INNER HEARING
I first learned about Inner Hearing as young student at Jazz Mobile in New York City. The great musicians whom stood before us were very much about developing our musical imagination. Consequently, we were encouraged to do a LOT of listening and analysis.
And we did!
Many years later during my time as a faculty member at Berklee College of Music, I came to tell aspiring musicians that Inner Hearing means to hear internally, to accurately perceive music in your mind. That is to say, to use your musical imagination with precision.
What Does Inner Hearing Mean?
Think about this: Have you ever heard a phrase or melody, but couldn’t memorize or internalize the sound well enough to sing it or even find it on your instrument?
This experience is like looking through a camera lens that isn’t quite in focus. You can see that there is something in front of you, but you can’t make it out well enough to describe it to someone else or even to yourself. Developing your inner hearing is like using the right lens to see accurately.
However with music you are working to internally hear the ideas in your head with precision. You want to be able to sing the melody or phrase, play it on your instrument or even write it down.
How Do I Learn To Write What I Hear In My Head?
With Performance Ear Training, you learn to write what you hear in your head by using patterns to exercise your musical imagination. Just as you can do a physical workout to have a more defined six-pack, you can exercise your inner-ear to hear with more definition, more detail. In life, we depend upon patterns to get through our daily lives. Without them, we’d literally be lost. In the same way, patterns perform a similar function for us in music. Through patterns, we learn what to expect and therefore learn to hear difference with greater accuracy.
WITH TIME and regular practice, you will gain the ability to hear internally with precision, sing written melodies more accurately and play and learn music with greater ease.
How can Inner Hearing Help With
Playing The Notes I Hear In My Mind?
In a similar manner, you develop the ability to play what you imagine through working with patterns and doing transcription activities in small bites. Canned video lessons cannot beat the live lessons of Performance Ear Training where you are challenged in real time and receive immediate feedback. For most of these sessions you will work within a given range of notes or chords as your ears and theory knowledge will be challenged all along the way. In addition, you will have access to weekly lessons notes for each class that form the basis of your homework for the next lesson
Can Everyone Develop Inner Hearing?
Everyone has imagination. Performance Ear Training helps you to develop your musical aural perception.
