Whatever this is, it’s pretty much a constant with me for about 50 years now, brought on by electric fans, rain showers, taking a shower, tires on pavement at some speeds. I try not to let it bother me too much.
In the '80s I worked with another programmer who I am certain wrote certain rhythms, poly-rhythms, and the like into any code which would drive output to a dot matrix printer. That drove me to distraction!
I can attribute the printer-drum line thing to my misspent college years, especially the two years of music theory with the professor’s insistence on “dictation exercises”–he’d play short pieces on piano and we students had to write them on manuscript paper. The four part harmony. The tempo and dynamics markings. The key and time signatures. All of it. Professor was a vicious grader.
Well not so much specific music, but the urge to hum, and sing along was always pretty strong when I’d wear hearing protection and work next to pretty loud and pretty constant pitch CNC router. I think it was just having the router there as a persistent pitch-pipe and being able to hear myself in my shrouded ears (ear plugs and ear muffs) that made the urge so strong. “Do you know the way to San Jose” was always a favorite.
When my furnace is on, I often think I hear faint music coming from a distant room or even from outside the house. But when I get closer to the furnace itself, I realize that it is only the hum of the fan and the flow of the gas. I always assumed it was some sort of pattern-recognition urge by the subconscious.
My earliest childhood memories are of this response to mechanical noise. Maybe this phenomenon is analogous to seeing faces in random visual features? (The brain trying to make sense out of something that isn’t human-related)
I’ve experienced both of the effects described in this thread—music within repetitive mechanical sound, and unintelligible talking within white noise (such as a fan).
An interesting bit of trivia: composer George Gershwin conceived his Rhapsody in Blue on a railroad trip from New York to Boston; he later said that he could hear music buried in the train noise.
Many times you are hearing overtones, and with any sort of rhythm to it, it can sound like music. Music is the sound of pitch and movement (rhythm). So a fan can have that effect or any kind of motor. You can ask an audiologist for the specifics.
There are fans, HEPA air filters I’ve notice that do this, and sometimes simply changing the direction or moving the device in another direction makes the sound go away.
Holy crap, I know this is a zombie but I thought I was going crazy when using the bathroom with the fan on. Other people hear “music” too! It’s not just me!!!
My wife’s alarm tone is a piece of classical music. If the heat pump runs in the morning after I’ve heard that piece I will keep picking it up in the white noise of the pump.