I know there are people who can hear a piano score in their mind just by looking at the music. I am not one of those people. I can hear a very simple piece to some extent but it would have to have harmonies and melodic patterns similar to ones I had played before and I would not always be correct in terms of hearing it.

So for those of you who can hear a *piano* score in your head I have some questions:

1. Is this skill mostly due to training( experience, sight singing, ear training, solfegge or?) or is a lot of it a gift?

2. Is what you "hear" the same as what it would sound like if someone listened to a recording?

3. Are there certain composers whose music you find much more difficult or impossible to hear? For example, I would assume it would much easier to hear a Moazart Sonata in your head than a late Scriabin Sonata or Bach Fugue?

4. I know some of the great composers composed at the piano and some did not. But for the composers who did, could one assume they were capable of composing away from the piano but just found it more "convenient" to use the piano while composing?

5. Do you think deaf people who can hear a score in their head hear the same thing a non-deaf person hears?

You may be interested in reading some of the comments here .

I can do this; in my case, I'm not sure it was consciously developed - I have perfect pitch, and I think the ability to hear sounds in my head is kinda related to that.

2. It's not really the same as what it would sound like on a recording; I can't keep very complex scores "playing" in my head without some serious concentration. So it's a simplification - kinda like visualizing a painting in your head without necessarily "seeing" every brushstroke.

3. Being familiar with the genre helps. Also, of course, simple music is easier to visualize.

4. I think it's a different process. I compose both at the piano and away from the piano, and the music I compose at the piano is different - more complex and more "alive". Sometimes it's difficult to fully "visualize" all the implications of a particular chord, or the choice of a particular note.

5. Probably not, for the above reasons.

Mind you, I have never consciously tried to develop this ability in myself.

I hope more people respond to my OP. I think I asked some questions on this topic that were not at all covered in the earlier post mentioned by Akira.

I can hear the music I read as I read it. When I was 8 we were given solfege exercises, where the teacher pointed at the syllables on a vertical chart and we sang whatever patterns she gave us. After that, whatever I heard or sang formed in my mind on that ladder, if you imagine the degrees of a scales as being the rungs. The syllables were the relative tones and vice versa. From there I came across written music. When I saw a run this was a scale, when staircase skips, this was a broken chord pattern - I translated that into all those solfege exercises. I think that's how I came to hear what I saw.

I don't actually "hear" it the way you would an orchestra. It's more like when you remember a song, (I don't think people remember them with actual voices and instruments, do they?). I probably hear one line of music at a time, and chords maybe are more like moods. Most of my life I sang or played single-note instruments like recorder, violin .. erm, classical guitar that's sort of "chord-like".

#3 No, not specific to composers. But music that has structure which has a more traditional structure though I'm getting more fluent in intervals as intervals these days.

Originally posted by pianoloverus:
So for those of you who can hear a *piano* score in your head I have some questions:

1. Is this skill mostly due to training( experience, sight singing, ear training, solfegge or?) or is a lot of it a gift?[/b]
In my case, training and experience - sight singing, much reading, harmony training, composition. Having said that, I guess there was a fair amount of natural aptitude.

2. Is what you "hear" the same as what it would sound like if someone listened to a recording?[/b]
Well, it's not an actual sound - it's an imagined sound.
I don't have perfect pitch, so what I hear may or may not be at the correct pitch. But everything is at pitch in relation to everything else. As for tone colour, I hear it if I concentrate on it, if I'm reading an orchestral score, for instance. Otherwise, it's just general "music" sound .

3. Are there certain composers whose music you find much more difficult or impossible to hear? For example, I would assume it would much easier to hear a Mozart Sonata in your head than a late Scriabin Sonata or Bach Fugue?[/b]
Tonal is easier than atonal. Simple is easier than complex.I might have to put together a complex chord in my head before I can hear it all together.

4. I know some of the great composers composed at the piano and some did not. But for the composers who did not, could one assume they were capable of composing away from the piano but just found it more "convenient" to use the piano while composing?[/b] I assume you meant "for those who did"(compose at the piano). I would assume they could (compose away from the piano), but only because I'm assuming their training would have helped them acquire these skills.

5. Do you think deaf people who can hear a score in their head hear the same thing a non-deaf person hears?[/b]
I have no idea. Are we talking totally deaf? Partially? Acquired deafness? Deaf from birth? Hearing "in your head" is not an actual sound - it's an imagined sound. If I were to become deaf, I could still read and enjoy music I couldn't physically hear.

Thanks for all the answers thusfar. I was especially interested in Currawong's answer that what he or she hears is imagined sound.

I had never realized this idea, but now that I think about it I guess this would have to be true for everyone since there is no real sound to hear. I(and I assume most people)can hear piano works I know in my head (with or without the score).

I don't really even know what follow up questions to ask about this idea, but somehow I find it amazing that one can hear imagined sound. I guess its something like being able to conjure up a picture of a person in your mind.

Pianoloverus, do you hear anything when you read written words? It's like that.

Yes, but I never thought about it before. Is this true for everyone or only relatively slow readers like me?

This is such a weird thing to think about. I always wondered if other people could hear music in their head. I wonder if some people are able to hear more than others. Because it is impossible for us to sing chords, I wonder if some people are only able to hear melodic lines in their heads or if everyone is able to hear the chords also. I know when I focus on a melodic line in my head the chords automatically assume a backround position in my brain.. it is hard to explain because I am not sure how it works. I can focus on both harmonies and melodies at the same time but the harmonies can never overpower the melody in my head.. the melodic line is ALWAYS what I first hear when looking at a score.

