Re: Audiation
Gordon's Audiation as described in the article has been a standard feature in music education for decades. And it is different from just hearing or listening, because it encompasses the qualities and relationships among the sounds. When you study a score as a conductor you have to "internally hear" the lines, chords, instruments or voices as well as the dynamics and effects. Then when you are in front of the orchestra or choir you try to get the musicians to match that concept of the piece.
But it is something a so-called untrained person can do at some level. Think a tune you know well, then play around with it in your imagination: make it minor, slower or faster, in a different key (or just starting on a different note). Maybe you don't know about secondary dominant chords, but you know that F needs to be F# and you can hear the difference. When you are listening to a not-so-good performance and something "just sounds wrong," you are comparing the live event to the audiation of the piece in your mind.
I was terribly frustrated when I started playing mandolin and mandocello after a long career as a conductor: I KNEW what it was supposed to sound like in my mind, and it wasn't what I heard coming out of my instrument. Not just wrong notes, but tone, flow, and dynamics. If you play mechanically and have to ask somebody else if it sounds right, you are probably not audiating. But I think the people who are serious enough to be Cafe fans are probably doing some audiating at conscious as well as unconscious levels.
From another thread about tab vs. notes, I am curious if tab readers can "hear" the sounds when they look at the charts. That would be an interesting audiation study for one of my grad students. Hmmmm...
Jim
Dr James S Imhoff
Boston University
Oregon Mandolin Orchestra
1912 Gibson K4 Mandocello; Thomann Mandocello; Stiver F5; American? Bowlback; Martin 00016; Dusepo Cittern/liuto cantabile
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