The Mind's Ear-Covington

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Kate CovingtonUniversity of Kentucky

"He is a good musician, who understands the music without the score, and the score without

the music. The ear should not need the eye, the eye should not need the (outward) ear."1

Hearing music in the mind's ear, without any sound source present, is a skill long prized by musicians. It isalso the subject of books and articles by music educators and an area for recent research by psychologistsand medical scientists. An early writer on the subject was Marie Agnew, who called the skill "auditory

imagery," "tonal [pitch] imagery," and "inner hearing."2 One of the most prolific music educators on the

subject, Edwin Gordon, calls it "audiation" and defines the concept broadly.3

For Gordon, audiation"takes place when one hears and comprehends music for which the sound is no longer or may never havebeen physically present." Gordon's definition goes beyond the skill and includes musical information aboutthe tonal/harmonic/rhythmic structure of what is being imaged. Discussions of this skill are also present insight-singing texts, such as that by Earl Henry, who shows the influence of Gordon in his definition of

inner hearing as being "the internal mental processing of musical relationships."4 Andrea Halpern andRobert Zatorre, both prominent psychologists who have worked in this area, have studied the skill of

audiation in trained musicians as well as in non-musicians.5

Why Is Hearing in the Mind's Ear Valued?

The mental hearing of music is an important tool for composers and performers. It frees composers fromthe constraints that may affect music composed at a keyboard and allows performers to rehearse nuancesof style, unimpeded by the instrument. Henry Cowell described the importance of the inner ear in hiscompositional process. He said, "The most perfect instrument in the world is the composer's mind. Everyconceivable tone-quality and beauty of nuance, every harmony and disharmony, or any number of

simultaneous melodies can be heard at will by the trained composer."6 Robert Schumann encouragedother composers to use their inner ear ("do it [composition] all with your brain") rather than depend on a

keyboard instrument.7 Carl Maria von Weber compared working with his internal hearing versus working

at an instrument: "How differently does he work whose inner ear at once discovers and criticizes."8 Weberfurther describes how the inner ear comprehends tonal and formal structures, a concept that is echoed inGordon's broader definition of audiation.

Noted performers have used inner hearing as an integral part of their practicing. Glenn Gould depended onmental practice, as did Vladimir Horowitz and Anton Rubenstein. A well-known piano teacher, TheodoreLeschetizky, preached the value of inner hearing, as discussed by a pupil, Ethel Newcomb. She describedhow he would go on a walk to work out phrasing, tempos, and shading. She said that for him, "Listening to

the inward singing of a phrase was of far more value than playing it a dozen times."9 Mental rehearsal isadvocated by teachers and researchers. Malva Freymuth, a violin pedagogue, has written a book on the

importance of mental practice and the development of the inner ear. She believes musicians shouldalternate continually between mental and physical practicing in order to develop "a strong musical

memory."10

College Music Society - College Music Symposium http://www.music.org/cgi-bin/symp_show.pl?h=36&f=28&id=874

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Those who are skilled in analysis know that if an analyst can use mental hearing, it is likely thatrelationships and deep structural understanding of the piece will emerge more clearly. In their leadingSchenkerian analysis textbook, Allen Cadwallader and David Gagn encourage students to memorize a

piece to be analyzed and to hear it "in one's inner ear."11 Carl Schachter and Felix Salzer, in their bookCounterpoint in Composition, assume that students who use their text are able to hear the interaction ofmusical lines in two- and three-part textures. Another analyst, Steve Larson, discusses how the ability tohear sound internally is basic for hearing tension and resolution. He describes the need for hearing an

implied resolution as primary for hearing instability in pitches.12

How Is this Ski ll Acquired?

Performers, composers and analysts acknowledge that inner hearing of music is an important skill.

Although some people, such as Mozart,13 might seem to be born with a well-developed skill of mentalhearing, most musicians describe their ability at inner hearing with varying levels of success and describehow they have to work at attaining it. Henry Cowell described in detail how he worked over a period oftime to develop his ability to hear first melody and then harmony, and that he "had to make great effort to

hear a violin tone,"14 implying that hearing timbre and harmony are more difficult than hearing melody.

Emile Jaques-Dalcroze believed that his combination of eurhythmics, singing, and improvisation could

turn the whole person into an "internal ear."15 He believed that eurhythmics facilitated the "mutual

integration of the individual's motor, perceptive, intellectual, and imaginative functions."16 Mosteurhythmics training depends on musicians' reactions to actual sound rather than internalized sound, butthe combination of aural and kinesthetic experiences does result in an enhanced conceptual understandingof many aspects of music. His view of internalized sound being related to motor, perceptual, andintellectual functions is supported by recent scientific research, as will be explained in a later section.

