Why we love repetition in music
I heard somewhere - reference long lost, sorry - that repetitive music makes us happy, but <i>slightly unpredictable</i> repetitive music keeps us <i>really</i> happy.<p>It's like the brain has a threshold; under the repetitive threshold is boring, but too far above it is also boring. We need this middle ground where breakdowns or middle-eights or whatever they're called have this magical property.<p>This supposedly explains the popularity of jazz. Which leaves me personally baffled, but there you have it. The sciences!