AUDIATION [excerpt]: the fundamental music skill no one understands

Audiation is understanding music you hear, even if it's music you're hearing in your head. You can learn it, but sometimes music teachers don't teach it. Without it, all the technique, theory, and reading instruction in the world is not likely to stick.
Apologies; the crawl text in this video is not current!
If you would like to watch the complete version of this lesson on Audiation, plus two other valuable lessons, you can do so for FREE with my Genesis Sample course available here: mymusicgenesis...

[@TheCompleteGuitarist]

Audiation is to sound what visualization is to imagery. When you hear your inner voice talking to you in you native language, that is an aspect of audiation. Music and language are processed/generated in the same part of the brain meaning the share a lot of functionality and mechanics.

[@MyMusicGenesis]

Well, it's more than that. We can see something without understanding, just as we can aurally perceive without understanding. Audiation is the hearing AND the understanding. Music isn't a language, but there are similarities in the way they're learned. I do think it's peculiar that as a culture we've decided that pretty much everyone should learn to speak. I think we're all just as wired to music, and one of my missions here is to build the world where music flows as freely as words. Thanks for your comment.

[@afgafg6471]

Audiation is the FLYING ITSELF! Brilliant! 🙏👏

[@MyMusicGenesis]

Thank you, yes! It's the exhilarating aspect of active musicing with understanding. Which doesn't really carry over into the method books.

[@X-boomer]

I have entire rock albums I can play in my head

[@MyMusicGenesis]

That's cool! I can imagine some people a couple hundred years ago having entire symphonies in their head. Just want to point out that audiation wouldn't just be hearing and playing it; audiation specifically includes comprehension. Like, if you're playing it and changing things, that's a hallmark of audiation.

[@X-boomer]

@@MyMusicGenesis I have those too 😀

[@DonovanFarmer]

@@MyMusicGenesis​​⁠Not even a couple hundred years ago. From his Wikipedia page, Arthur Rubinstein “had exceptionally developed aural abilities, which allowed him to play whole symphonies in his mind. ‘At breakfast, I might pass a Brahms symphony in my head,’ he said. ‘Then I am called to the phone, and half an hour later I find it's been going on all the time and I'm in the third movement.’ This ability was often tested by Rubinstein's friends, who would randomly pick extracts from opera and symphonic scores and ask him to play them from memory.”

[@MartinMCade]

I also used to have John Williams's Star Wars soundtrack in my head. I have bits and pieces now. If I know a piece of music well enough, I can hear individual instruments in my mental replay, and I can remix it, or imagine it played with a different instrumentation, or a rock version of a Mozart symphony, etc.

[@MyMusicGenesis]

@@MartinMCade That's awesome. John Williams is incredible. Just want to reiterate that audiation isn't just the mental replay, although that's an important part of it. It's specifically understanding that in terms of patterns in context. There's more detail on that in the second half of this Audiation lesson which you can find at mymusicgenesis.com/music-essentials Thank you!

[@memurphy1223]

O.M.G! Finally! Someone has put into word the frustrations I felt that led me to quit piano - an instrument that I had desperately wanted to play since I was 7. But after - 10 years of piano lessons I quit - thinking that I “didn’t have a good ear for music”. For years I was taught that the black dots in the page WERE music and that my role a a pianist was to translate the black dots exactly. I was pushed to hyper focus on seeing the black dots on the page and linking them to keys on the piano. I was never told to listen to what I’m playing. And if I dared to attempt ti inject any creativity into my playing, I was quickly reprimanded by my teacher for not following the score. Any musicality that i tried to develop was beaten out of me by the relentless clicking metronome and the disapproving glares of my teacher. At the end point I could play Chopin and Beethoven and Bach - provided I had the score and had spent weeks of not months drilling the piece into my muscle memory - but I couldn’t play Happy Birthday. I finally came to the conclusion that I was not a musician or a pianist. I was a typist. And I quit.

[@MyMusicGenesis]

"Following the score." That is such a loaded conception, and you're right! For so many piano lessons it's just assumed that "following the score" is the gold standard for musicianship! Somehow missing the fact teaching reading doesn't result in reading students. It results in demoralized and uninterested students who quit (understandably!). I'm going for a real paradigm shift here which doesn't seem like it should all that revolutionary, but it is! Music is in you. It's that simple!

[@memurphy1223]

@@MyMusicGenesisthank you for what you are doing! You have verbalized everything I thought when I was in piano lesson but couldn’t articulate. And you’re bringing back hope to those who wanted so much to play piano but were disillusioned with their training.