If inner hearing is valued by professional musicians and if it needs to be developed, the logical place tofind it in the musical curriculum would be in performance studies and in aural training and sight singingcourses. Indeed, aural training and sight-singing textbooks discuss the importance of inner hearing. BruceBenward and Maureen Carr stress inner hearing's importance in the introduction to SightsingingComplete: "The task of observing a musical score with thoughtful and hearing eyes is the most significant

outcome of the four-semester sequence of courses" [first two years of music major study]. 17 Earl Henry inhis text, Sight Singing, agrees with the importance placed on inner hearing. He affirms the coupling ofinner hearing and sight singing, and believes that together they enable the development of musicianshipmore than any other kind of technique. Gary Karpinski calls the process of mentally hearing music"auralizing." He discusses the use of inner hearing (especially in intonation) and also relates it to sight-

singing, but does not discuss specific ways to train inner hearing.18 Michael Rogers, in his book aboutmusic theory pedagogy, discusses inner hearing as "internal musical perception" and "aural imagery." Hefurther couples it with singing and emphasizes the need to combine silent singing with regular singing in

aural training teaching.19

Despite these strong affirmations for internal hearing and the coupling of inner hearing and singing, thereis little instruction in sight singing texts for how to actually develop the skill; it is assumed that the skillwill be a by-product of learning a number of pieces and developing the ability to sight-read over severalyears of applied lessons and sight-singing classes. A text that does address inner hearing is SoundThinking, by Tacka and Houlahan, which is oriented to K-12 education and based on the Kodaly

approach. This text, as can be expected, gives emphasis to singing but the curriculum goes far beyondbeing a sight-singing program with its inclusion of notation, memory, improvisation, and form and analysis.The writers believe that if a singing approach is used for training the ear, then a musician "will be able to

hear music without needing to have it sounded aloud."20 Techniques for developing the inner hearing skillinclude recalling familiar songs, hearing familiar songs internally while tapping the beat or the rhythm,


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singing silently what is signed by the instructor (using Kodaly/Curwen hand signs), singing back familiarmotives and phrases, and memorizing phrases and two-part examples from notation without hearing themaloud.

Collegiate aural training textbooks contain little instruction in how to develop the skill of mental hearing.Edward Klonoski has written several articles on the importance of auditory imagery and its lack of

presence in aural skills courses. He does discuss how two current textbooks address the skill, at least

indirectly. These texts are Functional Hearing andListen and Sing.

21

Another aural training textbook that includes inner hearing exercises isEar Training and Sight Singing by

Allen Trubitt and Robert Hines.22 Trubitt and Hines not only discuss the importance of inner hearing forgood intonation, error detection, and sight-reading, but they also include a number of exercises intended totrain inner hearing. One type of exercise, called "intonation," asks students to carefully and slowly singintervals or pitch patterns against a reference pitch. This type of exercise encourages the increased acuityin detecting small pitch deviations. Other exercises, called "scanning," "anticipation," and "recognition ofintervals," encourage students to look ahead and hear in their mind's ear the following measure. The tapesthat accompany the text leave a measure of silence before the following interval or rhythm pattern isheard; students are to image the sound and then hear the performed sound. Another exercise, called

"fusing," develops vertical listening. Students hear one pitch, imagine another, and then attempt to hear(or fuse) the two pitches together. Intervallic fusing is followed by harmonic fusing and the fusing oftwo-part music. Many ear-training and sight-singing texts that address the importance of inner hearingassume that its development will occur as a by-product of a traditional aural training curriculum. Trubittand Hines, however, have not made that assumption and have deliberately included activities that traininner hearing in an intentional way.

Understanding of internal hearing from scientific research

Auditory imagery has been studied scientifically by psychologists in traditional behavioral studies and bypsychologists and neuroscientists using brain lesions or scanning. When people have suffered a brainlesion through surgery or injury, scientists are able to examine what skills and knowledge have been lost

because of the affected brain areas and are able to make judgments about how different areas function.For scientists choosing to use a scanning method, there are different technologies possible, including

positron emission tomography (PET), electroencephalogram technology (EEG), and functional magneticresonance imaging (fMRI). PET allows particular tasks to be related to specific brain structures with itsexcellent spatial resolution, but involves the injection of a low dosage of radioactive material. FunctionalMRI has the advantage of spatial resolution, but lacks good temporal information and is expensive to use.EEG scanning offers good temporal resolution but lacks the spatial resolution of PET or MRI; it is not a

true three-dimensional scanning method. EEG scans are being used to study the timing of reactions toevents with event related potentials (ERPs); for example, the mismatch negativity, which usually occursaround 120-200 milliseconds after the event, is often associated with a deviation from what was expected,such as an unexpected pitch. All of these techniques have been used in recent years to study music

perception, auditory imagery, musical performance, emotion in music, and other topics. In the followingsections I will discuss selected research that pertains to auditory imagery and what that research tells usabout its use in performance and musical study.

Musical Performance and Auditory Imagery

Several researchers have examined and compared the brain activation patterns of musicians as theyperformed and then imagined performing a piece. One such researcher is Paula S. Washington who used

EEG to study four string players performing violin-viola duos.23 The performers were asked to play aspecific duo, to imagine playing the duo with and without the score, and to mentally hear one part while


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listening to the partner playing the other part. She discovered that the tasks in physical and mentalperforming were strongly correlated in brain activation patterns. That is, the brain areas used for each taskwere very similar and the tasks evidently recruit some of the same neural networks. Another researcher isAlvaro Pascual-Leone who studied where brain activation occurred as his subjects played and then

mentally rehearsed a piano exercise.24 By using transcranial magnetic stimulation, he found that some ofthe same neural structuresnamely prefrontal, supplementary motor area (SMA), basal ganglia and thecerebellumwere activated for both performing and imaging tasks. Mental rehearsal is thus activating the

same motor areas that are activated when one is physically practicing. Pascual-Leone also observed amarked improvement in performance after subjects had mentally rehearsed the exercise. He believes thecombination of mental rehearsal and physical practice should be used by musicians because it leads togreater improvement than using physical practice alone. These studies affirm the importance of mentalrehearsal and provide a mandate for educators to train students in using internalization of sound.

