Audiation – It’s All In Your Head (Inside The Book)

Did you know there’s a musical skill which everyone can already do, and yet only a tiny fraction of musicians are actually intentionally using it daily… even though it’s a massive booster for your musicality and all your music learning!

In this episode, we’re going to peek inside the chapter of the new musicality book to reveal what that skill is and what it can do for you.

So I just realised I forgot to take down my sticky whiteboard.

I have this whiteboard stuck to the wall. It’s this special paper where you can basically make a whiteboard anywhere you want to. It’s my favourite thing! And any time we’re deep into a big project here at Musical U, I tend to have these whiteboards plastered all over every wall of my office with various things scribbled on them.

But if you can see it there, that’s actually the one for the musicality book. So on there are listed all the remaining bits and pieces that need to be done for the book, like final editing passes and diagrams that are still missing, and formatting and layout and all that stuff. We have the cover now, which is exciting, and we’re just doing the final bits and pieces. So there’s a bunch of tasks there, and then there’s all of the launch activities building up to the release in September. So just kind of laying out everything that is still lined up to be done.

And actually, that reminds me, there’s one thing I really could use your help with. In that list that a list of launch activities. I really want to do a new interview series to celebrate the launch of the book.

And what I want to do is bring in experts on everything covered in the book. So obviously, like the book represents our canonical information, expertise, wisdom, knowledge, techniques, all that good stuff from Musical U on each of these topics.

But if you know us, you know one of our four pillar beliefs is “Better Together”. And part of that is this principle of collaborating with other music educators and making sure we’re bringing you not just our stuff, but the very best stuff from anyone who could help in your musical journey.

And so in that spirit, I really want to bring in a whole host of people on each of these topics and talk with them about those topics and get their take on the book and ask what they would add or change or suggest or compliment with what we present.

And anyway, I would love your help with, I’d love, love, love your help with who I should interview. So, as you can imagine, we’ll go to our friendly faces on a lot of these topics. The people we know and love in the music education world, but we can.. I’m going to talk through the chapter list in a second. And as I read through these topics, I would love you to just think about, like, who would be the person you would most want to hear me interview in depth on that topic?

Let’s jump over to the document.

There we go. So we’ll dive into the chapter in just a minute, but just to give the lay of the land, give you orientation, the book is split into three parts.

Part one is all about foundational skills. Part two is kind of core listening skills, and part three is applied uses of those skills.

So to go through in detail, part one begins with talking about what is musicality, what does it mean to become more musical? Then we talk about musical mindset, these ways of thinking that we found can really be the difference maker for any musician. Today’s sneak peek chapter, if you didn’t guess already from my teasing intro, is going to be on audiation. Then we already had a couple of inside the book episodes on singing, which is a biggie, a real foundational skill for us here at Musical U. Active listening, so can you analyse and dissect and really pick apart music when you hear it? And then practice and superlearning, all of the accelerated learning techniques that we cover in things like our super learning practice plan that can let you get more out of every minute you spend learning music.

So that’s part one. And those are kind of the foundational skills, which then are woven throughout all the rest of the book. So once you’ve got those things kind of in your toolkit, you can have much more success with anything else you apply yourself to in music.

Part two is focused on ear training, so it opens with a chapter on ear training, comparing the kind of traditional approaches with the integrated ear training method we use here at Musical U. Then a few chapters on relative pitch. So an overview chapter. And then we cover three types of building block for relative pitch: solfa, intervals, and chords and progressions. Then a couple of chapters on rhythm, often overlooked in ear training and developing your instinct for music, but a really significant one.

And then in part three, we take all of those foundational skills, all of those ear skills, and dive into things like improvisation, playing by ear, songwriting, expression, and performance.

So as I went through those, did anyone pop into your mind? Like, who would you love to hear me interview on singing or on relative pitch? Or playing by ear? Who would you love to hear me talk to about performance? And I want to put together a really great interview series, so please do put your ideas in the comments or send an email to [email protected] and I would love to hear your suggestions.

So on to today’s chapter. I’m going to read through just the beginning bit of our audiation chapter, and hopefully, depending on how familiar you are with this concept, this could be kind of mind-blowing for you. If you’re one of our members at Musical U, you’ll be familiar with the idea. You might have put it to use already, but hopefully this will really flesh out what it is, why it matters, and what it can really do for you in your musical journey.

So, audiation.

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In this chapter we’ll cover a core skill which permeates the entirety of your musicality. It’s a skill which many overlook and most don’t think to actively develop.

Yet the more you improve this skill, the easier and more effective all of your musicality training will become. Audiation is a word originally coined by the music education pioneer Edwin Gordon as part of his Music Learning Theory approach. Within that system, it has a precise technical meaning.

However, it has also come to be used more informally, synonymous with auralize and meaning simply to imagine hearing music in your head. At Musical U, we use this more informal definition because it provides a useful catch all for this broad and versatile skill.

So what is audiation? Simply put, audiation is the ability to hear music in your head, sometimes called inner hearing or hearing in your mind’s ear, analogous to seeing in your mind’s eye.