[@petersilktube]

I enjoyed this because it relates a lot to concepts I think about how I learned music as a composer. I've always talked about how my ear guides me in everything I do musically - and by my 'ear' I'm really talking about audiation, I'm talking about my inner musical ear which hears what I want to make. Audiation came very naturally to me because I had and to an extent still have a very good memory for what I hear and was good at doing the same thing with music that I dreamed up myself. Or I guess another way of putting it is that I felt like I was good at internalising the concepts of music theory by listening, before I actually learned any music theory. When I listen to music I wrote at a young age I know for a fact I used cadences of various kinds, secondary dominants, modal interchange, good voice leading and all sorts of other things that can be described by theory. The mistake a lot of online music theorists make is that some of them think that if you don't learn theory then you must be just ... guessing. Stabbing wildly at the keys or whatever until you find the sound you want. But I think from the way you talk about this you must understand that it's not guessing, not if you have inner hearing that you've built a working relationship with and can trust. It's deliberate, but it's just a pure creative mode to be in. Flying, as you put it. To this day, it's the main tool that I use when writing music, even though since the early days I've learned a lot of theory. Audiation has always come naturally to me, translating that into theory has always been a little more work. For me, theory is less like coaching on how to fly, and more like the post-flight debrief. I use it to figure out what happened and find a way to describe that. That doesn't mean I never use it 'in flight', it can sometimes come in handy. Sometimes I realise 'wow, I am so lost here, how am I getting back to the home key, and so I'll think something like - okay, what's the V of where I'm trying to get to. Can I get to the V from here?' and that'll help, or I'll make a conscious choice to add a 7th or something. But it makes up a tiny amount of what I do when I'm in the act of making music, because I believe that my inner musical ear unconsciously understands and absorbs more music theory than I ever will, and if I trust in what I hear in my head, I will make good musical choices.

[@MyMusicGenesis]

So many great points here, and "post-flight debrief" is a great way to put it. Somewhere along the line mainstream music ed got the idea that reading and theory are primary music skills, but they're not! Singing and moving are primary. Reading is useful, theory less so, but if either is taught out of sequence, all bets are off. Attempting to teach theory and reading early in the learn process functionally inhibits students rather than aiding them. Theory by definition is speculative and contemplative. There's got to be "music" heard and understood before that can be useful or even meaningful. Anyway, Music Theory is Lesson 4 in my free Music Essentials course. Check it out! Thanks! Robert

[@MyMusicGenesis]

@@WilsonJonesMusic I don't know if you've signed up for my Music Essentials course yet, but there's a whole lesson in there on Reading Music that you might find interesting and useful.

[@unclemick-synths]

Yep, I have argued with several people who have the fallacious idea that without starting from theory your tunes will be random. I wonder if they have an analogous condition to aphantasia where they are unable to audiate in the way that people with aphantasia don't have access to an inner "screen" to see their visualisation.

[@musicguy3725]

This clicks with me, too. My best audiation occurs when I'm half awake, but still in bed, after a night's sleep. I let my mind go, and hear full, original songs in my head, complete with multiple instruments, and sometimes, even some lyrics. When this happens, I try to get the melody onto my voice memo on my iPhone, so I can try to emulate it later on my guitar. Doesn't always work/translate, but it is a wonderful feeling to hear it inside.

[@MyMusicGenesis]

That's great! I just want to clarify, the lyrics wouldn't be related to audiation insofar as they're not music content. And audiation isn't only the hearing in your head. It's the hearing AND the understanding in terms of Tonal Patterns and functions in Tonality context, and Rhythm Patterns in Meter context. There's good stuff in the second half of this video too in case you haven't seen it yet. You can get it at mymusicgenesis.com/music-essentials

[@xaz7088]

Happen to me sometimes! I can hear new original songs while i’m falling asleep so i can’t never play them again. What an Amazing sensation

[@harrisonbergeron9119]

Was trained in this by my composition teacher for yrs...good stuff!

[@MyMusicGenesis]

Nice! Good to hear about such a useful concept being taught (and learned) more and more. Thanks!

[@camara1194]

Oh wow that’s amazing

[@jimicunningable]

Interestingly, I can only audiation going in instruments I play frequently. No surprise, just noteworthy to me. Interesting vid, ty.

[@martinfinnpiano]

Great video, Robert and badly needed! 😊

[@MyMusicGenesis]

Hey Martin! Thank you so much, my friend! Great to see you on another platform. Feels like when you run into a friend where you don't usually see them. Like, the pharmacy instead of the pub.

[@birdiewritepa5505]

Thank you! This is very helpful. I watched it a while ago but had trouble finding it again. I suggest adding the keywords "rhythm pattern" and "tonal pattern" to your video's description and keywords. Best of luck with your channel! 2:25 Rhythm patterns 2:35 Tonal patterns

[@MyMusicGenesis]

Make sure you subscribe and ring the notification bell. That will make it easier to find my stuff. And I've got a few big video releases planned for the next few weeks...

[@GuitarTraveller]

Great to see this. So much of KZbin re music education is so shallow and mechanics-centric or fantasy-centric. I first encountered Edwin Gordon's work in the mid 80s through Stanley Schleuter's book, A Sound Approach to Teaching Instrumentalists, and it gave me a lot to think about as a teacher. Keep up the good work.

[@MyMusicGenesis]

Thank you so much! I really appreciate it. I agree about KZbin content. There’s a lot of overly simplified content for beginners. And a lot of “shock and awe” teaching from expert players. Not a lot of practical content to help moderately serious learners to learn. Much of the available content inhibits more than it helps.

