In Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain by Oliver Sacks the author explores some different ways the brain recalls music.  At times, I feel my ability to recall music varies greatly.  Often I can recall a song almost like a music editor.  Separating different sounds and instruments, replaying parts in my head with amazing recall.  It is often not super vivid.  Like I am not hearing it loudly, I can still hear and focus on everything around me.  If I get stuck not being able to recall a song I swear I should be able to, it can be nearly paralyzing.  I don't get the same level of joy playing it back in my head as I do experiencing it.  But the mixing and delayering can be insanely fun.


How do you describe how well you recall music? 

If I hear a song I should know, and can't recall the name. I become obsessed until I find the name of it.

I had a melody in my head that had haunted me for months, it was driving me insane and I was convinced it was in a movie... it turned out to be my washing machine.

The ability to work with nothing outside of half a line of lyric and a distorted, often nearly inaudible sample ie; an in store radio, and find it quickly should be celebrated.

When I try and play music in my head I can only imagine one layer at a time. I can't hear the vocal track, drum beat, and guitar riff at the same time. I can choose which one, and switch between them, but it's only one

If I try to play through a song my recall ability only goes forwards. If the chorus is stuck in my head it's not easy to rewind to the introduction, unless I know the song exceptionally well.

I'm pretty good with lyrics and I do love to sing... if you asked me the words I couldn't tell you, but the music is like a prompt

Ding.











Uncontrollably : " When I was, a young boy, my father, took me into the city, to see a marching band... "

My sister and I text and play the who sings this song game. Most of it is 70's, 80's, and 90's country music. If we're riding together we'll hit scan in the radio and see who is the first to name the singer of the song.

A guy I work with hums a song when he gets frustrated. I know it but could not figure it out and it drove me nuts. Its the intro to a song with saxophone. Finally I googled songs with a sax intro.

SPOILER: Click to show

Baker Street

bodyslam - I was going to mention that song in my post because it's very recognizable to me. It's one of my mom's favorites.

My mom used to play the same game with me. First few notes 'who is this: song and artist' so I'm pretty decent at older music (probably 50's - early 2000's) after that...it's a crap shoot. I can remember lyrics of songs I haven't heard for years over what I ate for dinner last night. I was on a George Michael kick after his death in 2016 and then after the movie in 2019, and I was shocked at how many songs I knew full lyrics of that I hadn't heard in decades because he was my moms' favorite so I heard them ad nauseum.

I don't know that I can break the song out musically per layer like a producer can. Watching The Voice, guys like Chance the Rapper and Pharrell (and even John Legend to a point) always impressed me because you could tell they were listening on a different level than the others and even myself. They pointed out things that no one else did and when they were coaching their team they layered performances differently because of it. That's a gift.

I used to play it as teenager at home, watching the music channel... guess the song before the name appears at the bottom.

I blitzed a game of this while on a long Euro bus trip and was disqualified because I was ruining the game by winning.

My sister got all the musical talent in our family, she's self taught on the guitar and piano, but she's freaky on the piano... she can hear a song once and with 15 seconds of tinkering to find the right key or whatever she can play the song note perfect from memory.

I also play the song guessing game. When I travel I often play my entire playlist on shuffle, it interests me to guess the band/album/song without checking.

Although a lot of the bands I listen to are similar in a general sense (hard rock/heavy metal), they all have a unique guitar tone or something else that makes that band them, like musical DNA.