What makes a melody catchy?

SOURCES:
Suisman, D. (2012) Selling Sounds: The Commercial Revolution in American Music

And, an extra special thanks goes to Douglas Lind, Vidad Flowers, Ivan Pang, Waylon Fairbanks, Jon Dye, Austin Russell, Christopher Ryan, Toot & Paul Peijzel, the channel’s Patreon saints! 😇

0:00 Introduction
0:58 Ease of singing
3:09 Repetition
8:03 Why do tunes get stuck in our head at all?
9:43 writing a catchy tune

[ibji]

Only went to Disneyworld once. Every ride had a long line. Except for one. So we went on the "It's A Small World" ride. And we found out fairly quickly why no one went near it. That music was played loud, without a break, and there was no escape until the ride was over. It will scar you for life.

[bgmaraujo]

4:33
When he said "songs go far too far with repetition" I KNEW the example was gonna be Baby Shark.

[modestoney]

1:50 is one of the biggest earworms in existence, it`s catchy af actually
hard to get rid of once it has worked it`s way into your brain
may not be easy to sing, but you find yourself whistling like crazy

[lordsmorgasbord]

I like how your "uncatchy" example at the end still sounded like a decent melody and wasn't just a random jumble of notes

[J-W_Grimbeek]

Man listening to someone talk about repetition I automatically hear the phrase "repetition legitimizes" in my head - repeatedly
Edited to fix spelling mistakes

[christianfairhurst]

Instantly catchy melodies get old fast, the ones that take their time to dig in stay with you longer. Or is it just me?

[djvoid]

My theory on why a lot of people complain about 'modern music' is that to them, it's catchy at the expense of all else. The music gets stuck in your head, yet gives no pleasure, and it seems to reveal a divide between people's tastes. For some people, catchy = good. For others, catchy without any further substance of enjoyment = some sort of deception has occured and left a feeling of being musically 'short changed' somehow upon listening. Like a cheat code was input to increase the significance and memorability of the song undeservedly

[martakoakowska]

I don’t think a melody has to be easily singable to be catchy. Both Mexican Hat Song and the intro to Clocks are extremely catchy in my opinion, and same could be said about many guitar or even piano riffs which are almost impossible to sing, and yet you will feel like singing them, even if you fail to do it in tune, over and over.
Examples from the top of my head would be:
- Sweet Child O’ Mine opening riff
- Hair Of The Dog by Nazareth (main riff)
- The Maple Leaf Rag (piano piece) “chorus?”
- Turkish March by Mozart (the ending sequence)
- Con Te Partiro (super hard vocals)

Let’s not forget that music (including melodies) isn’t only vocals.

[tedl]

I'd also add two more elements to a catchy tune:
1) Groups of notes which clearly suggest a particular harmonic underpinning
2) Sequences of notes which clearly imply a consistent tonal center or key

[dilemmacubing]

The most catchy melody is the friends we made along the way

[Jewpacca]

Besides the impeccable and efficient music education in all his videos, the fact that David keeps a totally straight face the entire time is the icing on the cake.

[frankvaleron]

You really have a great channel. May it continue to grow. Memes and bullshit will grab viewers, but you are completely correct to steer clear and keep going as you're going

[ccd]

I watch so many of this type of video. Usually I'm left with the feeling of "You didn't really give me an answer to the question" or "That's the easy answer that everyone already knew", but here I feel I really learned something new and valuable, much thanks to you linking it to how our brains perceive language. Thank you!

[efficiencygaming]

I think it's theoretically possible for any song to get stuck in your head if you enjoy it enough. As you noted, Radiohead is not a band known for making catchy tunes, yet I get their songs stuck in my head on a regular basis, even the lesser known tracks.

Another thing I noticed is that when a song is stuck in my head, it's usually just one lyric in particular and seldom the entire song. And if that lyric matches a repeating melody in the song, you end up repeating that lyric over and over again in your brain. Repetition legitimizes. Repetition legitimizes. Repetition legitimizes.

[jimbrentar]

funny. Mexican Hat Dance is extremely catchy. And "I Will Always Love You" has extremely drawn out notes

[BillGraper]

In the Beatles song "Eleanor Rigby, " there is a 10th interval in the chorus, and it's simple to sing or hum... and very cool! 😎

[Von_D]

I usually don't like sponsorship ads, but I'm glad I didn't skip. I had been dying to get some instrumentals of my favourite songs, and I think this is the most painless way to go about it.

[EddieReischl]

It helps when it's Paul McCartney writing it. For example, try to get "Penny Lane" out of your head once it's in there, and then of course it also has that brilliant trumpet playing.

[Samantha-vlly]

4:27 That is so true
I often like Nintendo bgm's(mostly from MK and Super Mario)

[Byron]

IMHO the 'uncatchy' tune is a banger 🔥