Justin Sergent et al. studied pianists listening to music, then playing scales, and then reading a musical

score.25 Using both PET and fMRI technologies, the researchers found that listening and reading activatedall four lobes, including the occipital (visual area) and temporal (location of the auditory cortex) lobes of

both hemispheres, as well as the inferior parietal lobe bilaterally and the left inferior frontal gyrus. Theinvolvement of the parietal cortex suggests a mapping between notation and sound in an area adjacent to,

but distinct from, the area where there is language mapping of words aurally and visually. When subjectscombined listening, reading and playing, the superior parietal lobe was also used bilaterally. According toSergent et al., this particular recruitment may reflect the observation that spatial information relative tonotes on a staff is generated and is coordinated with the actual physical execution in performing music.

The final study I will discuss regarding performance concerned instrumental conductors with collegiatetraining. David Hoffman used EEG to study subjects as they read through three wind ensemble scores in

their mind's ear.26 He found that there were differences in the degree of auditory imagery relative to asubject's familiarity with each score. This was especially apparent in the comparison of a subject's imaginga learned score versus an unfamiliar score. Hoffman also found that effective imagery recruited different

cortical areas in the brain, some of them at considerable distance from each other. This was morepronounced for the learned scores. These four representative studies tell us that mental rehearsal is acomplex task using widespread and multiple cortical locations. The implications are that developing skillin auditory imagery will require training and practicing by students and integrative tasks presented inmultiple formats by instructors.

Internalization of Melodies and Chords

A number of studies use listeners' acquired tonal information as the basis for detecting the presence and

activation patterns of internalized sound. Andrea Halpern, a leading scholar in auditory imagery, initiallystudied the topic through behavioral research. In one study, she used familiar tunes, such as "Row, Row,

Row Your Boat" and "Yankee Doodle," that had likely been heard in only one key.27 She asked subjectsto imagine the song and hum the starting pitch or find the starting pitch on the piano. There wasconsistency of pitches sung or played by subjects, indicating excellent long-term memories for keys.Daniel Levitin conducted a similar study and asked subjects to recall a favorite recording of popular music

and sing the first note.28 Two examples were used: "Hotel California" by the Eagles and Madonna's "Getinto the Groove." Forty percent of subjects were exactly correct on at least one trial and fifty per cent ofsubjects were within a half step. Like Halpern's research, this study also showed the accuracy of long termmemory for pitches and keys.

In another study to explore memory for melody, Halpern examined melodic contour by giving subjects a

song title and the lyrics and asking them whether the second word was higher than the first.29 The tunesthat she selected included "Do Re Mi" and "The Star Spangled Banner." The subjects were successful withthis task, although it was somewhat easier for musicians than non-musicians. Halpern and Robert Zatorre


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repeated this study using positron emission tomography (PET) to see which areas of the brain were

activated during the task.30 The subjects' reaction times were related to the distance between words,indicating that songs were retrieved from memory and heard in the mind's ear. The task did not recruit the

primary auditory cortex, but used areas adjacent to the auditory cortex and the SMA, as well as thethalamus and inferior frontopolar area, i.e., areas that are known to be involved in memory. The primaryauditory cortex, located on the superior temporal gyrus or STG, is used for the perception of pitch,loudness, and timing. The adjacent secondary auditory area and the auditory association area are used for

more complex aural tasks, such as the perception of timbre and melodies, and their tonal and metricorganization. These findings show the role of memory, the complexity of auditory imagery, and thewidespread neural networks involved in the task, as well as the strong similarities between music

perception and music imaging.

Some tasks are more complex and take more time to perform. In a behavioral study, Timothy Hubbard andKeiko Stoeckig requested that subjects listen to a tone and then image a tone that would be a step

higher.31 Subjects were also asked to hear a chord and then imagine a chord a step higher. The researchersclosely observed response times and image-formation times. The internalization tasks were comparable to

perception tasks in accuracy and timing, indicating that there are shared areas in the brain for perceptionand imagery tasks. The chord images took longer to generate than tone images, suggesting that more

complex sounds are more difficult to imagine in the mind's ear.

Other Aspects of Auditory Imagery

The supplementary motor area (SMA) is typically activated in tasks of auditory imagery. There are twopossible explanations for this activation. Subjects who play an instrument may be recruiting neuralnetworks related to kinesthetic experiences with the instrument. Another probable explanation is thatsubjects are using subvocalization, the subject of a study by David Smith, Margaret Wilson, and Daniel

Reisberg.32 These researchers looked at verbal and musical tasks that would likely use mental rehearsaland used techniques (such as chewing candy) to reduce the effectiveness of subvocalization for

performing the experimental tasks. The musical task was to decide if a familiar melody rose or descendedfrom the second note to the third note. These researchers found that in most (if not all) auditory imagerytasks, the inner voice plays an important role, and if it is blocked (as was done in their experiment), thereis a significant decrease in performance. As there is likely an important link between subvocalizationability and sight-singing skills, this research offers scientific substantiation for what many aural traininginstructors have observed in years of teaching.

