Intellectual Knowledge Versus Experiential Awareness

Last week, I got email from a friend who made reference to the flaunting of an intellectually stunted brain. His comment reminded me that I needed to write the following post.

There's a fundamental difference between intellectual knowledge and experientially applicable awareness particularly when talking about making music (or “doing” anything for that matter).

My interest in the subjects I've chosen to focus on in the quest for understanding and building a better language to describe how people make music is not based on an intellectual fascination or to build a strictly intellectual knowledge base. To me, working with these subjects is the means to an end.

In the Western world the language we chose to use to teach people how to make music and how to think about making music is very poor and limited often inadvertently missing whole mental and physiological processes critical to cultivating the ability to create rich musical processes.

What's a rich musical process?

One that involves engagement of mind, body and spirit.

I don't expect the field of neuroscience to give instruction on how to make music based on it's findings and research. Nor do I expect an explanation of the spirit from cognitive psychology, physiology or biomechanics.

What I see is that there are particular musical processes that need to be recognized as extremely relevant in the teaching and understanding of how people make music. Neuroscience is starting to build a body of research that points to these processes and it’s time musicians, music educators and those designing musical tools and instruments started thinking about them and/or bringing them into more of the forefront of their work. We now have scientific evidence that they exist; there’s no excuse for ignoring them.

Multiple Musical Processes - Multiple Listening Processes

Last night I got together with three other musicians and played. Sounds simple enough doesn't it? We played.

Baseball teams play .... but what do they play? Typically speaking, they play a game in which one team wins and the other team loses. Sure, how the game is played is important and it influences who wins but ultimately what I believe people remember about a particular game is who won and what play was made (by whom) in order to win.

My play last night had nothing to do with winning and losing and fundamentally I don't think musicians approach music as a game to be played.

So - how do people approach "playing"?

Well, context is critical.

Who's music is it that you are to play? In other words who wrote the music you are going to play *and* do they know what they want you to play?

If you're going to be coming up with parts your experience will be very different than if your parts already exist either in someone else's head, written on paper or recorded on tape, cd, or mp3 etc.

Reproducing a part involves learning the piece of music as a whole, learning your part within that piece and then learning how to perform that part with your fellow musicians.

Coming up with your own part involves learning the piece of music as a whole, creating a part and learning how to perform that part with your fellow musicians.

Throughout these processes there are different kinds of listening a musician will be doing.

Last night I was coming up with parts to music I'd never heard before.

I paid close attention to the various kinds of listening I did in order to come up with parts to songs I was learning for the first time.

Here's a list of listening I noticed myself doing:

1) Listening to chord progressions in order to identify the form of the tune - this requires the ability to hear progressions and identify them within a larger context

2) Listening to main melody to learn the piece

3) Listening to the rhythm of the drums and bass in order to identify rhythmic space

4) Listening for melodic space .... listening for musical holes that needed to be filled

5) Listening for balance of instruments in terms of volume and content

6) Listening to the music inside my head anticipating where to go next

and the list could go on .... there are all kinds of different listening that go into creating music which means that a musician is constantly shifting their locus of focus/center of attention .... this ability to shift is a real skill and something that needs to be recognized within traditional music education. i know personally that there were many times/days/years in which I had no clue where my attention was supposed to be focused in order to create music or that it was okay for me to drift off and listen to the drums or the vibraphone - what was important was that I retain my focus no matter what I was listening to.

The Politics Of Hearing

Today I started reading R.D. Laing's "The Politics Of Experience".

page 20 .....

"this distinction between outer and inner usually refers to the distinction between behavior and experience; but sometimes it refers to experiences that are supposed to be "inner" in contrast to others that are "outer". More accurately this is a distinction between different modalities of experience, namely, perception (as outer) in contrast to imagination (as inner). But perception, imagination, fantasy, reverie, dreams, memory are simply different modalities of experience, none more "outer" or "inner" than any other."

After reading this I thought back to the entry where I made mention of my dislike of the phrase "good ears" and suggested it be replaced with the term "good inner hearing". I still think a distinction between the ability to imagine sounds and perceive them needs to be made; but to use the word inner is to imply that audiation occurs "inside" while something else (perhaps perception) happens "outside".

Do people use the same set of physical muscles to audiate and to perceive music?

Perhaps it’s merely the locus of focus that is different; audiation and perception as experiences require catalysts that originate from different sources.