[@Appak27]

Very excited about this. I hope you are not discouraged by the lack of recognition this content is receiving because its more useful to beginners than the majority of content on this site. Keep it up sir.

[@MyMusicGenesis]

Thanks for that! I go through all sorts of feelings about it. From angry to sad to discouraged to quizzical. Best case is when I treat it as a problem to be solved. Because this really isn't "beginner" material...it's essential material. It's a systemic problem, because I'm aware of the typical music life cycle of the music student. It's not good. But when KZbin only shows the thumbnail to 170 people and 7 click? That's not a problem for me, it's a problem for music. It's a problem for students, parents, adults...the entire culture. But this is what people need so I'm just gonna keep saying it. I'm glad you found it and you're benefiting from it. Thanks again!

[@xFliox]

​@@MyMusicGenesis Don't get discouraged, I believe this is a huge problem that one man can't tackle alone, learning and teaching music the right way is something that I personally also feel called to, because I'm in a place after a lot of years of studying music at the university and all that jazz, were man.. I wish somebody told me this before, and here I am, learning the ways to teach it here to my people (I'm from Chile) And I think that if you are not happy with the views, I personally have the intuition that you are not maxing out the main things to get your videos recommended , like a strong hook with powerfull words (and big captions) and some wow thumbnails.. If you ignore these things don't be surprised, you can reach a ton of people all around the world.

[@minhuang8848]

@@xFliox Yeah for sure, let's not ignore that a thousand unique views is still a heaping hell of a lot more than how many kids you reach in a classroom setting over multiple years. Plus YT, as much as it promotes incredibly popular music content that is borderline misinforming or scammy (I have a couple of names in mind I won't slander in someone's elses comments for now), with very big channels and creators promoting their eartraining courses for triple figures, which you can get better and free with tonedear or similar applets... this platform definitely is still very good at promoting niche content in the long run, just by virtue of whether good content merits views. Now that's fine and well, but I guess "be glad you reach a couple hundreds of viewers with your videos" only does so much when you see people get millions of hits for badly researched essays of very basic musical concept. Who knows, you will find your eyeballs eventually. I know I just found the channel, so I guess something must be happening.

[@MyMusicGenesis]

@@minhuang8848 Well, I just did a big branding change. And this is definitely the best produced video I've posted...so that probably has something to do with it. Glad you found us!

[@danielreynolds8546]

One of the best videos not just for beginners but experienced musicians as well. Really appreciated.

[@giovannipepe5945]

Thank you for this stimulating thought provoking moment during my morning coffee 🙂. I'm now ready for my day ahead.

[@stilllife4u]

So good ,So right . Great music lesson .

[@JohnSandlin-e3j]

When I listened to Happy Birthday in my head, I hear it in my own voice. My eyebrows were very involved somehow, Rising up as the pitch I was hearing went up. Good thing Happy Birthday has such a limited range, I don't need my eyebrows climbing to the back of my head!

[@MyMusicGenesis]

@@JohnSandlin-e3j 😂Cool to notice the physical response, though!

[@naturalsci5712]

That stuff has been always annoyed me all the time in my life 😂 I've been hearing different music (rock, jazz, symphonic, latin and etc) when I had been getting to and from school in a public transport, when I was sitting in my room and so on. Sometimes it was known music, sometimes it was just fantasy. In some ages it was really annoying because I haven't much in controlling that. Now I feel it like a God's gift, understanding that it is not for every person.

[@MyMusicGenesis]

Cool! Yes, for a long time in my life I was looking for some kind of commonality between jazz and classical, and thinking of ways to teach beginning students that would open them up to either of these possibilities or others. I ultimately gave up! I decided that classical and jazz traditions were just too different and that there aren't any commonalities. That was before I learned about audiation several years ago. ANY music can be audiated. And students can learn that skill and use it to improve in whatever specific discipline they choose. I'll differ for you that music isn't for every person. I think it is! In the same way that as a culture we've pretty much decided that talking is for every person. Thanks for the comment. RB

[@LutherBaker]

So insightful! I appreciate this "out of the box" thinking!

[@MyMusicGenesis]

We're building a whole new box over here! Thank you.

[@mahatmadoo2566]

My life revolves in this manner.

[@MyMusicGenesis]

Sounds like a good life to me!

[@reh0119]

I can audiate. I have been replaying music in my head all my life. I don’t have a great singing voice, but I can quickly translate what I hear in my head to my voice. Likewise I whistle all the time. I can whistle something I just heard pretty quickly and I can improvise with a song I am hearing by whistling along with it. But this is my frustration, I have never learned how to do all of that on my instrument of choice. Either I haven’t had a teacher who could impart that skill, or I am missing that part of my brain!