An important aspect of auditory imagery of familiar music is the retrieval of music from memory. Halpernand Zatorre used PET to study brain activation when subjects listened to the first few notes of a familiar

tune and were asked to continue hearing that tune in their minds' ears.33

They used instrumental tuneswithout text to minimize the effect of recruiting verbal processing networks in the left hemisphere. Thehypothesis that the right hemisphere would be emphasized when the melodies did not have text was

proved, and led the authors to confirm that the right hemisphere is specialized for processing tonalimagery. The activation of brain areas such as the right inferior frontal, bilateral frontal, and the righttemporal, showed that imagery involved retrieval from semantic memory. One interpretation might be thatepisodic memory is used to recall familiar melodies, and according to the researchers, this could haveoccurred, but the major retrieval was semantic (conceptual) rather than episodic (specific event).

The unintended hearing of music in the mind's ear is a sub-category of hallucinogenic sounds and voices.Musical hallucinations are caused by a hearing impairment, brain injury, epilepsy, intoxication, or

psychiatric problems.34 Women and people older than 60 are somewhat more prone to suffer from thesetypes of hallucinations, and some composers, such as Smetana and Ravel (who suffered from

neurodegenerative disease in later life), reported being flooded with music in their heads.35 Haydn wasanother composer who in later years complained of being overwhelmed with musical ideas. According to


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an early biographer, in conversation during the year 1806 Haydn said, "Usually musical ideas are pursuingme, to the point of torture. I cannot escape them, they stand like walls before me. If it's an allegro that

pursues me, my pulse keeps beating faster, I can get no sleep. If it's an adagio, then I notice my pulse

beating slowly. My imagination plays on me as if I were a clavier."36

Summary of auditory imagery research

Scientific research in auditory imagery is still in its infancy. There are many questions about howmusicians process music, how musical information is stored and retrieved, how widespread neural circuitsare integrated for music processing, and how musicians can develop and refine their ability in auditoryimagery. There are, however, aspects about auditory imagery that we know and that affect pedagogicalapproaches and strategies for developing this important skill.

Auditory imagery is an acquired skill. Most people, trained musicians and untrained listeners,experience auditory imagery, but the brain activation patterns are different for the two kinds oflisteners, and training facilitates the speed and complexity of what is heard in the mind's ear.Auditory imagery is strongly correlated with aural perception, in that similar and often the same

brain areas are activated. The implications for training the skill of auditory imagery are that similartechniques may be used, but there is the need to find additional ways of training and refining theskill.Auditory imagery is not highly dependent on the primary auditory region but it is the associativeareas that handle more complicated music processing. Thus the skill is a complex one, integrating anumber of neural networks. In auditory imagery, all four lobes and both hemispheres are used. Thisfact and the demonstrated communication between distant areas of the brain likewise support thecharacteristic of complexity. For pedagogy, then, the training of this skill demands a variety of tasksthat are integrated with different ways of relating to music and to multiple aspects of music.Research supports the assumption that learned scores are much easier to hear in the mind's ear. In

the use of familiar scores, a musician is recalling already established musical patterns.Harmony takes longer and is more difficult to image than single-line melodies. Musicians mightassume this, but it has also been demonstrated by researchers.Pascual-Leone and others showed the importance of mental rehearsal to accompany physicalrehearsal for a musician. It is important to remind students of the need for mental rehearsal and totrain them as well in the skill of imaging unknown scores.In auditory imagery, the supplemental motor area (SMA) is recruited in a variety of tasks. Thisrecruitment is likely related to subvocalization and probably related to a person's instrumental studyas well. The implications for pedagogy are seen in the importance of relating imaging tasks to thestudents' instruments, and the importance of sight-singing instruction in the aural skills program.

Understanding Perception and Mental Hearing as Schema

Schematic Representations

The complexity of hearing, as demonstrated by neuronal activation, is demonstrated also in a morepsychological understanding of schematic representation. Schema are mental representations of relatedentities. Schema do, however, have a neural basis, even as psychological representations. In the words ofBergan, for example, the perception of pitch requires "the utilization of mental processes that rely on amental representation or tonal image of the sound itself, that is a tonal image that closely approximates the

actual experience of hearing against which one compares actual pitch."37 Schema are constantly changingand adapting through our experiences, and are thus characterized as "dynamic." The adaptability andchangeability of schema represent neuronal change and adaptability in the brain (which is called

plasticity). A musical task has multiple schema that are inter-related. In musical performance, the schema


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that relate to playing an instrument are actually multiple representations that change with each listening,practicing, and performing experience. The network of schema and their overlay represent well thecomplexity of music cognition.

Schema in Music Listening

Schema are at work when we listen to music. If the piece is a very familiar one, we use a veridicalmemory (for the specific piece) and have specific expectations throughout the listening. If the piece is notas familiar or is unknown to us, schema for metric and pitch structures are at work in setting forthexpectations of what will occur next. These expectations of what to anticipate are based on pastexperiences and help us to organize the music in a dynamic way during the listening process. Ourexpectations affect how we will interpret consonance and dissonance, tension and repose.

