Visualizing the notes you hear.

[neueliteratur]

Hello folks,

when I converse, I'm almost always automatically visualizing the words that are spoken. Certainly not ALL the words, but many of them.

Now I'm wondering if it's common for musicians to reach a state where you can effortlessly visualize the notes that you hear.

[outbackyak]

How do you mean, visualise? Are you saying that you "see" the words as script, or visualise their meaning, so when you say the word "door" you get a mental image of a door? Or something else?

And what do you mean by visualise the notes? As standard notation? As scale tones? As the keys you would press on a keyboard to play that note (or combination of notes)? Or something else?

I'm interested in this as an outsider - I have almost no ability to mentally visualise anything. I just don't see pictures in my head in the way that most people apparently do. Instead I experience them verbally: if I try to visualise my mother's face (which should be incredibly easy since I've known her for 52 years), I don't get a picture in my mind.

Instead I get a gestalt flash of verbal description. So it's like I get an instantaneous paragraph something like "eyes brown, cataract in left eye; prominent beaky nose; face thin; hair white, short, lank and thinning; heavy vertical wrinkles beside mouth; skin papery and wrinkled, and Mediterranean in colouring; mouth small; teeth stained, gums receding, bottom four front teeth missing" and so on. (She's 85 and in very poor health).

So I definitely don't get visual images of the notes I'm hearing - again it's more likely to be a verbal description, like "major key; instrumentation guitar, bass, drums, piano; tempo ~80bpm; time signature 12/8" and so on. But I'm not very good at this, and I certainly can't "transcribe" the notes in my head - I have to do this by trial and error at the keyboard.

Anybody else got anything to say on this question?

Cheers!

[aquar]

its certainly possible for a blind person to see with their ears using a kind of sonar technique so maybe it is possible the other way round?

When I see a C major scale written I can hear it but then I think I am working purely from memory.

One possible mainstream application I can think of is in the mixing world where producers use spectrum analyzers to get the various frequencies to sit right within a mix. A visual aid really matters then. I am sure there are many more applications.

There's no doubt that many of us tap into visualization when hearing certain songs that remind us of a particular event held in memory and therefore link sound to visualization but again from memory.

In the absence of hearing maybe the eyes could somehow replace the ears.?
I suppose its best to keep an open mind about it.

[eduardo_b]

Now I'm wondering if it's common for musicians to reach a state where you can effortlessly visualize the notes that you hear.

Visualize as in notation? Frequency response in a graphical format?

[neueliteratur]

Sorry guys, my question was too vague. I'll put it simpler:

Is it common for musicians to reach a level where when they hear a melody, they are able to almost immediately note it down. Like, anybody can hear a sentence, and instantly write it down...

[freddemillio]

Yes, a musician can hear the music in his/her mind and translate it immediately to notes and vice versa. A famous example of this is Beethoven. He was reasonably deaf when he wrote his ninth symphony and was profoundly deaf when he wrote Die Grosse Fuge. I would like to imagine that he heard every single note in his mind and that he knew exactly what it sounded like.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_van_Beethoven
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_N ... ethoven%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gro%C3%9Fe_Fuge

[Musicologo]

Yes. I've been composing for 15 years now (since a kid), and at the beginning I needed desesperatly a keyboard for doing so. By now, I need much much less of it. Many times, when I have an idea I already know what I have to write down. And what will sound good with it. With practice you start "knowing" the sounds, notes, chords, etc... and the way they sound just by looking at them, or vice versa.

[resonanceaudio]

I have to say that now and again, why I hear a melody, I can visualise the notes - it's like a sixth sence. Doesn't happen much, but when it does happen it's strange.

[BOWSKI]

jazz musicians who improvise almost exclusivly, often sing or hum the notes as they play them. To improvise like a jazz great, the connection between you and your instrument should be like that between you and your mouth, in other words you need to know it very well, like talking everyday with your native language and producing an intent for a verbal performance of sound with meaning. I suppose this is one reason they do it, to enhance improvisation, to perhaps avoid pattern playing, other then just developing the ability to play what you hear instantaneously.