[@MyMusicGenesis]

That's so cool! I'm actually a whistler, too. I whistle all the time. And your voice and your whistle ARE instruments. So I'm not a doctor but I think we can safely rule out that you're missing part of your brain. I'd say you're in a good place! You've been developing your audiation instrument, and now you want to apply that to what we'd call an executive instrument. Another physical instrument to bring what you're audiating out into physical space. This is actually the purpose of my paid course, the Genesis Course. The free Music Essentials course is to set folks in the right direction to learn. The Genesis Course applies those audiation skills to the piano. Actually, it's an 8-lesson course, and the first four lessons are on audiation skills that apply to ANY executive instrument. Lessons 5-8 focus specifically on getting those skills onto the piano. In the future I hope to expand this method to other instruments. But the piano version of the Genesis Course is available now, here: mymusicgenesis.com/genesis-course

[@melmelsmusicstudio1800]

Yes! It was fascinating to learn of Dr. Gordon's work with young children. In fact, he coined "audiation". Great video!! ❤

[@MyMusicGenesis]

Thank you! I talk about Dr. Gordon coining the term in the video. His work with Music Learning Theory is so powerful. I believe it's ready to be a real sea change with regard to the culture and how we learn and use music.

[@melmelsmusicstudio1800]

@@MyMusicGenesis I do as well! I discuss this with my students in a similar approach that you have taken. It's also my way of showing them how important it is to listen to a variety of music to be a well-rounded musician.

[@cafe.cedarbeard]

I do this by natural tendency since childhood. Now 14 years with a jam band that over that time got me tuned to be able to manifest on the spot sounds as part of that group and I can pick up any instrument and figure it out. Sing in any key so transposition in range. Rearrange on the fly is the game at the jam scene. Then in settings with more fine details I find it easy to groove in just about any music habitat. On any instrument I play I can manifest on the spot something musical. The Jazz thing is big with birds and jams where you rarely outside call and response exactly mimic the other musicians, but you signal that you got the message in your own languages and set of possible sound. So is this what you're talking about?

[@MyMusicGenesis]

Sounds like it! Audiation is something that everyone is wired for, and it's also true that some people gravitate towards it with greater ease (or difficulty) than others. It's a skill everyone can learn, though. It's about understanding pattern content in Tonality and Meter context, as I talk more about in the full version of this audiation video available at mymusicgenesis.com/music-essentials . And in my Genesis Course people can learn to use Audiation skills to learn piano. I think on some level audiation has to be happening in order for you to pick up on what others are playing and respond with your own creative engagement.So yeah, this is what I'm talking about. Thanks for your comment!

[@jopberlin]

Great…thx👏👏👏

[@iracasper3143]

Came to the comments to see if anyone else just hears singing, then to take the words away... humming >.> Didn't know I was supposed to bust out the mental orchestra.

[@MyMusicGenesis]

You weren’t.

[@Andysmusicaljourney]

Where'd you get that interpretation? He talks about an audiation instrument in singular = anything you hear in your head. Human voice is an instrument too.

[@score311]

Lots of time on a piano and hearing all the intervals gets me there. I can pick out 9ths and stuff i hear in music now - or hear something in my head, recognize the chord qualities or intervals involved, then sit down on a keyboard and play it.

[@MyMusicGenesis]

That’s good. The problem with intervals early in the learning process is that they don’t include Tonality context. Tonal Patterns do. There’s a section on this in the Music Theory lesson in my free course.

[@score311]

@@MyMusicGenesis Well, I think I do hear that - like, I can literally feel when I play a chord what it will feel like when I go back to the tonic from it - or take a longer more interesting path to get there... it's like an intuitive sense to always feel the tonic at all times. That being said - cool man, I'll take a look at that section in your free course. How do i get to it again?

[@score311]

oh wait. actually looking in the description would help :) thank you!!!!

[@score311]

@@MyMusicGenesis Can you point me in the direction of this to learn more about it please? i am intrigued.

[@MyMusicGenesis]

@@score311 It’s in sections 3 & 4 of the Music Theory lesson. The sections on Intervals and Ear Training.

[@bobc3997]

I can't separate the words from the melody, even when I listen to Stravinsky's Prelude which is based on Happy Birthday.

[@MyMusicGenesis]

As long as you understand that music has tonal content and rhythm content, and meaning of words is outside of that. You can sign up here to watch the rest of the lesson which would help: mymusicgenesis.com/music-essentials

[@camara1194]

It changed my life. I just bought Andy Mullen’s book.

[@MyMusicGenesis]

@@camara1194 Andy’s a pretty swell dude!

[@afgafg6471]

Why (as a middle-aged professional musician), didn’t ANYONE present these concepts to me in all my training???? 😩

[@MyMusicGenesis]

Not to get conspiratorial about it, but that's a great point. I graduated from one of the best music schools in the country (Eastman) and it wasn't until 20 years later that I learned about this. And it was a struggle to find the resources and pursue it. Something about this culture is inhibiting progress in the art of teaching (and in turn, learning), and I'm working on changing that pronto.

[@BenedictRoffMarsh]

Oh hell yes. I didn't know there was a term for this. I try to get people to 'be inside' the music far more than obsess over metrognome or dots on the page. Once it can be felt, it can Become at the hands of the player - just as you remapped Happy Birthday. Thanks :-)

[@MyMusicGenesis]

Agree. Feel it, and sing it! Then the piano can become a tool of our musical expression.