It’s the aural equivalent of visualisation. And just like visualisation, there is a whole spectrum of ability levels from being able to conjure up only very basic imagined sounds through to a full rich playback in your mind.

Unlike visualisation, there is also a time component to audiation. As we’ll be exploring below, one aspect of your audiation skill is the length of a musical phrase or excerpt which you can comfortably conjure up. This is closely related to your musical memory.

Another useful way to describe audiation is “thinking in sound” or “thinking in music”. Just like with spoken language, there is an imagined equivalent: hearing words and sentences in your head as you think.

We can develop the ability to think in music by hearing it in our mind on demand. Below, well look at the benefits of audiation and how it connects to various other musical skills and activities, with a particular highlight on singing. Then we’ll explore some ways you can assess and actively develop your audiation abilities.

Audiation is a powerful skill to develop, but it’s important to know this isn’t a new skill to learn from scratch. In fact, you already audiate frequently! Any time you get a song stuck in your head, or you remember a song in your mind, or if I asked you to, imagine how “happy birthday” goes. As soon as you can hear music in your head, you are audiating.

So although we’ll be covering lots of ways to improve your ability to audiate, don’t feel intimidated or overwhelmed at all. It’s an ability you already have. We’re just looking to refine and extend it.

Developing your audiation has a positive effect on a wide range of musicality skills, and it can significantly increase your overall enjoyment and appreciation of music. Although we’ll be making plenty of concrete suggestions for incorporating audiation into your musicality training, for example as part of our Listen-Engage-Express framework for playing by ear, it’s valuable to keep in mind that audiation is so fundamental a part of your musicality that it can and should be part of almost every musical activity you do.

That’s why we’re featuring this chapter so early in the book. The more you become aware of the role of audiation and the more you develop your audiation abilities, the more you’ll see it is relevant and involved throughout everything you do in music. So even though we’ll cover some specifics below, please keep in mind that there are no fixed and firm boundaries to audiation.

Benefits and connections

Musical memory

An easy way to start thinking about and developing your audiation skills is with musical memory. Think of a piece of music you’re learning to play or just your favorite song. Stop reading or listening for a moment and see if you can conjure up that music in your mind now.

Can you hear how it goes? How much of it can you remember? How vividly do you hear it? For example, do you hear just the rough shape of the melody? Or do you hear a full, detailed musical arrangement when you’re just starting out?

Don’t be discouraged if you find your musical memory is surprisingly lacking. It can be a shock to realize that a piece of music you thought you knew well is actually quite difficult to play back in your mind without looking at the notation or having heard a recording of it recently. On the other hand, you may find that there are certain songs or pieces that you have a clear mental imprint of, and you can press play in your mind and hear it almost as vividly as if you were listening on headphones.

Musicians often worry about having a “bad musical memory”. We’ll be covering memorisation in detail in the chapter on practice and superlearning, but for now, it’s helpful to note that memorising how to play music is distinct from memorising the sound of the music.

Improving your audiation, and improving your musical memory go hand in hand. And even if your focus is remembering how to play the music, you’ll find that having a clear, detailed, reliable “mental representation” of the sound of that music is actually a huge component of being able to remember how to play it. More on this in the section on mental play below.

Musical imagination

Your ability to conjure up great-sounding music in the world depends entirely on your ability to conjure up great-sounding music in your head.

Footnote: at least it does if you’re following an improvisation approach which focuses on bringing the music out from inside you, like the Expansive Creativity framework you’ll learn about in the chapter on improvisation. There are other methods which rely on memorised vocabulary and strict patterns and can operate with zero audiation. However, for that very reason, these approaches tend to produce limited, robotic, generic, and same-y sounding improvisation. More on that in the improvisation chapter.

Audiation can be used purely to play back existing music you’ve heard or played. However, it can also be usefully combined with creativity frameworks, providing you with a kind of musical playground in your mind where you can experiment with new musical ideas.

Again, the language analogy is helpful here. Sometimes we do speak without thinking first, but can you imagine being able to speak a language without the ability to form sentences or think of words in your mind? Even if we’re not preparing sentences and hearing them in our head before speaking them, it’s clear that the ability to conjure up original sentences on the fly is directly dependent on our brain’s ability to imagine language and think in words. Similarly, if you want to be able to express original musical ideas out loud, you’ll want to develop the ability to create original musical ideas in your mind first.

Relative pitch

This connection between being able to remember music and being able to audiate it easily and vividly also has implications for skills like playing by ear and improvising.

To put it simply, it’s hard to play a song by ear if you can’t actually remember how it goes! It’s also really powerful for your sense of relative pitch, because when your ear is trying to figure out the distances between notes, a lot of what you end up doing is kind of mental gymnastics and imagining oh, is it this interval or that interval, this note or that note? When we talk about improving your ability to audiate, one major focus is the accuracy of your sense of relative pitch in your mind.

This is a topic we’ll cover in depth later in the book, but for now just be aware that your ability to judge the pitch distances between notes in music, called relative pitch, is crucial, and it all starts in your mind. The more accurately you can hear the notes and their relationships in your mind, the easier it will be to process and recognise them when you hear them in the real world.

