# About "hearing" the score in your mind.



## helpmeplslol (Feb 1, 2014)

This is one of the few places on the internet where you can ask this, so here I go... 

When you read a score (in silence), can you imagine the sound of the music?
If yes, to what extent/ how vividly (esp. regarding timbre)?
Did your ability arise as a side-effect of instrumental training or did you specifically seek it out (how)? Describe the nature of your subjective perception of the inner sound, if you please. :tiphat:

I'm interested in this because I don't have this ability to a great extent, but I analyze music as a hobby, and imagine it would open some options for me.


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## Matsps (Jan 13, 2014)

> When you read a score (in silence), can you imagine the sound of the music?
> If yes, to what extent/ how vividly?


I could hear the rhythm, unless it's really crazy and a simple melody, but complex melody, multiple voices or almost any kind of harmony beyond the most basic of basic, the piano really needs to get pulled out for me to hear the music.


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## helpmeplslol (Feb 1, 2014)

Same here, Matsps. Hoping I can get more responses on this.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

When I read an orchestral score, I concentrate more on the structural details and orchestration and to get the big picture of the piece. I can "hear" some of the parts. My "hearing" is more focused in some actual parts or combination of parts. For the general, full, sound, only a rough image (even more if we are talking about something modern). But I found this more than enough for my purposes. I know this is a little vague, but I think a lot of different things when I'm reading a score, not only in the "actual" sound of it... and this is precisely because it is the score of the piece and you can analyze then different aspects of the piece that would be more difficult just by hearing the piece.
I guess the "just" hearing is to some extent related to the ability of sight reading, but more easy since you don't need the motor part of also having to play it!.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

It depends on how familiar I am with it. Like the Beethoven symphonies, sure; I've heard them a million times. But I'm looking at Goldmark's Rustic Wedding Symphony score, which I've never heard. I can follow the melody, but all the tone colors and counterpoint, that's more of a stretch.


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## Guest (Mar 3, 2014)

To a greater and lesser extent, yes. If I'm familiar with a work (let's say Beethoven's Eroica, Bruckner's 4th or Arvo Pärt's _Fratres_, to take just three examples), then I can pretty much hear 'everything' that's on the page with my 'inner ear and eye' combo. What I wonder about that sometimes is am I really recreating the score from scratch with my inner ear or replaying the latest performance (live or CD or whatever...) of I what I happened to have heard more recently.
When presented with a totally new work (from whatever era) that I have never 'physically' heard before, it depends on the complexity. For example, I can pretty much 'hear' any of the Bach '371' 4-part chorales and early classical style string quartets. When it comes to symphonic music, my inner ear slows down considerably, and I tend to focus on the string parts to get a general 'idea' of how the piece may sound and glance at the wind and brass for a sort of 'gestural' clue to the overall effect.
Now, when it comes to complex scores such as Boulez and so on, I'm pretty much lost and am unable to effectively 'sight-read' with my 'inner ear', if you see what I mean. 
I would say that this ability (in my case) was not innate and has arisen purely and simply out of being an instrumentalist and after a lot of effort to develop this skill in the context of exams. To sum up, I can easily pen a "simple" score of music for a given ensemble on manuscript paper and 'hear' what I have written without needing to play it on the piano to check how it sounds, but that also depends very much on the idiom chosen. And even with this ability, nothing - nothing! - replaces the actual 'physicality' of having the eardrums vibrated in real-time !!


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