[@ryanedwardmusic]

Fantastic

[@MyMusicGenesis]

Thanks a lot! Be sure to check out the rest of this video and the other lessons in my Music Essentials course: mymusicgenesis.com/music-essentials

[@unclemick-synths]

Audiation has made learning to sight read difficult. I have to practice my sight reading with unfamiliar (or long forgotten) pieces because as soon as my audiation knows the piece (which is often after only a few times through) my ear-playing takes over! I intentionally avoid looking up performances of any piece I am learning unless I'm hitting rhythm issues or I'm ready to refine my interpretation.

[@MyMusicGenesis]

Audiation doesn’t make reading difficult. Audiation is a foundation for reading. If you sign up for my free Music Essentials course (link in description) there’s a lesson on Reading in there, too.

[@areftoo]

Does the audition relate to feeling the music as well, or is it just about recognizing the materials?

[@MyMusicGenesis]

Well, I think the emotional feelings are always going to be subjective. But when it comes to "feel" as in groove, or flow, in time, then yes that is something you can audiate.

[@souldreamer9056]

In my head improvised a 4 part harmony arrangement with brass instruments, then I did it again, but rearranged to Phrygian.

[@MyMusicGenesis]

Changing Tonality context! Yeah! That’s a hallmark of audiation! Like when I change it to Minor in the video.

[@dennisdavis3919]

I have played classical music most of my life. Is audiation the reason I can enjoy a piece of classical music I don't know quite easily, while it's difficult for me to listen even to good jazz, because I feel I lack some kind of context in which to hear it?

[@MyMusicGenesis]

I'm not sure! Sounds like that could be a personal preference. But one thing audiation can do is provide lots of pathways for you to further explore the question. Context is going to be the same for most Classical and most jazz. Is it Major, Minor, or something else? Is it Duple, Triple, or something else? I think there will be a lot of Tonal Pattern function similarities, too. ii V I progressions are certainly common in either. I've actually found that audiation supports noticing commonalities in these two genres. Where for a long time, prior to about 10 years ago, I had decided that they were just too different to compare.

[@davidslee101]

I've been thinking about audiation and whether this skill is really the essence of perfect pitch. I don't have perfect pitch but I have no problem with audiation. I would love to know from people with perfect pitch - when you audiate, do you know what notes you are hearing in your head?

[@MyMusicGenesis]

I don't have absolute pitch but I'll chime in anyway. Absolute pitch doesn't have much or anything to do with audiation. Not sure if maybe I'm missing something. You're saying you have no problem with audiation, and you don't have absolute pitch. If audiation is the essence of absolute pitch, you'd have absolute pitch, right? I think "absolute" is a better descriptor for this phenomenon. There's nothing perfect about it. It's just a thing, and it doesn't really say anything about musicianship. Although clearly for musicians, absolute pitch can be a very useful tool.

[@anxylum]

I hear nothing. I feel my vocal cords tightening where I think they should be if I was singing it, and I try to sort of imagine where the note would be on a vertical scale. But I hear nothing.

[@MyMusicGenesis]

Interesting. What do you think that means? I have many questions! Some of which might be interesting for you to consider, or not. "Tightening" doesn't sound comfortable. "where I think they should be if...." So many qualifiers there! What if you just actually sing it and see what happens? "try to sort of imagine": Lots of degrees of separation from the imagine "the note": A note is a printed thing. What about the sounds? Anything? "a vertical scale": Why a vertical scale? Where did that come from in your training? How is it a useful way to conceive of sound? How is it not? What about flow and movement? Thanks for your comment.

[@anxylum]

@@MyMusicGenesis Hmmm… 🤔 I think of a vertical scale because it makes the most sense as pitch goes up and down. I think of “the note” because that’s all there is. I cannot hear anything in my mind. The only thing I can do is “feel” and what I feel is the “tightening” (constricting, etc… whatever you want to call it that makes your vocal cords make a sound.) “Try to sort of imagine” because I cannot see anything in my mind, but I can sort of imagine that a “note” or pitch or whatever sound is floating in a certain place in space. If I do actually sing something, most of the time, for most of my life, I’m told “you’re doing it wrong”. 🤷‍♀️

[@grunntalll]

as a kid i was able to do it walking home from class every day but then i lost it, idk what happened. now i can only hear more than one instrument if im having a dream. but not just like that

[@MyMusicGenesis]

I don't think it has to be more than one instrument. Maybe the only instrument has to be your mind & body for audiation. I'm not surprised to see this skill fading over time because it's thoroughly unsupported by our current culture. But it is learnable. Or relearnable. At any age.

[@sanjeevsampath]

Explained so well. thank you.

[@MyMusicGenesis]

Glad it was helpful! Make sure to check out the rest of the course. Lots of good stuff in there (and it’s free for now!)

[@jameslabs1]

I'm still deciding about buying your system, but it is interesting. Is you teaching method similar to, “The solfège method or The Nashville Numbering system”? Hopeful Thanks

[@MyMusicGenesis]

@@jameslabs1 Well, those are things, but they’re not methods. But Moveable Resting Tone is a central component of learning audiation. And Nashville Numbers are great for hearing chords in context. So these are both a part of how I teach in the Genesis Course. Try the free Genesis Sample course… those things are both included there so you can see how they work. Thanks!