For example, a lot of musicians think they can’t sing because when they try, the pitches don’t come out correctly. Often it turns out that their ability to match pitch and their vocal control (covered in the next chapter) is actually fine, but they don’t have a clear mental representation of the pitches they intend to sing, meaning they can’t audiate the melody.

This is a bit like trying to hit a bullseye without having a clue where the dartboard is! You can have the best aim in the world, but if you don’t actually know where the target is, of course you’re going to struggle.

Which leads us on to…

Audiation and singing

Even if you don’t consider yourself “a singer”, there is nothing that compares with how directly singing is tied to your sense of music and your ability to express yourself musically. That’s why we’ll be devoting a whole chapter to the topic.

When it comes to audiation, singing has a particular significance. Singing and audiation are really two sides of the same coin. Audiation can be seen as singing in your head and singing can be considered audiating out loud.

Just like audiation, singing can become a kind of universal master tool which you can apply in a wide variety of musical activities to help you better learn, improve and perform. We’ll be exploring the connection between singing and audiation more in the chapter on playing by ear and looking how exactly you can use the two together.

In short, you can think of both as singing stepping stones between the music you have inside and the music you express outside.

So even if right now you have no desire to sing in front of anybody, the combination of using audiation and using singing as ways to better process, understand and express music is something you will wonder how you ever did without.

Audiation bridges ear and instrument

For a musician who has been focused exclusively on the Hands part of their H4 musicality (meaning Head, Hands, Hearing and Heart), one huge step forwards is starting to make connections to their Hearing.

This can mean learning to play by ear or improvise, but it can also be as simple as starting to make sure you actually really learn the sound of each piece you play, not just the instructions for which buttons to press when on your instrument.

There are a couple of simple exercises shared below to help you get started with this. You’ll find it makes a remarkable difference to have a vivid mental representation of the music you’re playing, that is, the ability to audiate it well. Suddenly it becomes easier to memorise, easier to play, easier to be expressive with. You’re actually getting inside the music rather than just reproducing notes robotically. It all starts with audiation.

Audiation bridges sound and notation

When you develop your audiation in tandem with the relative pitch and rhythm skills covered later in the book, you develop the ability to look at written notation and immediately hear in your head how it should sound.

This is particularly exciting for singers who can begin to sight-sing music they’ve never heard before. It’s also exciting for instrumentalists, since you no longer need to play through a piece dot by dot to find out how it sounds. You can simply look at the page, hear it in your mind, and know exactly what you’re aiming for when you pick up your instrument.

This connection works the other way around, too. When you develop both your audiation and your mental models of pitch and rhythm, you’ll be able to hear music in your mind, whether you’re remembering something you heard or conjuring up something new and write it down in notation without needing to hunt and peck for notes on an instrument first.

Audiation boosts enjoyment and creativity

As with so much of musicality, ultimately it all comes back to enjoyment. Improving your audiation to the point of having a really vivid musical imagination allows you to hear beloved pieces almost as if they’re playing back in your mind. This brings music to life and enhances your listening experience.

We’ll be exploring the skill of active listening in the dedicated chapter, and it’s another skill which is intimately tied to audiation. The more vividly you can imagine music in your mind, the more alert you’ll be to details in the music you hear and play. Likewise, the more sophisticated and detailed your appreciation of music you hear and play, the easier it will be to hear those same depths and details in your musical imagination.

You’ll find that audiation becomes a really great way to assess your active listening abilities, and vice-versa, simply by checking, can I play back in my head everything I think I heard?

This also has a clear knock-on effect to your musical creativity. The more restricted your musical imagination, the simpler your musical creative output will be. The more sophisticated your musical imagination becomes, the easier it will be to create rich, varied, and interesting music yourself.

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So that’s the beginning of this chapter on audiation. From there, it goes into defining three levels of audiation ability and then presenting a bunch of different exercises and activities you can use to gradually develop your audiation skills more and more.

So it’s a really crucial chapter because this is, we all do it a little bit in some way, day to day, just hearing music, remembering music. But when you really develop it, you really cultivate it and you integrate it into all of the other activities we cover in the book. It’s just, it’s one of those mastertools that really amplifies and accelerates everything else.

So that’s that chapter. As I said, it goes on to define the three levels and present you ways to develop your audiation skills. And I’m so excited to get this book into your hands and you can dive in and try these things for yourself and develop these skills.

Do remember to share your interviewee ideas! Like I said at the beginning, I want to do an interview series on all of these topics, so I would love to hear from you in the comments or an email to [email protected], who should I interview on all of the topics covered in the book? Who would be your dream interviewee to hear on the show?

I’m excited to get back to some of those longform interviews that you may know this show was based on. The first 200-plus episodes, a lot of them were in depth interviews with world leading experts and I’m psyched to get back into the swing of that and bring some incredible people to you on the show.

That’s it for this one. We’ll be back on Saturday with our next Coaches Corner episode.

Until then, cheers! And go make some music!

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