Im not sure if this is precisely related to what you mean by visualizing the notes, but they need to kind of know what they are going to play before or as they are playing it and for the notes to be what they are intending to play, one step is hearing it or visualizing it in your head, and the next is having all the fingerings and muscle movement down so when you hear it you are able to play it, or write it down, instantly and ofr it to match your intentions.


I suppose what i am talking about is hearing the notes in your head, instead of seeing a picture, or identifying intervals or chords in your head. music itself is metaphysical,intangible beyond the physical, there isnt much to visualize, or even point to, it is sensed auditorily its auditory information. The phrase visualizing music is illogical, it has nothing to do with the eyes. Hearing/sensing the music in your head may describe the phenomenon a bit better.

[james0tucson]

Sorry guys, my question was too vague. I'll put it simpler:

Is it common for musicians to reach a level where when they hear a melody, they are able to almost immediately note it down. Like, anybody can hear a sentence, and instantly write it down...

It's a skillset that seems to come extremely naturally for some, and attained with a great deal of effort for others. This kind of training has long been a major component in university music programs. In undergrad theory courses we at least had to be able to listen to three or four part harmony and notate it correctly from one or two listens. It's actually pretty easy with something like a four voice chorale that "follows the rules". I never did get very good at recognizing weird inversions, weird leading tones, notating counterpoint, or close harmony. I envy those who could do this with 20th century music or jazz.

[neueliteratur]

Thanks for your comments.

Just an interesting quote from Schumann: Somebody once said that a consummate musician is one who, on first hearing a complex orchestral work, can visualise the score as it really is. This is the highest conceivable level a musician can reach.

The mastery of form, the ability to clearly formulate thoughts, can be acquired only through the fixed symbols of notation. Therefore write more, and dream less.

[Goose8-)]

Taking the part of visualising the music in a literal sense, I can certain say that I do. When I hear notes or chords, somehow my mind associates a colour with it and I see it in my minds eye; it even works with words and letters of the alphabet. I have read that scientists call it synesthesia, they only about one in 2000 people have it...

[jancivil]

Thanks for your comments.

Just an interesting quote from Schumann: Somebody once said that a consummate musician is one who, on first hearing a complex orchestral work, can visualise the score as it really is. This is the highest conceivable level a musician can reach.

The mastery of form, the ability to clearly formulate thoughts, can be acquired only through the fixed symbols of notation. Therefore write more, and dream less.

I think Schumann put the cart before the horse there.

A score on paper is a document. The pinnacle of visualizing documents which correlate with a piece of music, which is an event involving air molecules in vibrations, is a pinnacle of achievement in documentation.

IE: it is very high musicianship. However, it's transcription chops and not necessarily composition chops. You don't have to be a composer to be the best transcriber in the universe. So, I disagree with 'highest conceivable'. Not by a long ways.

"The mastery of form, the ability to clearly formulate thoughts, can be acquired only through the fixed symbols of notation."

Ah, no. That's an absolutist statement. Naming something is an after the fact action. It's cart before the horse a lot. It's not the only way, or the best way. The fixed symbols might be wholly inadequate to describe (after the fact of the sound) the intent in the ear/mind.

"Write more and dream less", is 19th c romanticism in high dudgeon. Writing isn't composing. It's an intermediate step to get someone else to mechanically reproduce your idea. It's cart before the horse some more again.

IE: that whole riff's some bullshit for Schumann to say.

I would seriously advise you to put the ear before the eye.

[C00kie]

Is it common for musicians to reach a level where when they hear a melody, they are able to almost immediately note it down. Like, anybody can hear a sentence, and instantly write it down...

There is a fraction of musicians (maybe only 10%) that do reach that level.

Weather any given individual gets there depends on their talent in this area, and the amount of practice you need to put in to get better at it and develop the talent.

[TiUser]

To me "visualizing" means transferring an abstract concept or idea to a more real one. It's a kind of narrowing down something. I think we all do that even the term "visualizing" seems to imply something more uncommon which is not necessarily the case.

Be careful when you start getting "visions" - this can be more a sign of needing a doctor than a result of a "creative" process.

If you really "see" colors or similar directly when notes are played you have a known special predisposition in your brain. You have to live with that and either enjoy it as a unique gift others do not have or a curse others have not to suffer from.