This is the first time I've seen anyone actually describe this generic music sound in any way. It's really interesting that it even exists, don't you think? I mean, for one thing, because it isn't the sound of an instrument or voice, that means it isn't a remembered sound. I wonder, have any of those "music and the brain" scientists discussed this in any detail?

There are theories of perception called 'synthetic' theories. They've been around for yonks. Essentially one branch would say that all sound is synthetic i.e. made up by the brain. This imagined sound is then compared to what actually reaches our ears and accepted/rejected. The marvel isn't that we can do this without any external stimulus - the marvel would be if we could actually physically experience the outside world. Again it's the tree falling in the forest thing.

"yonks"? Anyway, thanks, sounds like an interesting area to explore.

Yes it is training. In my case, I compose without a piano, so working 8 hours a day without a piano, towards a score, is perfect training towards that!

Nope, not at all. I realise what I write, or what I see, but simmilar to a normal English text, you read, you understand, but you can't imagine really Brad Pit reading it aloud! (!!!) Same with scores. One can understand what's going on, understand how it will sound, and to an extend imagine, but sounds and timbres become more difficult.

Of course! Stockhausen and Boulez are not the perfect composer samples for such work! On the contrary Scarlati seems more approachable to that end.

Nobody can assume anything about that really. Some people are 'trained' one way, others are trained the other way. No right or wrong really (although I do have an opinion to that).

Deaf as in born deaf, I doubt they can hear anything in their mind. No experience = no pragmatism.

Similarly to a blind from birth person. Can you really discribe to him/her the colour "red"? Impossible, or very very difficult at least.

Some who grew deaf over time could do various things very very well, including composing. I can name two loud examples:
Beethoven and Smetana. Both went deaf after being composers for quite a while and kept on composing.

I find that the above 2 names are just the proof we need that the inner ear can work simmilarly well to the outer one.

That sounds weird to me. I find no difficulty imagining Brad Pitt speaking or any other timbre for that matter. Though Brad Pitt singing...

Originally posted by keystring:
Something weird: When I replay a song in my head, I' ve noticed there are times where I don't actually hear any music but only get the feelings that I experienced when I heard the tune in the reality.

Those feelings are so precise and vivid that they can hide quite efficiently the absence of real music.

Someone else experienced this ?

It's a bit like comprehending an abstract concept before it's expressed in words but applied to musical language. I guess those abstract musical ideas could then be expressed in different ways (like different phrases meaning the same thing).

abminor,

Yes, others have experienced this - and it can be elaborate to include feeling the body movement that goes along with the piece - kind of like creating a vapor trail of music movement.

Thinking about this, I may have been able to do this starting in elementary school when we listened to recorded music in the classroom, and had a big white sheet of paper and color crayons with which to draw what we were feeling on the paper - in circles - squiggles - jagged marks - whatever as an outline, and then got to color them in when we had filled the paper with the musical sketches with one continuous line (black). As a young piano student I would have probably related to this art/music combination with a little more understanding than a student without music structure. I actually enjoyed doing these things. (Conductor movements are fun to use when audiating music too.)

NOT that when I am listening to your "inner tube" you are dancing around physically, it is a inner physical reaction of you doing the musical work as well as hearing it - internalization.

Totally engrossed and entrained in it. Music to my ears.

Also, I don't always hear in piano sounds, I sometimes audiate a piece and hear it in orchestra, or instrument voices, or in voice. This doesn't seem to be a choice I've made, it's a reaction to the contents of the music.

I also think when I am playing piano that I aim for these combinations of sounds, and change them the way you would organ stops (part of my background too, along with string instrument study, and voice training).

This all adds up - along with many other things.

GIA has a lot on its website and catalog about audiation.

Betty

To me, training was helpful, maybe essential. Lessons in "ear training", which consisted in recognizing and being able to hear (an recreate) "intervals" (like fifths, octaves, major seconds, minor sevenths, etc.). It was years later when I developed SOME ability to hear timbres, etc.
Some works are easier for me to hear than others, maybe being based on my training: 18th century harmony, classical, baroque and romantic piano music, etc.
I can explain further, but I want to read other posts first, so as not to duplicate to much.
I will TRY to get back (you can remind me).

I can't "hear" a score in my head, but I "read" the score. That's what I love to do, flip through music like it's a book and "read" the music. I can't hear it in my head, exactly, but looking at it gives me a feel for what is to come.

I'd definitely love to do this, but I feel like an extreme amount of training would be needed in order to fulfill the expectation of hearing a full score.

I have an interesting workbook called The Basis of Harmony, by Horwood and published in 1948. The exercises could probably be considered boring: in the first chapter you are simply combining chords within prescribed ranges according to some rules - not even cadences yet - just to get used to them. But Horwood also wants students to develop audiation. One does not go near a piano (there were no computers in 1948) until after doing the exercises. He writes:

"To make satisfactory progress in harmony, the student should learn to hear what he writes, if he does not already possess that gift. By diligent practice in listening to all musical examples given in the text, he will make consdierable, progress, although he may not be able to hear four notes together for some time. He will ultimately acquire tonal vision[/b] , or ability ot hear with the eye, if he will take the time to sing each note within his vocal range, and ty to hear the soprano and bass together. Later he may attept to hear three or four notes at once, and from this stage of progress it is not difficult to listen to complete chords in succession. All experiments with the eye should be checked afterwards at the keyboard."