Audiation and how to improve it
Hello everyone!
This is my first post here (I joined the platform about a month ago) so very much looking forward to connecting with everyone. I just recently watched the two live streams about mental practice (one by Nicolas Namoradze and the other by Asiya Korepanova) and noticed how much importance is put into being able to clearly hear the music from the score in your head. This topic has always fascinated me and also caused a lot of frustration so would love to hear everyone else's takes and experiences on this.
I know many people say that absolute pitch is not necessary for any professional musician in the long run, but to me, it seems indispensable to be able to do what those live streams talk about: hearing the music clearly in your head. I don't have absolute pitch but do have decent relative pitch. If I stop replaying a certain musical passage in my head and come back to it after a few hours, I may be able to recall the musical line clearly but have absolutely no way of knowing if the pitch I am hearing is the correct one. In that case, I am forced to go to the instrument and double-check (and in most cases I'll be wrong and off by two or three semi-tones.)
The examples that Asiya mentioned of Mahler hearing the entire symphony in his head before finally writing it all down into the score; how can you possibly do that if you are not 100% sure that the pitch you write is the one that sounds in your head without possessing absolute pitch? Is it really a matter of practicing it over and over until the particular note imprints itself in your mind forever and you can flawlessly recall it? Wouldn't that be a form of learning absolute pitch (which according to science isn't technically possible)?
Not to get too deep or serious, but this topic has been frustrating me a lot since I've really been keen on improving my mental practice and eventually composing. I can't even begin to fathom how I can accurately compose music without the piano nearby. I simply don't know what the pitches are that I hear in my head! Would love everyone's take on this!
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I don't have perfect pitch and have heard from some that it is often a curse as people who do are frustrated when others don't sing or play in the correct key. I know some say different keys are "bright" or "surly" but I am not that sophisticated and can't hear that. If I took dictation in 4 part harmony and was told it was in a different key than it was, would it not be the same song? Of course it matters if you are thinking about singers or different instrument's ranges, but if I audiate a piano piece in the key of A flat minor and it is really in A minor, I am still imagining my fingers being in a flat and would never know my pitch was a half step off. In my opinion the practice would be just as valid. When I was in college and practice rooms were at a premium or (cold winter nights made getting out really unpleasant), I did occasionally practice away from a piano and surprisingly to me, found it quite useful. One can pretty much assume that if I sang it aloud I would have been in the wrong key.
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Alexandr , let me suggest you Chang your approach to using audiation. Audiation is the greatest musical joy you can experience. It’s where all music begins and ends and is essentially the weight lifting of music. Dr. Edwin Gordon developed a complete learning theory approach entirely on audiation. His rhythm syllables are brilliant. Also, the Suzuki method is good to look at. Trust yourself and enjoy.
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Dave B so great to hear others talking about MLT! I started learning about it this year and I’m hooked!
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Paula Alizo What does MLT stand for?
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Steve Simpson Music Learning Theory by Dr. Edwin Gordon. It’s a theory about how we learn music, and there are a few methods developed which apply it, the only one for piano based fully on MLT is Music Moves for Piano by Marilyn Lowe.
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Hi Alexandr-- as Becky mentioned, I wouldn't worry about hearing a piece in your head a step or half-step off of the actual key its written in. And anyway, supposedly A was not tuned to 440 a couple hundred years ago, so hearing it "off" in your head might be closer to the pitch-center of the original! The important thing is to use mental hearing and imagery of playing. As for composing, I think you'll get a bit better over time at knowing what it is you are hearing in your head, coming up with phrases in your head, but I think the composers who can sit with a piece of paper without an instrument and truly write complex music are incredibly rare. Supposedly Prokofiev wrote his Symphony Classique away from the piano. But if Beethoven, Chopin, Brahms, Liszt, and so many others wrote at the piano, why shouldn't you? You're just never going to be able to hear in your head all the combinations of sounds/harmonies you can make at the piano, so you might as well use the piano.
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What I'm missing in the posts above is that it isn't just about pitch. That's only where it all starts. The next goal should be : how do you want the notes to sound, what atmosphere do you want to create, and how are you going to do that. You don't want to make that journey by playing it a 1000 times on your piano!
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This is exactly my question too.Thanks for asking this and all the replies. I am not able to hear the music from the score at all unless I sit at the piano and play it out. Is this a fundamental hindrance to playing higher levels of music (Chopin nocturnes, Beethoven sonatas etc)? and if one does not have this ability innately - can it be learned at any age ? I have heard that it can be taught at a very young age but not later and find it hard to believe that it is true. I have a friend who has this ability to basically call out every note on the piano from a different room if the note is played and he finds it super easy to play -he is also very heavily trained whilst I am not. But the insights from pianists in this forum would be very valuable . If this can't be learned then it is best for me not to spend way too many hours trying to learn complex music and to just stick to some very simple pieces.
