Melodies Familiar to the Australian Population across a Range of Hearing Abilities

This study aimed to identify a small set of melodies that were judged as most familiar by the Australian adult population. Responses were obtained from a questionnaire completed by 88 men and women (49 with normal hearing or mild hearing losses, 14 hearing-aid users and 25 cochlear implant users). The questionnaire listed 57 potentially familiar melodies. For each melody, respondents were asked to indicate if they could recognise the name of the tune, recognise the tune if it were played to them, or sing that tune "in their head". After analysis of the responses, short lists of familiar melodies were compiled for each of the three participant groups, as well as for all respondents. The results showed that "Happy Birthday", "Jingle Bells", "Silent Night", "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", "Waltzing Matilda" and "Old MacDonald" were consistently judged the most familiar melodies, both within each of the three participant groups and overall. Further analysis revealed that the cochlear implant users reported being able to sing tunes "in their head" more than they could recognise them aurally, whereas the results of the normal hearing or mild hearing-loss group showed the opposite pattern.