Schema in Mental Hearing

A schematic representation is helpful for understanding the nature of music imaging. While we may havean actual or veridical representation of music pieces that we know very well (so that the whole piececould "play" in our mind's ear like a tape recording), most of our musical imaging does not work in thatway. Rather than mentally storing complete pieces, we likely have representations or schema of familiar

pitch or rhythmic patterns, schema of metric structures, and schema of tonal or harmonic structures. Someof these may be rather involved networks of schema (such as our understanding of tonality), while othersmay be small in musical terms (such as an interval or a simple rhythmic pattern).

If we mentally hear music from a score, with no sound present, then we activate schema that representmetric structures, rhythmic and melodic patterns, tonal structure, timbral qualities, etc. If the score is afamiliar piece, then the schema are more complex and more highly developed. If the score is unfamiliar,

then we likely are using lower level schema, as indicated by the fact that this kind of mental hearing doesnot happen with the same facility as imaging a familiar piece.

The act of mentally hearing a score with no sound present is a re-constructive or re-assembly processweassemble bits and pieces of sounds that are already represented in memory and construct the sounds of the

score before us. Lehmann and McArthur call it a "reconstructive activity."38 As an example of thisre-assembly process, consider how one might image a chord in SATB voicing. One could literally addtogether the intervals that comprise the chord. Or, one could recall the sound of the triad (whether majoror minor), imagine an arpeggiation of the chord pitches, and then arrange the notes in the particularvoicing used in the notated chord. There is, then, a re-assembly of recalled sounds. When musicians are

termed "good sight readers," they likely possess facility in this re-assembly processing.

Given the foregoing evidence and conclusions, the ability to hear music in one's inner ear is indeed a verycomplex task. It is dependent on what is in memory, on our experiences in listening, studying and

performing, and on our flexibility and facility in using our musical schema or representations. Thiscomplex skill is deemed a necessary skill for musicians, be they performers, composers, or criticallisteners. How and when does the training for this complex skill occur? Altenmller believes that musicallearning should include the implanting and integration of mental images of sound, and that this kind oftraining is so basic for musicians that it ought to occur before written theory skills are taught. Is the skill

being addressed in the studio, in ensemble rehearsals, and in aural training classes? Or are we hoping thatthe teaching of the technical and expressive aspects of performance, emphasizing good intonation and

blended sound in ensembles, and drilling identification of intervals and sonorities along with melodic andharmonic dictation will somehow train and enable students to acquire the complex skill of imaging musicwith acuity?


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Techniques for developing internal hearing

This section of the paper will present some ideas and techniques that can be used by individuals who wantto develop further their own mental hearing, and by studio and aural skills teachers who want toencourage their students in the development of this important skill. Most of these techniques are ones thatI have used in the classroom, in working with students, or in my own practice and study of music.Increasing one's ability to use inner hearing takes practice and concentration, and so there should be

purposeful time for trying these methods. If you teach, do not just tell a student to practice a particularactivity; rather, lead the student through a simple exercisegive the space and time in class or lesson forusing inner hearing. We cannot assume that it will be simply a by-product of aural/kinesthetic practicing.

Hearing melodies in the mind's ear:

In order to develop an ability to internalize sound, use the memory that we have for melodies. If a melodyis familiar, such as "Row, Row, Row Your Boat," one can simply recall it and hear it in the mind's ear. If

the melody is unfamiliar, a technique is to hear it one phrase at a time and memorize each phrase. Forexample, play a phrase on an instrument, pause and intentionally listen to it in the mind's ear, and thensing it. Do this with several phrases, and then listen to the group of phrases in the mind's ear.

Extend the mental hearing of familiar and unfamiliar melodies by adding features to the mind's image. Forexample, ask students to imagine "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" with dynamic shaping or with differentkinds of articulation, or played on different instruments. Two further extensions would be to hear themelody in another mode or to take a motive and mentally hear it in a tonal sequence or a real sequence.Another extension is to identify hyper-measures and to hear (mentally) the strong beat emphasis at themeasure and at the hyper-measure levels. Two familiar melodies to use are "O Danny Boy" and "I CouldHave Danced All Night" (fromMy Fair Lady).

Another idea for the mental hearing of familiar melodies is error detection. In aural training classes, theinstructor can provide the notation of a familiar tune but with pitch and rhythmal errors. The incorrectlynotated melody should not be played or sung, so that students are relying solely on their mind's ear todetect the errors.

For pieces being studied in applied lessons, students can refine the dynamic and timbral shape of eachphrase as they listen in their mind's ear. They should be encouraged to try different ways of playing aphrase in their mind's ear and copying those ways with their instrument. Students should be trained to usetheir mind's ear to directtheir playing rather than using the ear to reactto sound.

Relate melodies to an instrument:

When students are hearing a melody in their mind's ear, encourage them either to finger a familiarinstrument (touching the keys without actually playing) or to imagine fingering an instrument. Thistechnique is particularly helpful for students in aural skills classes when they are engaged in sight-singingor dictation tasks. Since scientific research has demonstrated the involvement of the supplemental motorarea in auditory imagery, these neural connections should be used and strengthened.

Relate melodic phrases to harmony:

For sight-singing assignments, I encourage students to decide what chords might accompany the melodies;


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these may be indicated with either Roman numerals or pop symbols. Then students are to accompanythemselves with chords as they sing. They may use simple, closed position triads played with one hand,since the intention of the exercise is the integration of melody and harmony, not the voice leading of theaccompanying chords. They may wish to practice this way phrase by phrase. After practicing severaltimes with a keyboard (or guitar), they should sing accompanied only with the sounds of the chords intheir mind's ear. The students' intonation will indicate which chords they are able to hear and which theycannot yet hear in their mind's ear.

