What can you hear/imagine in your head musically?

[mrhudson]

I'm curious to get a sense of what folks can "hear in their head." There is a lot of talk about perfect pitch, relative pitch, etc., but I'm curious about people's varying skill with respect to "imagining notes and music" in your head.

 

For example, play a note on the piano (or whatever instrument). Close your eyes, hear that one note in your head. Probably not too hard to do for anyone I would hope.

 

But what about moving beyond that? Imagine a C being sung/played, sustain it in your mind, and then layer an E above that. Hear both notes absolutely clear as day in your head, as if two distinct voices were singing it simultaneously - not the interval going back and forth, alternating, simultaneously and perfectly distinct imagining. Can you do that?

 

Well, how far can you take this layering and simultaneous mental/musical imaging? Just curious what other folks can do in this domain - haven't heard as much conversation about this...... In a sense, this doesn't have too much to do with pitch perception necessarily - you can get the required notes at your instrument right before trying - its more a matter of clear, mental recreation.....maybe perfect pitch ties into this, but I suppose one could have perfect pitch and yet not be able to simultaneously layer notes in their mind......

[dkgross]

interesting topic.

 

As soon as I sit down and start working, I hear everything in my head! A lot of times, stuff is totally written, and all I have to do is make my fingers work to get it into Logic.

 

Sometimes just a sound on a synth, or a rhythm pattern, will trigger a whole stream of conciousness thoughts. Since I don't read very well, I don't 'see' music notation as much as I see intervals and shapes with my hands. Or I get a picture of a guitar/horn, whatever, playing the notes I hear...

 

I'd love to know what everyone else sees/hears.

 

Weird Time for the bong.

 

[whospilgrim]

Good topic.

I can hear music that I've listened to 4 or 5 times pretty much note for note and (though this is somewhat unrelated) retain lyrics like a sponge. Creating music is another story...

 

Sustaining a C and layering an E? That's within my ability. I think that's why I enjoy engineering and producing more than performing or creating from scratch.

 

I picked up a book recently that deals with this and many other elements of the psyche in regards to music. It's called 'Psycology of Music' by Carl Seashore.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Psychology-Music-Carl-E-Seashore/dp/1443727121/ref=pd_bbs_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1235750894&sr=8-3

 

I found a paperback copy at Borders for like $20. There's good insights in there plus methods to train and sharpen your music psyche.

[camillo jr]

Very interesting topic! I just read Oliver Sacks' Musicophilia where he discusses this at length. I've always had an ability to hear music in my head and pretty much make it go where I want it to. This helps when I sit down to compose but the funny thing is that what comes out when I'm recording is usually a bit different than what I am hearing. For me it's partly about the tools themselves and it depends on what style I'm writing in. For instance, I can hear pop music or orchestral music but I have a hard time "hearing" electronic/techno kind of things although I really enjoy mucking around with that stuff.

 

One thing I discovered was that if I'm listening to something and then interrupt that and go do something physical, the music continues in my head vividly, much more than usual. It won't be exactly the same piece, just more stuff that sounds like that. It does help if I liked the music to start with. I use this phenomenon sometimes when I get stuck in a production, I just quit what I'm doing and start doing pushups or something. I have to really interrupt the original process, to briefly get my mind right off it even just for a few seconds for this more intense musical hallucination to kick in.

 

When I got Logic, it was the first time I felt like I had tools that could really bring to life the stuff I was imagining. I have so much respect for those guys who used to sit at a piano and write parts for bands and orchestras for tv shows. They just cranked it out without anything like the magic toys that we have today.

[beltauer]

More often than I realize, I'm just dinking around on guitar and a strike a chord that just hits me that day. Often times, a song or melody line spawns from that. I'm big into weird tunings and using a capo on guitar...sometimes Dobro tuning...

[ChicoSatis]

Hi all

 

A very timely topic for me.

 

Just the other day i had written a chorus to a song but for the life of me I couldn't get a nice verse going. Then, while I was in the shower, I was singing the chorus in my head and then out of the blue i created the verse. Of course i ran out of the shower and figured the chords and melody out.

 

In general though Once I get the first chord or 2 and I start developing a melody the rest of it is very cerebral. In other words, I pretty much come up with the melodies and harmonies in my head and figure it out on the guitar as I go. This has gotten easier over the years and has really helped my ears out a lot.

 

OTOH, I have no problem with just messing around on the guitar and see what happens. I resort to this once I get a mental block. I really see music in shapes and intervals, Like DK said.

