and also for a publisher/seller such approach is too unpredictable to waste/invest money into
good topic btw

 

I can't remember. But if I do remember I'll let you know.

 

In the abstract, simplicity and repetition. But humans are also deeply associational/nostalgic, senses tend to trigger memories and feelings. So, it's rather circular, what makes music memorable is often that it reminds people of other music they have already heard. That (unfortunately, IMO) results in a kind of stylistic/aesthetic lock-in of people making music that sounds similar.

It's easier to remember anything that resonates with one's notions of structure, whatever those may be. But it doesn't mean that other kinds of structure or degrees of memorability make a given bit of music any better or worse.

No, I think it's egostistical and pointless. Not unlike wanting people to like me. It's pure self-serving bias. It also constrains one's output to the kinds of structure that others are already familiar with. Also, inducing memorability, aka "catchiness" is manipulative, so arguably unkind/unethical. To me, respect means helping people to know and understand how they feel - NOT trying to compel them to feel a certain way. That said, some degree of mutual influence is unavoidable.

That's not an applicable question, IMO. People don't "decide" that anything is easier to remember. It's based upon their notions of structure, which are a sum of many different kinds of experience and conditioning. But some people, I am sure, like to push for a consensus which they feel gives them influence and validates their kind of music and/or culture. But that's still a self-serving bias.

Apparently, new people of any species have the neural plasticity to be more shaped by stimulus. Although I think this tends to be more meta-musical than memorizing a specific work. If by new you mean contemporary, then I suspect not as much, people are being bombarded with too many distractions.

Memory is not exclusively a function of the brain, and memory does not "take up space", as such. People are shaped by everything that happens to them. More at issue is the conscious mind's finite capacity for focused attention. It's like the relationship between going from counting, to doing complex math, to juggling balls. The ability of working with more sophisticated numerical relationships does not give one much greater physical bandwidth for juggling balls.

As an art form and/or communications protocol, much of music tends to be played out as a dance that balances between expectation and surprise, which are both functions of memory. But this is IMO often forced, trying to cultivate certain kinds of expectations, so that one can then deliver upon or subvert them. I find this cliched and annoying, and is why I tend to prefer music which is not made with any particular listener in mind.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Nov 7, 2018

Stupid post. I'm not wasting time on idiots who pose questions like "who decides what makes music memorable?" Do you really think somebody or a covert organisation is solely responsible for making a decision about whether a song is good or not and we all have to agree with this persons decision?

 

His organisation is so hush-hush & underground ninja base that nobody's prolly ever heard of it, @tooloud ?

 

Last edited: Nov 7, 2018

Okay. Back to piano practise ...

 

It's not a MEMORABLE music. Listeners don't remeber these songs and cannot recognize them.

 

Unfortunately freedom of expression was not efficacious in practicality and did not produce the intended results by its initiators.

Still, Illiteracy by most art-makers holds sway and talking about making memorable (or anything you'd call it) music by them is a pure fantasy.

 

Anything too simple or too complex tends to be perceived as simply noise. There is, in practice, only a very narrow range of structures that people even recognize - never mind remember - as being music. In that respect it is a different artform than others. Even the most outre painting or sculpture are often still uncontroversially recognized as being painting or sculpture, even if not considered competent or to one's taste. But most possible forms of music don't even register to people as being music, it's like a phantasm they they just don't perceive.

 

Recently, a few people have proven that most of popular music is based on a particular set of musical keys. Now, the key word in my previous sentence is 'popular' because this most resonates with the word 'memorable'. This information is easily found on Google and YouTube. The secret's out now. This information may have been available to those who are rumoured to run the corporations who might have the powers to influence how we think. Again, hypotheses about this can be easily found.

 

I remembered . . . I highly recommend that you watch a TV documentary called How Music Works with Howard Goodall. He will demonstrate the compelling evidence for the same keys being used for the most memorable/popular songs! Start with Part 1 (third one down, then go back to that page for the other parts).