If you haven’t checked out Part One and Part Two, best to do that before you go on.
Let’s give the pencils a break.
Many of you are connecting the dots that I have provided concerning the idea of basic audiation skills. For those not familiar with the word, audiation refers to the ability to mentally hear sounds before they enter a physical realm.
When I say “keep the pencil moving, I mean “keep writing down the sounds you hear in your head” – and that entails audiating.
Anything else is just a poser's creative two-dimensional art.
There are different audiation methodologies that are taught that sequentially develop these skills.
Many music education majors are formally introduced to audiation with Edwin Gordon’s techniques. Some have been exposed to it in elementary, middle, or high school.
It’s best to address this issue before I go any further. Time for a story.
Is it similar to yours?
How I Learned To Audiate
I started to audiating started when I was very young.
To say I was imaginative as I developed into a five-year-old is an understatement. I was constantly drawing, singing, doing puppet shows, and hearing music in my head – in general, deeply involved in imaginative, hands-on play.
From my earliest memories, when I listened to music, I imagined colored lines moving left to right in my mind. Each line represented a different instrument or voice. As the pitches rose or fell, the lines responded like-wise.
I don’t know if anyone talked to me about doing this or if I created this pastime as a diversion like I did with so many other activities as an only child is inclined to do.
By the time I was five, I knew how to operate our turn-table that was hooked to our RCA TV audio speaker. I would put on an album and draw the lines as I listened to music.
I repeatedly listened to something like Leroy Anderson’s “Belle of the Ball”, first follow the flute part and draw their line in blue, move the needle back to the beginning, and then do the trumpet line in red, until I had a mess of colored-pencil lines becoming “my creation”.
These works of art were my first scores.
Even when the LP wasn’t playing, I could hum each of the parts from memory and do a new colored-pencil score of lines that was as accurate as the original.
I believe that the roots of audiation develop much like those for perfect pitch; namely in our earliest years. These foundational skills grow no from a rigid set of rules, hierarchical architecture learning strategies, or “work” but from open-ended cross-disciplinary imaginative play.
While perfect pitch rarely if ever develops beyond childhood years, audiation can.
I had no formal music instruction in my elementary school. In fourth grade, I started my musical journey with trumpet lessons.
I was very fortunate to reinforce these audiation skills as a young trumpet player. I always sang the studies I had to play. I treated it like a game. I loved singing my etudes while fingering the notes to my etudes and Herb Alpert hits on an invisible trumpet.
When I say “sing”, it was more sotto voce rather than full throated singing.
In fifth grade, I found a huge up-for-grabs stack of blank manuscript in my band room and started the habit of writing out my favorite songs, TV themes, as well as a few originals.
(I still occasionally find myself absently minded finger melodies with trumpet fingers.)
In elementary and high school, I usually played second trumpet in band. As I practiced my part, I could always hear the first trumpet part in my mind as I played the second part on my horn.
Melodies are horizontal and while I thought hearing one or two notes simultaneously was easy, I knew there had to be a systematic way to accurately hear horizontally – but I was clueless.
Clueless, that is, until I started playing double bass.
It didn’t matter if it was pop, jazz, or folk mass, when I played bass, I was following vertical chord progressions that were always rising over a line of melodic notes and supported by rock-sold guitarists or pianists.
Playing roots and fifths on bass will only get you so far with a lot of material. I had to learn how to arpeggiate chords in several positions. Listening to the basslines of Paul McCartney, Ray Brown, and James Jamerson were great role models.
I was accurately audiating a cantus firmus double bass on the bottom and a trumpet in the melody over a bed of chords.
Before I knew it, I was able to contrapuntally hear the melody as well as a counter-melodic bassline to songs in my head as I rode the city bus to and from high school.
Mind you, I had no vocabulary for what I was doing.
I was just doing it.
Every weekend, I played double bass in two folk masses that featured some advanced harmonic songs. At times, it was “suggested” that I sing a harmony note to bolster the singers.
I was audiating the melody on top, the bass on the bottom, and my improvised harmony part in the middle.
It was all still play.
In my mind’s ear, I remained shaky on the notes in between. Major and minor, as well as the inner voices) created a different sensation in my mind’s ear while the melody or bass were more visually solid.
Occasionally I would write these things I heard in my head – but I wasn’t driven to constantly write because I could play what I heard and had developed the ability to accurately predict what a line of notes would sound like before I played them.
I was too busy writing out jazz band charts and copying parts, singing them as I reduced pencils to little wooden stubs.
My parents were happy. I at least gave the appearance of being industrious.
They were so approving of my efforts that they bought me the book that I had wanted for a long time: Henry Mancini’s “Sounds and Scores”. I was now able to listen to snippets of Mancini’s work while following the score with detailed explanation of his orchestration choices.
I put almost all high school academic work on hold. After all, I was too busy writing out jazz band charts and copying parts and making those little wooden stubs.
By the time I got to college and freshman year “Music Reading and Ear Training” and music theory class, I was on cruise-control.
Back to the pencils in “The Songwriter’s Notebook: “Keep Your Pencil Moving” Explained – Part Four”.