 

I've been listening to Leo Brouwer lately and 1 thing I LOVE about his music is his ability to take a simple chord, change 1 note of it, and turn it into something unique and beautiful. I've been experimenting with this lately. Taking common chords, changing 1 note and seeing what happens.

 

The more I write the more fun it is to come up with new and exciting ways to compose.

 

HAve good one.

[torsenstarrow]

I can't usually hear things in my head. I think that If i practiced more and wrote more songs I'd be better at it... I think i'm better at just messing around till I come up with something I like. That's pretty much how I write all my songs. Sometimes, but not often I write something and then hear a little bit in my mind of what would sound good and try and play it. I don't know if my situation is a good one or bad.... or just different.

 

Sometimes it's upsetting when you see other people do it so well (ahem my brother) but yeah, I guess it's all about settling down and saying... "this is what I can do" and "this is what I can improve on" and what not.

 

good thread.

[gregaudio]

I have relative pitch and I can compose stuff in my head, with several instruments but I'm not really that good with harmony or too many different rhythms. I'm definitely a bit better with melodies with a keyboard in front of me though as opposed to just imagining it.

 

Since I listen to a ton of electronica I can make up progressive trance/ progressive house stuff in my head that's nearly on par with with professional tracks you would hear (though slightly cliche I guess) but certainly better than anything I can make.

 

I can also occasionally do orchestral scoring if I'm "in the zone" but it's very tough and takes all my focus, plus I don't really listen to much classical at all so I don't really know anything about it. Once I get past like 3 or 4 parts playing different things I get lost.

 

But anyway I've been making a lot of music in my head lately, nearly every day, it's a great way to pass the time and occupies my creativity when I'm not near my computer. And I honestly feel it's what helps me improve the most because I do it more than actually producing music XD

[route-electrique]

I can't recommend this book too much; its f$@%ing brilliant!

 

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v127/amrz1/thisis.jpg

[dkgross]

coool.

[TheCoop]

Ha, well aside from the normal stuff I have Synesthesia (my brain associates music and concepts with images) so I see alot in my head. Different songs or keys will look a certain shade, and the instrumentation will trigger different shapes and images in my mind. Like when I hear guitar I'll kind of the strings and notes, and if it's a "green" song, they'll be green. Also, when the guitars are distorted the srtings get distorted and "thicker", I guess. Same thing with letters and words; each letter is a different color in my head. Until I was like 15 I thought everybody had it! Then I saw a documentary about it on TV.

 

Anyway, since I have this condition, I try to harness it to play better and have better pitch. I'll imagine the image in my head, and sometimes it helps me reach the note! Weird s#!+, huh?

[shivermetimbers]

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_R4bDDgSUj2g/R9DLbk-Ko7I/AAAAAAAAEt4/pu_sPOg-kRM/s400/pd_brain_070428_ms.jpg

 

 

Depending on the rating of the song I am writing ( PG-13, G, R, XXX )

I may get this...

 

 

http://www.toilette-humor.com/images/male_humor/mans-brain.gif

[dkgross]

ROTLFMAO..nice.

[Amber]

I'm left handed and I've read it means I hear music differently. I can hear full songs, parts, guitar tones, ambience, everything in my head and execute it to the point where it sounds the same. Luckily it's like second nature to me.

 

One time, I dreamt of a song (lyrics and all) and hummed the track all the way home (was staying at girlfriend's house) and even remembered how to play the guitar parts from the dream and in the dream I was playing a C as the first chord. Then as soon as I got home and fingered a C chord, it was perfectly in tune with my dream. Some of the songs I've dreamt have earnt me a fair bit of money! Thank you dreams!

[techtrek]

I dream songs. I don't know how long I've been doing it, but the first time I realized I did it was just after an afternoon nap. I still had the hook in my head when I woke up. It took me about a half hour to realize that the reason I couldn't place who'd made it was the fact that nobody had. For me, imagining music isn't an issue. I'm just baffled by how you people remember it.

[zepsun]

I've dreamt songs before and composed them the next day...I love it when that happens. it ends up being the same chords etc...

Apparently, Estranged, by Guns N' Roses was written that way. Axl dreamt the guitar and piano and had to sing the guitar to Slash to get it to sound like what he heard in his dream.

 

The worst is when half asleep, I get these symphonies in my head, these amazing string/orchestral tracks..i hear them...fall asleep and never get to actualize them.

 

I wish there was an neural-electro-pad that you could hook up to the brain, whenever you hear music in your head, it would record it or output it somehow to a physical device. I have forgotten so many, what I thought was, great melodies...then again, apparently if you forget it, it wasn't worth it anyway...lol

 

Another funny thing, ever have lucid dreaming? You know you're dreaming, while dreaming. I have a trigger for it: whenever I'm reading in a dream, it's like I have dyslexia. I can't understand any of the words. I instantly know I'm dreaming at that point. Also if a dream is outrageously scary, I clue in that it isn't reality.

