Want to get rid of a earworm? Try John Cage | Letters

Readers respond to an article by Elle Hunt on the science of unshakeable tunes

I have suffered from constant tinnitus for 30 years, and when it was joined by earworms it became almost unbearable (Tortured by an earworm? How to get it out of your head, 16 December). I read of the “cure” of listening to something else, but all that did was to replace it with something perhaps more irritating.

Then I got to wondering: what would happen if I listened to silence? It wasn’t music, so it didn’t work. But then I began to listen to Cage’s 4’33” – and amazingly, that did work, but not on audio only. I have to watch the music not being played. I have watched versions on the violin, guitar, full orchestra, string quartet, piano – it doesn’t matter which it is because they all sound the same.

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