For performance pieces, I would use a similar methodology, but encourage the use of pop symbols,especially for more recent compositions. This methodology encourages the mental integration of melodyand harmony and makes students more aware of the accompaniment and how their part fits with it. Asshown by research, harmonic listening is more difficult and demands purposeful practice. It is veryimportant for performers to develop and refine the ability to use mental rehearsal as a practicingtechnique. The scientific research has shown that for a semi-professional or professional performer, thismethod is just as effective and complements kinesthetic rehearsal. Anecdotal evidence that I havecollected from mature performers is very supportive of the research in the efficacy of mental rehearsal.

Converting internalized sound into notation:

Dictation and notation of familiar and unfamiliar melodies are common tasks in aural training classrooms.Advanced students may assume transcription projects of jazz solos or concerto cadenzas. For a composer,the refined ability to internalize melody, harmony, timbral distinctions, and subtle dynamic andarticulation changes is critical. Students need to be challenged with a variety of tasks to convertinternalized sound into notation. For each task, some level of memorization and knowledge of the tonaland harmonic structure of the style are needed. There are numerous sources that offer suggestions fortraining melodic and harmonic dictation. See Michael Rogers' Teaching Approaches in Music Theory,

second edition, and his bibliography for additional sources.39

Turning internalized sound into performance:

Musicians who "play by ear" with facility have been envied by those who are not able to do it easily. It isan ability that can be developed and students should be encouraged to do so. In recent years,improvisation, which has always been prominent in jazz studies, has achieved a more important place inother parts of music curricula, such as in aural training classes. There are numerous sources onimprovisation (classical, popular and jazz) and improvisational exercises are discussed in recent aural skills

textbooks.40

Mental hearing from notation of more than one line:

Listen to recordings of pieces and closely follow the score, not only the solo part but the accompanimentas well. Try to follow more than one line at a time. Although this technique seems fundamental, asurprising number of students (even graduate students) have confessed that they listen to recordings with ascore but follow only their own part.

Use the mind's ear to hear harmonic intervals. If they are hard to hear, then internalize them as two

melodic notes and gradually bring the notes together in the mind's ear until they are heard simultaneously.Then extend the exercise by transposing one of the pitches an octave up or down so that simple andcompound intervals can be heard easily. Another extension is to transpose intervals up or down so thatthey do not necessarily occupy one's vocal range. A student needs to be comfortable with harmonicintervals in different pitch spaces before hearing harmonies.


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To listen to a two-line piece, such as species counterpoint or two parts of a choral piece, apply the skills ofhearing intervals with the mind's ear. One may need to proceed in a zig-zag fashion, hearing the notes ofeach interval in a melodic way and bringing them together as a simultaneity. It is also helpful to hear eachline, perhaps a phrase at a time, as its own melody in the mind's ear. As with melodies, this skill can beextended by adding articulation and dynamics. One can also add timbre, with the same or differenttimbres on each line.

Mental hearing of harmony:

In order to hear harmony in the mind's ear, begin with three- and four-note tertian chords in root positionand in inversions. Start with the lowest or highest pitch and mentally hear the intervals of the chordmelodically. Then slowly bring the pitches together until they are heard as a simultaneity. As withintervals, extend this exercise by transposing the lowest note down an octave, or trying different spacingsfor each chord, all in the mind's ear.

To begin hearing a chord progression, one might start with a simple succession of intervals in notation or insight-singing shorthand. For example, one could hear mentally the diatonic pitches 1-3-5, 4-6-8, 5-7-9,

8-5-3-1. Pause after each chord and hear the pitches as a vertical arrangement, then mentally hear thechord outlines as a series of chords. This is a good beginning exercise for those who play a "single line"instrument, for whom hearing harmony is more difficult.

Another harmonic technique is to use a familiar melody such as "Amazing Grace." Ask students to playthe melody by ear on a keyboard and then add harmony to it, again by ear. You might also try givingstudents the text of this melody and have them decide the harmony using only their mind's ear, away froma keyboard.

The above exercises are preliminaries for mentally hearing notated harmony. To work with notatedharmony, begin with a simple hymn. For each chord, hear the notes of the chord as a compilation ofmelodic intervals that are then brought together in the mind's ear. As one moves from chord to chord, themind's ear also needs to listen to the voice leading connections for each part. At first, this seems laboriousand slow, but it gets easier and faster with practice. As the students' skills develop, work with a Bachchorale, which has more movement and more non-chord tones.

Similar strategies can be applied to mentally hearing a piano sonata by Mozart or a symphonic movementby Haydn or a Lied by Schubert. An additional strategy that can be used by an instrumentalist or vocaliststudying an applied piece is to hear each line separately, i.e., the solo part, the right hand of theaccompaniment, and the left-hand part. When this is comfortable, mentally hear combinations of two

parts, and then put all three together. It may be helpful to work in phrase units.