Let’s give the pencils a break.
Many of you are connecting the dots that I have provided concerning the idea of basic audiation skills. For those not familiar with the word, audiation refers to the ability to mentally hear sounds before they enter a physical realm.
When I say “keep the pencil moving, I mean “keep writing down the sounds you hear in your head” – and that entails audiating.
Anything else is just a poser's creative two-dimensional art.
There are different audiation methodologies that are taught that sequentially develop these skills.
Many music education majors are formally introduced to audiation with Edwin Gordon’s techniques. Some have been exposed to it in elementary, middle, or high school.
It’s best to address this issue before I go any further. Time for a story.
Is it similar to yours?
How I Learned To Audiate
I started to audiating started when I was very young.
To say I was imaginative as I developed into a five-year-old is an understatement. I was constantly drawing, singing, doing puppet shows, and hearing music in my head – in general, deeply involved in imaginative, hands-on play.
From my earliest memories, when I listened to music, I imagined colored lines moving left to right in my mind. Each line represented a different instrument or voice. As the pitches rose or fell, the lines responded like-wise.
I don’t know if anyone talked to me about doing this or if I created this pastime as a diversion like I did with so many other activities as an only child is inclined to do.
By the time I was five, I knew how to operate our turn-table that was hooked to our RCA TV audio speaker. I would put on an album and draw the lines as I listened to music.
I repeatedly listened to something like Leroy Anderson’s “Belle of the Ball”, first follow the flute part and draw their line in blue, move the needle back to the beginning, and then do the trumpet line in red, until I had a mess of colored-pencil lines becoming “my creation”.
These works of art were my first scores.
Even when the LP wasn’t playing, I could hum each of the parts from memory and do a new colored-pencil score of lines that was as accurate as the original.
I believe that the roots of audiation develop much like those for perfect pitch; namely in our earliest years. These foundational skills grow no from a rigid set of rules, hierarchical architecture learning strategies, or “work” but from open-ended cross-disciplinary imaginative play.
While perfect pitch rarely if ever develops beyond childhood years, audiation can.
I had no formal music instruction in my elementary school. In fourth grade, I started my musical journey with trumpet lessons.
I was very fortunate to reinforce these audiation skills as a young trumpet player. I always sang the studies I had to play. I treated it like a game. I loved singing my etudes while fingering the notes to my etudes and Herb Alpert hits on an invisible trumpet.
When I say “sing”, it was more sotto voce rather than full throated singing.
In fifth grade, I found a huge up-for-grabs stack of blank manuscript in my band room and started the habit of writing out my favorite songs, TV themes, as well as a few originals.
(I still occasionally find myself absently minded finger melodies with trumpet fingers.)
In elementary and high school, I usually played second trumpet in band. As I practiced my part, I could always hear the first trumpet part in my mind as I played the second part on my horn.
Melodies are horizontal and while I thought hearing one or two notes simultaneously was easy, I knew there had to be a systematic way to accurately hear horizontally – but I was clueless.
Clueless, that is, until I started playing double bass.
It didn’t matter if it was pop, jazz, or folk mass, when I played bass, I was following vertical chord progressions that were always rising over a line of melodic notes and supported by rock-sold guitarists or pianists.
Playing roots and fifths on bass will only get you so far with a lot of material. I had to learn how to arpeggiate chords in several positions. Listening to the basslines of Paul McCartney, Ray Brown, and James Jamerson were great role models.
I was accurately audiating a cantus firmus double bass on the bottom and a trumpet in the melody over a bed of chords.
Before I knew it, I was able to contrapuntally hear the melody as well as a counter-melodic bassline to songs in my head as I rode the city bus to and from high school.
Mind you, I had no vocabulary for what I was doing.
I was just doing it.
Every weekend, I played double bass in two folk masses that featured some advanced harmonic songs. At times, it was “suggested” that I sing a harmony note to bolster the singers.
I was audiating the melody on top, the bass on the bottom, and my improvised harmony part in the middle.
It was all still play.
In my mind’s ear, I remained shaky on the notes in between. Major and minor, as well as the inner voices) created a different sensation in my mind’s ear while the melody or bass were more visually solid.
Occasionally I would write these things I heard in my head – but I wasn’t driven to constantly write because I could play what I heard and had developed the ability to accurately predict what a line of notes would sound like before I played them.
I was too busy writing out jazz band charts and copying parts, singing them as I reduced pencils to little wooden stubs.
My parents were happy. I at least gave the appearance of being industrious.
They were so approving of my efforts that they bought me the book that I had wanted for a long time: Henry Mancini’s “Sounds and Scores”. I was now able to listen to snippets of Mancini’s work while following the score with detailed explanation of his orchestration choices.
I put almost all high school academic work on hold. After all, I was too busy writing out jazz band charts and copying parts and making those little wooden stubs.
By the time I got to college and freshman year “Music Reading and Ear Training” and music theory class, I was on cruise-control.
Back to the pencils in “The Songwriter’s Notebook: “Keep Your Pencil Moving” Explained – Part Four”.
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