Earworm
- Definition
- An earworm is a short melodic or rhythmic phrase that lodges itself in a listener's memory, replaying involuntarily in their head long after the song has ended. It is one of the clearest practical signs that a hook or melody is working.
- Difficulty
- Beginner
- Songwriting stage
- writing
In practice
Earworms tend to share a few traits: they are short, rhythmically simple, often repeat a small number of pitches, and usually involve some kind of repetition within the phrase itself. A melody that moves in predictable, singable steps and repeats a key rhythmic pattern is far more likely to stick in memory than one with wide, unpredictable leaps or constantly shifting rhythm.
While songwriters cannot guarantee a melody will become an earworm for every listener, they can increase the odds by keeping a hook's melodic range narrow, repeating its rhythm consistently, and placing it in a prominent spot—such as the very start or end of the chorus—where listeners are most likely to absorb it. Testing a new melody by singing it from memory a day after writing it is a simple, honest way to check its earworm potential.
Example
A songwriter writes a four-note chorus hook that bounces between just two pitches on the words 'right here, right now,' and finds that a friend who heard the song once is still humming that exact phrase the next morning without having listened to it again.