Concluding Comments

In this article I have emphasized the importance of mental hearing for all performers, composers, andcritical listeners. Teachers often expect their students to already possess this skill, or they expect that itwill emerge as a by-product of practicing an instrument, or of observant performing in ensemble settings,taking sight-singing and aural-training classes, or listening carefully to performances and recordings. Thereis, therefore, little formal or even informal attention to how this skill may be taught; students are left totheir own devices. Because of my interest in mental hearing, I have discussed the topic with professional

performers. Allow me to share three things that they voiced. First, there seems to be a strong connectionbetween mental hearing and some sort of kinesthetic awareness, related to what the professional does nowor did as a child and teenager. This kinesthetic connection might be in the form of conducting gestures,trombone positions, clarinet fingerings, touching the strings of a cello, or playing the piano. There were,therefore, strong links to a practitioner's experience, affirming at least for these musicians a likely link to


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the supplementary motor area of the brain during mental hearing. A second observation was theimportance placed on singing as an indication of how a musician might shape a phrase or a person's senseof intonation. This link to singing was stressed by instrumental performers, not only choral conductors andvocalists. One performer said that if a student cannot sing a line, then that person cannot play the line. Thefinal observation, which validates the importance of mental hearing for a musician, is that performersconsistently spoke of mental hearing as preceding what emerged from an instrument. That is, mentalhearing is recognized as being more accurate than performing and needs to direct the actual performance.Working out phrasing and fine-tuning one's acuity for pitch need to occur in one's mental ear. The innerear provides the leadership for performingmental hearing is the leader for the next note, the dynamicshape of a passage, and intonation. One performer called the skill "hearing in the future." When we enablethe development of a student's mental hearing we are enhancing that person's future in music, whether onenote or one phrase or whatever time period ahead.

References

Agnew, Marie. "The Auditory Imagery of Great Composers." Psychological Monographs 31 (1922):279-87.

. "A Comparison of the Auditory Images of Musicians, Psychologists and Children." PsychologicalMonographs 31 (1922): 268-78.

Alonso, Robert J., and Robert M. Pascuzzi. "Ravel's Neurological Illness." Seminars in Neurology 19(1999): 53-57.

Altenmller, Eckart, and Wilfried Gruhn.Music, the Brain, and Music Learning. Narberth, PA: GordonInstitute for Music Learning, 1997.

Bachmann, Marie-Laure.Dalcroze Today: An Education Through and into Music. Oxford: ClarendonPress, 1991.

Benward, Bruce, and Maureen Carr. Sightsinging Complete. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1999.

Bergan, John. "Pitch Perception, Imagery, and Regression in the Service of the Ego."Journal of Researchin Music Education 13 (1965): 15-32.

Boursy, Richard. "The Mystique of the Sistine Chapel Choir in the Romantic Era."Journal of Musicology11, no. 3 (Summer 1993): 282-83.

Cadwallader, Allen, and David Gagn.Analysis of Tonal Music: A Schenkerian Approach. New York:Oxford University Press, 1998.

Cowell, Henry. "The Process of Musical Creation."American Journal of Psychology 37 (1926): 234-35.

Damschroder, David.Listen and Sing. New York: Schirmer Books, 1995.

Dies, Albert C.Joseph Haydn, trans. Vernon Gotwals. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1963.

Evers, Stefan, and Tanja Ellger. "The Clinical Spectrum of Musical Hallucinations."Journal of theNeurological Sciences 227 (December 2004): 55-65.

Freymuth, Malva.Mental Practice and Imagery for Musicians. Boulder: Integrated Musicians Press,1999.

Gordon, Edwin.Learning Sequences in Music. Chicago: G.I.A. Publications, 1980.


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Gottschalk, Arthur, and Phillip Kloeckner. Functional Hearing. New York: Ardsley House Publishers,1997.

Halpern, Andrea. "Memory for the Absolute Pitch of Familiar Songs."Memory and Cognition 17(September 1989): 572-81.

. "Mental Scanning in Auditory Imagery for Songs."Journal of Experimental Psychology:Learning, Memory and Cognition 14 (July 1988): 434-43.

Halpern, Andrea, and Robert Zatorre. "When That Tune Runs Through Your Head: A PET Investigationof Auditory Imagery for Familiar Melodies." Cerebral Cortex 9 (November 1999): 697-704.

Henry, Earl. Sight Singing. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1997.

Hoffman, David K. "Auditory Imagery of Conductors: an Examination of the ElectroencephalographicCorrelates of Score Reading before and after Score Study." Ph.D. dissertation, University of Minnesota,2002.

Hubbard, Timothy, and Keiko Stoeckig. "Musical Imagery: Generation of Tones and Chords."Journal of

Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition 14 (October 1988): 656-67.

Karpinski, Gary.Aural Skills Acquisition: the Development of Listening, Reading, and Performing Skillsin College-Level Musicians. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Klonoski, Edward. "Teaching Pitch Internalization Processes."Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy 12(1998): 81-96.

Klonoski, Edward and E.A. Johnson. "Connecting the Inner Ear and the Voice." Choral Journal 44(October 2003): 35-40.

Larson, Steve. "Scale-Degree Function: A Theory of Expressive Meaning and its Application to AuralSkills Pedagogy."Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy 7 (1993): 69-84.

Lehmann, Andreas, and Victoria McArthur. "Sight-Reading." In The Science and Psychology of MusicPerformance, ed. Richard Parncutt, 135-50. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.