Merriam-Webster's defines perception as "awareness of the elements of environment through physical sensation."

When we perceive music we are aware of the physical phenomenon of sound that we recognize as music.

When we audiate what are we aware of? Where is our locus of focus?

If there is no physical phenomenon present and we "hear" sound what are we experiencing that causes us to hear music?

Perception of sound is common and expected.

Audiation - imaging sound - by some might be considered controversial. Perhaps that's why it's a term missing and skill obscured in most traditional music education practices. Just the notion of "hearing things" that don't exist physically occur while we are hearing them can imply a lack of mental stability.


Is the lack of specific emphasis of the audiation process within western musical practices political in nature?

What is the difference between audiation and ear training?

From my experience, most ear training instruction does not make the distinction between the ability to identify notes as they are sounded and being able to hear and identify notes in your head/mind without having them sounded.

This is a critical distinction as these are two very different tasks. Audiation focuses on the silent creation of sound/music while ear training seems to center around the perception and recognition of musical relationships. There are different sets of muscles and processes used to do each of these tasks. The practice methods employed to do them should reflect their differences.

Edwin Gordon is a music researcher, musician and teacher who I've stumbled across during a net search for "new teaching methods in music". It was while reading about his teaching methods that I learned of the term "audiation".

The following is lifted text from the Gordon Institute For Music Learning web site hosted by the University Of New Mexico.

http://www.unm.edu/~audiate/intro.htm

"Audiation is the foundation of musicianship. It takes place when we hear and comprehend music for which the sound is no longer or may never have been present. One may audiate when listening to music, performing from notation, playing "by ear," improvising, composing, or notating music."

People often ascribe the term "good ears" to someone who's a real great musician. I've always disliked the term and the way it's used. I think it should be something more like "good inner hearing”.... that doesn't sound quite as cool but its probably more accurate.

I wonder if neuroscientists have figured out which part of the brain is used to audiate?

I know that there have been studies conducted that look at which parts of the brain are in use when improvising and playing from memory versus performing from notation.

Drowning In The Life Boat Of Technology

Within the commercial technology and entertainment worlds the big money game is the distribution and delivery of commercially recorded music. Everyone I know (including myself) has been swept up in the race to build what is often referred to as the "celestial jukebox". The party line is that the advent and adoption of such a service will not only bring music to consumers in a new way but also bring recording artists closer to consumers thus removing the stranglehold that the old school music industry has on the creation and distribution of recorded music.

To date I've still not seen one of these services (including the one that I built) manifesting in such a way that artists are helped. Artist services get left by the way side during the pursuit of big licensing deals from the old school companies that folks claim to want to overthrow.

There's an idea that shows up in a couple of different eastern philosophies that basically says, "don't help". It's not for us to help; by helping we are really harming.

Have the major labels of the old school music industry changed their fundamental philosophies and attitudes towards artists? No.

Have artists stopped dreaming about a deal with the majors? No.

So let me say now that my interest in audiation is not to "help" artists, musicians, teachers, students, grandmothers or grandfathers. It's about raising awareness of a natural process. Once awareness is raised it's up to individuals to do what they will as they always do.

First Entry For The Sound In Your Head.

So - what's with the title?

I am fascinated, captivated and slightly obsessive about what I've only recently learned is called "audiation". Audiation roughly speaking is the act of hearing music or sound within the mind.

What makes audiation so hopelessly gripping?

Perhaps it's not so much the concept of audiation that rivets me but the recognition of the existence and importance of audiation as part a musical process. Turn up the volume knob to eleven and think about the process of learning how to audiate. Recognize the notion that there *is* a need to build this muscle, there are methods to work it out and at least conceptually a way to gauge one's ability to audiate.

Why does any of this matter?

Ever take a music class or lesson and walk out utterly frustrated because you understand the theory but have no idea how to approach practicing it?

The recognition of the audiation process changes all of that.

Ever wonder what you were *supposed* to be doing or thinking about seated at the piano playing the same scales over and over and over again?

Or how about forcing yourself to go to the gym, putting your body through a pace of sets on the nautilaus machines and not having a blooming clue what or why you are doing what you're doing?

Within a musical practice audiation is the missing link - at least that's my not so humble opinion.

The concept of hearing sounds in one's head is not particularly unique or revolutionary but rarely is it talked about.

Here's to The Sound In Your Head.