Could using an ‘Earworm” Improve Class Retention?

by John | Nov 8, 2016 | Instructor Training, KEEPING IT FUN, Music

Wait, what's an “earworm”? That was my thought, when I first read the term in some long forgotten article. Turns out that it's an affliction that many of us have experienced…

Earworm – Wikipedia

An earworm, sometimes known as a brainworm, sticky music, or stuck song syndrome, is a catchy piece of music that continually repeats through a person's mind after it is no longer playing. Phrases used to describe an earworm include “musical imagery repetition”, “involuntary musical imagery”, and “stuck song syndrome”.

My frequent Earworms are; The Oscar Mayer hotdog theme, We're off to see the Wizard and the Bowie song Prettiest Star – which I used to sing to my two girls when they were too young to know how badly I butchered it. I'm not sure what that says about me… what are yours?

In the past, ad agencies loved to write catchy jingles with the implicit desire to implanted them as Earworms in customers.

Nowadays, companies with large TV/radio advertising budgets purchase the rights to use popular songs in their commercials – with the intent to connect a product/service/brand with an existing, popular earworm track. The best example that I'm aware of was Apple's use of the U2 track Vertigo in their 2004 iPod + iTunes “Silhouette” commercials. I still can't help thinking of iTunes whenever I hear this song!

https://youtu.be/54vgFVhOAF0

Creating your own earworm

Back in 2012 I wrote; You're a celebrity… act like it!
If you promise me that you won’t get a big head, I’d like you to go look in the mirror and repeat after me;

“I’m a celebrity and it’s about time that I started acting like one.”

Now I’m not suggesting that you should start arriving for your next class in a chauffeur driven limousine, nor am I recommending that you follow these seven steps to becoming a celebrity. But I am suggesting that you consider acting in a way that will cause others to be interested in you… which is really no different than the people you are interested in and what drives some of our attraction to other celebrities.

The dictionary lists ce·leb·ri·ty [suh-leb-ri-tee] as a noun meaning 1. a famous or well-known person. If you’ve been teaching for a while, I’m going to guess that within your little world, you are well known = you are a celebrity 🙂

So if the thought of you as a celebrity is intriguing, here are a few things you can work on…

I went on the list a number of actions you could take, including…

Consider a Theme Song

Where would Gilligan’s Island be today without … five passengers set sail that day for a three hour tour, a three hour tour. Admit it, you could hear the song as your read the words 🙂

What would be wrong with having a consistent song for your class intro? A song that your students begin to associate with your class?

Starting to see how using a popular song (making it part of your brand) could create an earworm that connects participants to your class?