Levitin, Daniel J., and Perry R. Cook. "Memory for Musical Tempo." Perception and Psychophysics 58(August 1996): 927-35.

Mursell, James. The Psychology of Music. New York: Norton, 1937.

Newcomb, Ethel.Leschetizky As I Knew Him. New York: Da Capo Press, 1967.

Pascual-Leone, Alvaro. "The Brain That Plays Music and Is Changed by It."Annals of the New YorkAcademy of Sciences 930 (2001): 315-29.

Rogers, Michael. Teaching Approaches in Music Theory: An Overview of Pedagogical Philosophies. 2nded. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2004.

Salzer, Felix, and Carl Schachter. Counterpoint in Composition. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1969.

Schumann, Robert.Music and Musicians. Essays and Criticisms, trans. Fanny Ritter. London: WilliamReeves, 1876.

Seashore, Carl. Psychology of Music. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1938.

Sergent, Justin, Eric Zuck, Sean Terriah, and Brennan MacDonald. "Distributed Neural Network


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Underlying Musical Sight-Reading and Keyboard Performance." Science 257 (July 1992): 106-9.

Smith, J. David, Margaret Wilson, and Daniel Reisberg. "The Role of Subvocalization in AuditoryImagery."Neuropsychologia 33 (November 1995): 1433-54.

Tacka, Philip, and Michael Houlahan. Sound Thinking: Developing Musical Literacy. New York: Booseyand Hawkes, 1995.

Trubitt, Allen, and Robert Hines.Ear Training and Sight Singing. New York: Schirmer, 1980.

Washington, Paula S. "An Electroencephalographic Study of Musical Performance: Imagined versusActual Playing and Solo versus Chamber Playing." Ph.D. dissertation, New York University, 1994.

Zatorre, Robert, and Andrea Halpern, et al. "Hearing in the Mind's Ear: A PET Investigation of MusicalImagery and Perception."Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 8 (1996): 29-46.

1Schumann,Music and Musicians, 63.

2There were two articles published by her: "A Comparison of the Auditory Images of Musicians,Psychologists and Children" and "The Auditory Imagery of Great Composers." These articles were

published posthumously and there were no bibliographies. Agnew was a student of Carl Seashore's andboth of her research studies are described in some detail, with references, in Carl Seashore, Psychology ofMusic.

3Gordon,Learning Sequences in Music, 3. The web site of the Gordon Institute for Learning listspublications and other information about Gordon: http://www.giml.org/frames.html.

4Henry, Sight Singing, xiv.

5See "References" at the end of this paper.

6Cowell, "The Process of Musical Creation," 234.

7Schumann,Music and Musicians, 417.

8Mursell, The Psychology of Music.

9Newcomb,Leschetizky As I Knew Him, 18-19.

10Freymuth,Mental Practice and Imagery for Musicians.

11Cadwallader and Gagn,Analysis of Tonal Music, vii.

12Larson, "Scale-Degree Function," 69-84.

13One is reminded of the story of how Mozart wrote out the choral piece Miserere by Allegri after theSistine Chapel refused to give him a copy of the score. He wrote it after one listening and used asubsequent hearing to correct any errors (there were not many). There is an account of this in Richard

Boursy, "The Mystique of the Sistine Chapel Choir in the Romantic Era," 282-83.14Cowell, "The Process of Musical Creation," 235.

15Bachmann,Dalcroze Today, 40.


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16Ibid., p. 298.

17Benward and Carr, Sightsinging Complete, xi.

18Karpinski,Aural Skills Acquisition, 153-56.

19Rogers, Teaching Approaches in Music Theory, 127.

20Tacka and Houlahan, Sound Thinking, 4.

21Gottschalk and Kloeckner, Functional Hearing; Damschroder,Listen and Sing.

22Trubitt and Hines,Ear Training and Sight Singing.

23Washington, "An Electroencephalographic Study of Musical Performance."

24Pascual-Leone, "The Brain That Plays Music and Is Changed by It."

25Sergent, et al., "Distributed Neural Network," 106-9.

26Hoffman, "Auditory Imagery of Conductors."

27Halpern, "Memory for the Absolute Pitch of Familiar Songs."

28Levitin and Cook, "Memory for Musical Tempo."

29Halpern, "Mental Scanning in Auditory Imagery for Songs."

30Zatorre and Halpern, et al., "Hearing in the Mind's Ear."

31Hubbard and Stoeckig, "Musical Imagery: Generation of Tones and Chords."

32Smith, et al., "The Role of Subvocalization in Auditory Imagery."

33Halpern and Zatorre, "When That Tune Runs Through Your Head."

34Evers and Ellger, "The Clinical Spectrum of Musical Hallucinations."

35Alonso and Pascuzzi, "Ravel's Neurological Illness."

36Dies,Joseph Haydn, 141.

37Bergan, "Pitch Perception, Imagery, and Regression."

38Lehmann and McArthur, "Sight-Reading."

39Rogers, Teaching Approaches in Music Theory.

40See for example this author's "Improvisation in the Aural Curriculum: An Imperative," College MusicSymposium 37 (1997): 49-64. See also Joel Phillips, Jane Piper Clendinning, and Elizabeth West Marvin,The Musician's Guide to Aural Skills, (New York: W.W. Norton) 2005.


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