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There's this phenomenon called the speech to song illusion.
有种现象叫作“说话变成唱歌”错觉
Have you run across that? That’s Elizabeth Margulis.
你遇到过这种情况吗？刚才说话的这位是Elizabeth Margulis
She directs the Music Cognition Lab at the University of Arkansas
她是阿肯色大学音乐认知实验室的主任
and has written a book on musical repetition.
还有一本关于音乐中的重复的专著
Yeah. There’s this really interesting process where you can take a little bit of speech,
是的，这个过程其实很有趣，当人们说“你可以说两句”
you can take a little bit of speech, you can take a little bit of speech.
“你可以说两句”，“你可以说两句”
Repeat it a number of times
重复几次
and for many people there is a very salient transformation
很多人都觉得，这个过程发生了一个明显的转变
where what initially just sounded like somebody talking to you
原本这句话听上去就像是某个人在跟你说话
now sounds like somebody singing.
现在则像是某个人在唱歌
Psychologist Diana Deutsch discovered this illusion in 1995
心理学家Diana Deutsch于1995年发现了这一错觉
ironically when she was editing the audio of her CD 'Musical Illusions and Paradoxes'.
令人啼笑皆非的是，那个时候她正在对她的CD“音乐幻觉和音乐悖论”进行音频编辑处理
Margulis’ music cognition lab has conducted a number of studies on repetition
Margulis的音乐认知实验室的工作人员对重复进行了一系列研究
but there’s one that is really fascinates me.
但有一个研究让我感到尤其振奋人心
You see, she selected music from renowned 20th century composer Elliot Carter
她从20世纪著名的作曲家Elliot Carter的作品中选取了一些乐曲
whose work was atonal and explicitly non-repetitive.
Carter的乐曲都比较没有音调，而且明显没有重复
She presented a few versions to a class of 33 students who were unfamiliar with the work.
她挑选了几个版本给班上33名对这首作品不熟悉的学生听
One version was the original, no alterations.
其中一个版本是原作，没做什么改变
The other two versions were digitally altered
另外两个版本则经过了数字变音
just to be repetitive without regard for the aesthetic quality of the music.
以便达到重复的效果，暂且不考虑音乐的美感
And it turned out that the excerpts that had been kind of adulterated
实验结果表明，掺杂的两个版本
to insert this literal kind of repetition
也就是加入了重复的版本
were viewed not only as more enjoyable and more interesting
在大家看来不仅更好听，更有趣
but also was more likely to have been composed by human artists
也更像是真正的作曲家
rather than randomly generated by computer.
而不是电脑做出来的乐曲
So repetition in music not only feels intentional to our brains, we actually just enjoy it.
所以，重复对我们的大脑来说不仅仅是有意义的，事实上我们也很喜欢重复
Let’s take a look at that chart you saw earlier.
我们再来看看之前的这个折线图
It illustrates that our love of repetition was increasingly reflected in pop music.
这个折线图显示，我们对重复的热爱在流行歌曲中的体现越来越明显
I was surprised by how clear the trend was.
这个趋势之明了，我都感到很惊讶
Oh yeah, Colin made that too.
没错，这个图也是柯林做的
It turned out that you could basically take any 10 year period over the last 50 years
实际上，就过去50年的情况来看，我们基本上可以拿十年作为一个阶段
and there would always be an increase in repetition over those 10 years.
那么，每10年音乐里的重复率都会增加
Yes, pop songs have gotten more repetitive,
没错，流行歌曲里重复率越来越高了
But repetition can be used to flip predictable song structures to make them completely unpredictable.
但是，重复也能用来把墨守成规的音乐变成完全让人难以捉摸的
And that’s really cool.
是不是很酷
I don't know if you saw the visualization for “Formation” by Beyonce?
不知道你有没有看过拿Beyonce的“Formation”做的图
Oh yes.
那……当然了
It's almost like two songs glued together.
感觉就像是把两首歌融到了一起
With the first half of the song you have this very clear chorus.
前半首的和声非常明显
Once you get to the second half –
但到了第二部分
that hook disappears and Beyonce replaces it with this catchy hyper repetitive chant.
这个副歌不见了，Beyonce换成了重复率超高非常上口的合唱
You can't deny the power of this song.
谁也无法否认这首歌的魔力
Repetition doesn't just make it memorable, it reinforces its central message.
重复不仅仅是让这首歌变得更好记，还强调了这首歌的核心思想
But when I listen to “Yeah Right” by Vince Staples
但我听Vince Staples的“Yeah Right”的时候
I'm reminded of the speech to song illusion.
我又想到了“说话变成唱歌”幻觉
When Vince repeats Yeah Right over twenty times,
当Vince重复唱“Yeah Right”重复了20多次以后
I start to shift my focus from the meaning of the lyric to the rhythm and musicality of it.
我关注的重点从歌词的意思变成了它的旋律和音乐性
Repetition grabs a hold of our brains in a way that we often can’t quite control.
重复能够抓住我们的注意力，而对此我们往往无能为力
And that might make us feel like the music is playing us
我们甚至可能觉得是音乐在演奏我们
rather than us playing the music.
而不是我们在演奏音乐
But if repetition makes songs like Formation, Lose yourself to Dance, Beat It
但是，如果重复能够成就Formation，Lose yourself to Dance，Beat It
and I Wanna Dance with Somebody both great and memorable,
以及 I Wanna Dance with Somebody这些歌，又能让它们容易被人记住
It can rule the charts forever.
那它就能在那个曲线表上一直辉煌下去