[@Dupreee360]

I wanna your thoughts about that: somehow, I can "imagine"-I prefer to say "hallucinate" because, for me, it sounds more like what it's about. It is something really dynamic that occurs naturally when I am having this kind of thought. Basically, I can hallucinate a complex piece without any effort; it just magically appears with each note sounding imaginable in a coherent scale and rhythm. It is an EXPLOSION of beautiful and coherent sound, and it is incredible how grandiose the music itself is in terms of possibilities. I change mood, tempo, drama, and connect to piences of music somehow I can not put into words bc I dont have them, technically speaking. A little background: Since I was a kid, I have listened to piano pieces, although I began to play only 2 years ago I am 28y old now. I have good technique, and I attend to classes. For many years I had maladaptive daydreaming, which is compulsively creating scenarios in your imagination, doing all kinds of things, I used to pass to much time alone in my childhood, which is not a problem for me! One of these scenarios involved compulsively imagining myself playing in great concerts and performing all kinds of complex pieces. I did this for many years, and I also used to listen to the piano because I love the sound of the great piano :) I always have. It is sad that I am not capable of translating it to the sheet or the piano itself. :( But maybe if I start to try... The bad news is that as soon as an imaginative session passes, I forget, or it becomes foggy. I just found out this term: AUDIATION. I was practicing a song today and I started to rest a bit and the sound came magically inundating my my with coherent notes sequences. Some of them so complex that I not sure if is even possible to play with both hands. Them it got me: What am I just doing now? What I have been doing inside my mind for all this years, like I cant even count how many hours I spend imagining these. I never have realised that!! How I imagine those many coherent sequences, they all come up from nothingness. I asked myself if it is usual, maybe mostly pianist have this, maybe even non players. I asked on reddit, they gave me a name for that. And told me it is something that really adds in the ''talent'' spectrum. Specially the way I described. Some of the replyers told me to really invest that it could be a gift. Is usual to people do that? How often this happen with musicians and people? What is your thoughts about it prefessor? Could you give me some directions?

[@MyMusicGenesis]

Yeah, I saw your post on Reddit. Since you asked, my first thought is that you might enjoy just using your skill. Sing those songs you're hearing. Move to them. Make them real in the physical world in whatever ways you can. Any sadness you feel about not being able to play them on the piano or write them down in standard notation, will dissipate as you create that music in whatever ways you CAN. What you're talking about might be related to music aptitudes. You asked if it's usual for people to do what you do. I don't know. We all have music aptitudes. Rhythm aptitude, Tonal aptitude, and there are others. Music aptitudes are normally distributed. That means about 2% of people have Very High or Very Low aptitude in one or more of those areas. Including those people, 20% have High or Low aptitudes. 60% have average aptitudes. It doesn't matter what your aptitudes are, as much as it matters what you choose to do with it, and what you choose to spend time with and work on. Since you asked for direction, my thought is: be on the internet less, make music more. The internet has lots of people who are serious about music, and very few people who are serious about helping YOU learn music. For every one good answer you get, you might get 50 misleading ones. Well-intentioned or not. There's just too much "noise." ESPECIALLY ON REDDIT. But your feelings are real. Your music is real. Express yourself. Enjoy yourself. As much as possible. Of course, sign up for my free course. You might find useful material in the rest of the Audiation video as well as the videos on Piano Technique, Reading Music, and Music Theory.

[@canastraroyal]

Great video. Subscribed.

[@MyMusicGenesis]

Great to have you here. Thanks!

[@use0fweapons]

"you learn music by DOING music" please teach this to music critics/journalists

[@MyMusicGenesis]

Not to be pessimistic but it's even worse than that. There are plenty of *music teachers* that also need to learn this! We'll get there.

[@jakeperl5857]

Interesting, I never thought of this as something that could be or needed to be taught just as we don’t need to be taught how to breathe. But I suppose, like breathing, we can always learn to do it better.

[@paulromsky9527]

Great video, gave you a like. Would you say audiation ties in with perfect pitch? When I start to teach keyboards, as my students read a note, and play it, I also teach them to sing out the note name (not solfege like: Do Ra Me, but C D E). This may not lead to perfect pitch, but does involve some audiation. As they sing intervals I help them recognize internals together as a harmony and intervals in succession as a melody. Of course rhythm and meter along with all other aspects of music as well. One of the audiation examples I start with is Neil Young's "Cinnamon Girl", you know, that hook with the twangy single D note melody. Very easy to play back in our heads.

[@MyMusicGenesis]

Thank you! Perfect (I like "absolute" better) pitch doesn't have much bearing on audiation. In the same way that naming a color doesn't have much to do with understanding a painting. Audiation is hearing and understanding patterns in context (Tonality and Meter). As such, even intervals aren't very useful for learning audiation, because they lack Tonality context. I think there's more on this in the second half of this Audiation lesson, so I invite you to sign up on my website to watch that. I hope you find it useful. Thanks again!