[Burgundia]

I'm a vocalist so my songs always start with snatches of melody, usually wordless, that I rush to put down in Logic (or Garageband since I'm more familiar with it). Then comes the bass line so I won't forget the chord progression.

 

Sometimes everything else comes all at once, full-on orchestrated versions of the song pop into my head and it's all I can do to slow myself down and put down instruments individually, trying to "zoom in" on various individual instruments in the overall mix in my head to see what exactly their notes should be...this is by far the most frustrating way to compose (especially when I can't find the right plug-in or sample).

 

More commonly nothing will come right away so I'll put down some pad strings (also a violinist so I think best in strings) just to fill out the soundscape. Then I'll play the vocals + bass line + strings combo over & over and just let my imagination run wild, finding "gaps" in the orchestration and filling them in as needed...an oboe countermelody, staccato 2nd violins to prime the motor, bass drum for emphasis, etc. I compare it to painting, because it's really the same thing: you find spaces that should be filled, and the hardest part is recognizing which blank spaces should stay blank.

 

For the record I have perfect pitch, and I don't think it has much of anything to do with how I "see" sounds & intervals in my head. The most important thing is that I can translate what I feel/see into the appropriate sounds. Whatever orchestration ability I have comes from my 10 years of playing in youth & community orchestras over the years. With enough exposure to any particular genre of music, certain chord progressions and instruments will become 2nd nature to you and you will start to "think" in terms of them, and other things will sugest themselves to you the more you listen to your work in progress.

[Chipe]

I hear a ton. Its kinda like August Rush for me, without being such a musical genius. I just hear music all the time. I can pick out notes that are played simply because I have listened to songs that had that note in it, an example would be Rachmaninoff's third concerto. the first note on the piano struck is a D, everytime I hear that note in a different song I can tell its a D. It because I listened to that played over and over. Same with Grieg's Piano concerto in A minor. I can hear that note in other songs and know its an A. But as for my own music. I improv a lot on the piano. ONce its imporved I go from there with adding other instruments and orchestrating it. Go to my myspace and the piano songs on there were all improved: http://www.myspace.com/chaseismusic . Those are pretty much first take all the way through. I do have others I am working on that are not so improved.

[Italylionheart]

It seems like you are talking about 2 different concepts: creation and recognition. Perfect pitch is a form of recognition, and it's impact on the creative process is minimal, other than taking out a few steps.

 

For me, the process of creation has more to do with melody and it's relationship to the rest of the composition. The actual pitch of the notes themselves is not something I think about. I already have the voicing of the parts in my head, and I can "hear" what notes they are, but at the time when the idea(s) come, I could not tell you whether it's C or C#. I don't know that until I pick up an instrument.

[timothyallan]

Interesting. I sit down without any idea of what I'm going to make. I don't really 'hear' anything or have that urge to get something down that I've been hearing in my head.

 

I just start with anything and continue it till completion. I have no problem making and finishing tracks at all, and when compared to the previous responses, it reads like I'd be limited somehow. However, I've been releasing about a track or two per month on various labels for the past year or two, so it seems that's not the case. I'm wondering if it has more to do with genres and the fact that I don't make your typical verse/chorus lyrical based music.

[Kent Sandvik]

I had to practice this when I was a kid. No iPods. You listened to an album like Led Zeppelin's Houses of the Holy and then when you worked in the forest with your dad cutting wood you played the songs in your mind's eye. After a while you learned to compose in your mind, as well.

[shivermetimbers]

I had to practice this when I was a kid. No iPods. You listened to an album like Led Zeppelin's Houses of the Holy and then when you worked in the forest with your dad cutting wood you played the songs in your mind's eye. After a while you learned to compose in your mind, as well.

 

[ski]

Great topic!!!

 

Perfect pitch is a form of recognition, and it's impact on the creative process is minimal, other than taking out a few steps.

 

You don't have perfect pitch, as you said, so I don't understand why you would make a sweeping statement about it, and try to trivialize it in the process... Anyway, I'll speak for myself here on the subject of how having perfect pitch is just a weeeeeeee bit more than a parlor trick.

 

To begin with, I hear things all the time in my head, but my fingers also have a kind of 6th sense (a kinesthetic sense) in that they know where to go on the keyboard in relation to what I hear, or, what I want to hear (these are two different things). I can't tell you how many times I've composed/improvised something and then had to learn what I played to refine it, do another take, etc. because I'm not always thinking about the notes. I'm thinking about the emotion, the shape, the gesture.

