Too Many Jingle Bells on the Brain? Try Earworm Eraser

Too Many Jingle Bells on the Brain? Try Earworm Eraser 'Tis the season for incessant holiday music. If you need an escape, give this scientifically engineered audio track a try, or listen to our playlist of nontraditional winter tunes.

By

Bryan Parys

December 13, 2024

Image courtesy of Cottonbro Studio/Pexel

Its the most wonderful time of the year, but it is not always the most wonderful time for your ears. From November to the end of the year, a walk through a any mall or a few spins of any radio dial will yield an endless loop of holiday music.

It can get to be too much even for the most festive among us, and though its easy enough to avoid malls or turn off the radio, once you hear these songs, they have a way of rocking around your Christmasd brain for a long time after the songs are over.

Enter the Earworm Eraser-a 40-second collection of sounds designed to help you exorcise that endless jingling. Designed by software company Atlassian in partnership with music psychologist Kelly Jakubowski, the idea was to make something intentionally not catchy as a way to scrub out anything stuck in your head.

Cant get Jingle Bells out of your head? Try Atlassians Earworm Eraser:

Jakubowski explained to NPR that the hallmarks of earworm-worthy music tend to be danceable beats and a predictable melodic shape. So, the team made a sound collage where, as she explains, Every few seconds, it switches between fast and slow tempi, while also changing time signatures and musical styles. And while many at Berklee might read that description and think Oh, you mean jazz, the Earworm Eraser dares even the most avant-garde ears to find a groove.

The track isnt foolproof, as a cursory scan of the tracks YouTube comments reveal. And the problem isnt always the music, but the memories that these songs can conjure, as songwriting professor Kat Reinhert explains in this exploration of why some people just cant stand holiday music. If you need a more musical solution, try immersing yourself in the following playlist curated by the Berklee community designed to bring the winter vibes, but without the baggage.

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