[@nickwright8720]

The link to the course says it isn’t a secure connection and doesn’t work. I’d like to sign up please . Thank you , Nick

[@MyMusicGenesis]

Should be working now; give it another shot. Thanks!

[@minhuang8848]

Barely started the video, but huh, never even thought about the particular audiation modalities. I think I mostly hear myself (fairly distinctly so) singing songs, but I can arbitrarily imagine instruments and orchestrations, inversions, harmonies etc. I think most people who can audiate to some degree might be capable of doing this, but yeah... at least for me, I can't remember not being able to just on-the-fly generate melodies and entire songs. I pretty much can entertain myself in my head, song structure and lyrics just aren't going to be awfully coherent. Now getting my head contents to stream directly to whatever instrument I'm playing - that translation step is still a huge challenge for me. Playing or singing just immediately narrows down the choices I feel I have in my head, less so for rhythmic licks and instruments; I can definitely coordinate my drumming better than my guitar playing as far as that is concerned. Gonna continue watching now, but this is probably by far the most interesting topic for me, personally. If you put audiation or ideation into your video title, I'm gonna click it.

[@minhuang8848]

as for defining audiation at 4:40: audiation then arguably is kind of like the latent space of your personal "musical" experience and how you traverse it. Maybe with some sort of heatmap of familiarity we imagine overlaid on top, describing which musical patterns and ideas we're most familiar with versus the ones we're least familiar with (at some arbitrary threshold, at least). The flying analogy definitely tracks for me.

[@MyMusicGenesis]

Awesome! Yeah, my paid course goes into translating audiation skills on to the piano. The free Music Essentials course is more a broad (but detailed) overview of Audiation, Piano Technique, Music Reading, and Music Theory. Audiation is totally a learnable skill. imo it'd be best for students if it was taught as a fundamental skill. Instead it tends to be treated as this vague mysterious thing that doesn't get much attention.

[@DavidBadilloMusic]

I completely identify with "I can entertain myself in my head". That's how I passed the time while working on monotonous jobs before iPods and iTunes existed.

[@paulromsky9527]

I don't know about you, but sometimes when I play a complex lead, I tend to "visualize" (and hear) the notes in my head, it helps me to play the riffs the same way each time. I even sometimes move my mouth as if I am vocalizing the notes as I play. It looks kinda "showy" - that is not my intent - but it helps connect my mind to my fingers through the sounds I want to play. Would you say I am using audation when I do that?

[@MyMusicGenesis]

I don't know if I could answer that! For me the coolest thing about audiation is that it's yours. (and mine) The way YOU understand a piece of music is yours so I don't know that I'd be able to tell you if you're using audiation. One chief factor of audiation is being able to change things. If it's Major, make it Minor. If it's Duple, make it Triple. Or vice versa. If you're improvising, that's a hallmark of audiation. Again, check the rest of this Audiation lesson on my website, because it covers some of this. Not sure exactly what you mean by visualize. Sounds like you possibly mean visualizing the keys? If so, that might be useful for technique, but it wouldn't be audiation. Since audiation is by definition "hearing" (with understanding).

[@leechild4655]

I was considering this idea when playing guitar the other day. instead of just playing away and hearing what you`re playing, imagine you are listening to something and you just take a few notes here and there. You are sitting in silence a good bit but, your still `doing music` I guess the opposite of the ol, playing without thinking. what about a lot of thinking and less playing?

[@MyMusicGenesis]

I love that. And it's very wise of you to notice that "players" can and should be "listeners," too while they're playing. And that idea of sitting in silence is also a powerful antidote to the urge to overplay, and not giving listeners a chance to think on what they're hearing. I think you're on to something. Thinking is good. I just want to add that "thinking" in music isn't intellectually working out theory while playing. Thinking music is its own thing, which is why audiation is such a useful term that loses its usefulness when it's misused. Thus this video! Thinks and thanks for your comment.

[@leechild4655]

@@MyMusicGenesis Right. Think of some musical sounds not thinking in terms of theory, though that could be part of it. really its just thinking in terms of general ideas of some musical idea.

[@lawrencetaylor4101]

Merci.

[@julieanderson100]

I heard it in the same key as you played it.

[@MyMusicGenesis]

Interesting! I think I play it in a pretty commonly used key (did I play it in F?); F Major makes the range an octave C to C, which is about the best fit for general use. So maybe you're remembering hearing it in that key. OR, maybe that's a key that's personally good for you to sing it in, so your brain puts it there automatically! Interesting possibilities. Or it could just be coincidence but that's not very likely, statistically speaking.

[@mybachhertzbaud3074]

I heard a synthesizer played by Bully Preston and the voice of Marilyn Monroe.😜🎶🎹🎶Play On

[@MyMusicGenesis]

Pretty cool! I'd like to hear that!

[@sarthak340]

wow very nice video! i have a question. is it important to sing in tune? whats sining in tune anyways?like matching the pitch? but how do you know you have matched the pitch?