 

If I compose something and there's something about the notes/chords/shapes that are bothering me, being that I have p.pitch I can isolate the notes that are bothering me and change them. Or I can transpose the part into a key that feels better emotionally or timbrally. Other times I'll hear a chord progression or melody in my head and because I know what the notes are I can sit down at the piano and play it immediately as I heard it, give or take.

 

So while perfect pitch isn't in itself a composing tool, it does -- without question -- play a huge role in helping me identify what I want to play/hear/compose without having to give it much thought.

[Italylionheart]

"You don't have perfect pitch, as you said, so I don't understand why you would make a sweeping statement about it, and try to trivialize it in the process... Anyway, I'll speak for myself here on the subject of how having perfect pitch is just a weeeeeeee bit more than a parlor trick"

 

Parlor trick? I never said (or even suggested) that it was a "parlor trick", in fact, I said it was a type of "recognition", Mr. Perfect Pitch. My statement was about it's "use" or "contribution" to the creative process, which was a factual one. It takes out steps. Maybe you should come down from that ivory tower and stop drawing a line between yourself and people who don't have perfect pitch (and don't care).

[Kent Sandvik]

I had to practice this when I was a kid. No iPods. You listened to an album like Led Zeppelin's Houses of the Holy and then when you worked in the forest with your dad cutting wood you played the songs in your mind's eye. After a while you learned to compose in your mind, as well.

 

 

Hehehe. It helps to be a lumber jack in your youth. Appreciate the easy jobs today. I still think the iPod generation will have a hard time creating the inner space studio that most composers used before the advent of DAWs...

[ski]

I never said (or even suggested) that it was a "parlor trick", in fact, I said it was a type of "recognition", Mr. Perfect Pitch. My statement was about it's "use" or "contribution" to the creative process, which was a factual one.

 

I never said you said it was a parlor trick. But many people do, so I characterized it in the same spirit as I inferred that you were (incorrectly or not on my part). Here's a case where I firmly believe that you can't possibly state "facts" about a particular ability when you don't have it yourself (doesn't make you a bad person tho ). It would be like me stating that with only 6 strings on a guitar, as opposed to 88 on a piano, that your ability to write music is severely limited. Sounds good in theory, but of course it's not true.

 

I described how p.pitch serves me in terms of translating the music I hear/feel. So I'm not sure what steps are missing.

 

Maybe you should come down from that ivory tower and stop drawing a line between yourself and people who don't have perfect pitch (and don't care).

 

Ivory tower? Lines? I don't (and haven't) attempted to distinguish my abilities as being any more capable than yours, or The Coop's synesthesia, as a dividing line between ability and creativity. I hear stuff, I play. I don't know any other way. Please don't twist the description I gave of how I make music into some kind of elitist statement.

[M.DraQla]

For me its about analyzing everything that i take in through my senses. I then try to relate it all to music. I can hear a copy machine pumping out papers and ito most people the rhythm it has would most directly be related to some sort of industrial song being its a machine, but depending on the pace, and how each part is divided sonically is where you can derive the personality of the song. That gives you the infinite amount of possibilities that you need to explore and find the one that best suits it. This is one way.

 

The other way could be most direct, which is to just hear a sound. I could be tweaking around with some synths and come across one particular configuration and get a whole song out of that. Then as im working i usually sprout even more completely different ideas(sonically) but they all have to relate somehow seeing as how they all came from the same sound.

[biff_larken]

Over the years, I have become much better at having a musical thought in my head and bringing it onto the "page" as it were, but my whole problem is having enough motivation to stick to it until the end (even though we all know that there is no "end" to writing a track, just whenever YOU decide to stop). Anyone else experience this? When I'm doing work for someone else, I can get it finished without issue, but when I'm making music for myself, it rarely ends that way.

 

As it stands, I have a TON of demo material. Once in a while, I go back to it and finish off the idea. That is surpemely satisfying, but I would trade that satisfaction, in a heartbeat, for more initial motivation to finish it earlier on.

[cliffm]

I wish I could hear something musically new in my head. When composing, I sit in front of the computer going through sounds. After hearing the sound is when I know it will go well within my composition, then I start working with it trying to find the notes. This is a tedious and time consuming process.

 

I've been able to develop a good ear after many decades of DJing. I can even identify songs that have compatible keys by hearing them.

 

I've been truly writing music for only a few months. Hopefully in time something my writing process will become easier.