[@MyMusicGenesis]

Thank you! "Important" is a relative term but yes I think intonation is fairly critical. Matching a pitch might be part of it, but that also sounds like turning it into a test which (seems to me) removes it from the realm of musicality and probably won't ultimately be very helpful. It's more about how pitches function. Where they come from and where they're going, and how that works in context of a Tonality. There are some sophisticated ways of helping learners learn to hear and vocally produce Tonal Patterns. Teachers who have taken training in Music Learning Theory will be familiar with these approaches. Personally, I've had really magical successes with these activities in my home studio over the last several years. Students who would commonly be described as "tone-deaf" [not actually a thing] have found their voice. It's one of the most gratifying things I've experienced. Recording oneself and listening back can yield useful insights. Stay curious! My paid course (available on my website) includes training in singing with Tonal Patterns, and then bringing that understanding to the piano. So that could be helpful, too. Try it out! Thanks for your questions.

[@acceptances]

It seems to me that audition isn’t an instrument, it’s what *every* instrument is for. A surgical instrument manifests the surgeon’s ideas and intent in the world, musical instruments are the same for musical ideas and intent. Those ideas and intent are audiation.

[@MyMusicGenesis]

imo conceiving of an "Audiation instrument" is useful, as it's a learnable skill. It's malleable and directable. It's an effective framework for music classes and lessons, to learn the audiation instrument and the executive instrument(s). The instrument is your mind and body. I would think of an idea or intent as fixed. Something that exists. Whereas audiation is a process. Although I have heard some people (maybe including Gordon?) use the word "audea" as a musical analogue of idea.

[@stephenlupoli]

Audiation, not audition.

[@donindri]

I hear me singing da te da da da data, and someone telling me to shut up! Need to know more about what you’re selling before I visit any websites.

[@MyMusicGenesis]

This lesson excerpt is from a free course called Music Essentials. The Music Essentials course is designed to set you up to maximize your music learning wherever you get it. I’m selling another course called the Genesis Course. The Genesis Course is an applied method where you take what you learn from this Audiation lesson and learn to apply it to the piano or other instruments.

[@thomassicard3733]

I heard the notes, the rhythm, the words... I heard it all. 'Audiation'... hmmm... Are you talking about how the human ear/brain experiences music/sound? Fancy name!!! Experience: you listen.

[@MyMusicGenesis]

It’s more than listening although listening is an important part of it. Check out the rest of the video.

[@edwardmorris3453]

I heard a bunch of people singing it, mostly out of tune.

[@MyMusicGenesis]

How did you know what “it” was

[@edwardmorris3453]

@@MyMusicGenesis I don't understand the question. "It" refers to the Happy Birthday song.

[@floriszoet458]

Since it was out of tune ​@@edwardmorris3453

[@floriszoet458]

😂

[@floriszoet458]

​@😂MyMusicGenesis

[@MrMikomi]

One can't internally "get" harmony unless and until one can play a polyphonic instrument (typically the piano or the guitar). Expecting "audiation" to precede that is wildly unrealistic.

[@MyMusicGenesis]

Wildly unrealistic? Really? It should be pretty apparent that harmony existed before pianos and guitars. You’ve got this backwards. The results of trying to teach polyphonic instruments first and expecting students to learn music from those instruments, are abysmal.

[@MrMikomi]

@@MyMusicGenesis I don't have it backwards at all. And please re-read what I said, and didn't say. I didn't say that harmony didn't exist until the piano (in whatever form) and guitar were (for want of a better word) invented. "Getting" harmony means understanding what cadences sound like, or more broadly, progressions, and how they work with melody, how it sounds when you use inversions, how it sounds when you use bass inversions, how it sounds when you use extensions, how it sounds when you change the harmonic rhythm, how it sounds when the melody is in or not in the chord, and a multitude of other things. I say again, unless one learns a polyphonic instrument, one cannot "get" harmony. One can include a choir (i.e. being its choir master) as a polyphonic instrument if you really wish. I myself spent years learning the violin; I did pretty well for an average person who didn't particularly like the instrument. I had to learn cadences for my grade 5 exam - my first navigation into "harmony". I struggled with even that, which I now consider to be rudimentary. It was only when I started piano lessons that it instantly started to make sense. These days you can use a DAW's "chord helper" functionality (they presumably all have such functionality; I use Cubase and that has it) to suggest chords. In a sense one can play with those chords as one would if learning the piano, and gain some of the insights therefrom. Regarding your last sentence "The results of trying to teach polyphonic instruments first and expecting students to learn music from those instruments, are abysmal." that is quite puzzling; almost (with respect) nonsensical. The results of expecting students to learn music when learning a musical instrument are abysmal? Do you mean students who only learn classical i.e. who some say somewhat disparagingly only manage to read (and play) dots on a page?

[@MyMusicGenesis]

@@MrMikomiI mean to say that most students who enter instrumental lessons, do not leave those lessons with functional skills. My intention is to help students hear and understand harmony for themselves. So they can operate their DAW, and not need a “chord helper” to tell them what to play. Beyond that, you might appreciate the further context provided in the rest of this lesson and the others available at mymusicgenesis.com

[@MrMikomi]

@@MyMusicGenesis That makes sense. ATB and good luck.