# Do you "mentally hear" chords? how can i learn to??



## bosone (Jan 23, 2020)

hi everyone
it may seem an odd question but it's a matter that struggles me since years.

I don't have a "formal" music education but i had some basic harmony class, I studied something by myself, i can play guitar, piano, flute with variable skills, i can read notes (violin and bass clef), i can write down by hand simple melodies, i can sing basic written melodies on the staff, i am into music (as an hobby, with home recording) since about 20 years and i play music since when i was a kid (I'm 43 now).
so, i have a quite good background... i would not say "solid" but i can manage it.

if i "think" music, without singing loud, but just mentally think about music, I can easily sing / read / compose melodies composed by single notes. the real "problem" i am facing is that I cannot think or imagine harmony and chords. my mind is struck with monophonic lines and, moreover, I cannot imagine the melodies being played by a violin, a flute, an oboe, a complex synth or whatever. what i "hear" in my mind has no harmonic character. let's say is more a basic synth tone without "soul"

I have spoken with several professional musician and each one always told me that he can "hear" in his mind complex harmonies, the character and tone of each instrument, or imagine complex synth sounds.

my question is: is this an heavenly gift one has or has not, or can I learn it somehow??? how?!?!?! 

any ideas?!?


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## bryla (Jan 23, 2020)

There is no such thing as a heavenly gift in this profession. It's a matter of practice and repeated practice.

Keep sight singing melodies (I recommend Robert Ottman's book on sight singing). If you don't already then start singing chords. Start with all the triads in the major scale, then do their inversions. Move on to seventh chords and do their inversions as well.

Also play the harmonies. Try and harmonize folk tunes in very different ways to hear the many options and how they each affect the melody.

Last point: Transcribe! If you don't already; commit to writing a lead sheet of any pop song on a regular basis. This will force you to hear bass lines that will inform you of the harmonies.


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## Jaap (Jan 23, 2020)

Agree 100% with Bryla. It is matter of training, training and training.
You can compare it a bit with sport. The more you train, the more your body "remembers" how certain things work, what to expect and what is coming.


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## bosone (Jan 23, 2020)

bryla said:


> Keep sight singing melodies (I recommend Robert Ottman's book on sight singing). If you don't already then start singing chords. Start with all the triads in the major scale, then do their inversions. Move on to seventh chords and do their inversions as well.



thanks!

i can sight sing melodies (if not too complex!  ) i can also sing chords, but problems is that my "chords singing" is always with separate notes... is like my mind is replicating what i can sing with my voice, and my voice can't sing a chord since voice is monophonic... i can easily sing a triad, note by note, but not with all notes together! :/


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## Jaap (Jan 23, 2020)

bosone said:


> thanks!
> 
> i can sight sing melodies (if not too complex!  ) i can also sing chords, but problems is that my "chords singing" is always with separate notes... is like my mind is replicating what i can sing with my voice, and my voice can't sing a chord since voice is monophonic... i can easily sing a triad, note by note, but not with all notes together! :/



Oh but that's no problem, we all face that problem  (I mean, there would be a good carreer to make if you can sing polyphonic chords).
Kidding aside, your mind will connect those notes after a while together and when you think of them you can hear for example the major chord.
The mind is often so much more quicker then what we can execute.


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## Jerry Growl (Jan 23, 2020)

I think a good way to develop polyphonic thinking is to start pretty much the same way early polyphonic music evolved...

from a drone (bourdon) or pedal note ( a constant bass note that doesn't change at all) with a changing melody on top

and try to remember the drone as you think a melody on top of it. You can play this easily on guitar or piano. This approach will also help you develop a keen sence of intervals and basic voice leading skills (the movement of individual parts of notes within a chord) in order to make more interesting chord progressions.

Do the same in I, IV , V and VI and when you are ready try adding a 3rd voice and solve it's function along as you change your melody. When you advance, try to shift roles (lead melody in bass e.g.)

That worked for me in the past... You can read tons of theory books, but best way is to find out relations and interaction of functional music is in practice (imho)...


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## Rob (Jan 23, 2020)

Also, feeling chord’s quality is not a focused kind of perception... it’s unfocused and expanded, like when you’re driving and you are alert but not looking at something in particular. That’s a kind of mind attitude one has to learn...


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## mikeh-375 (Jan 23, 2020)

If you have an ipod you could create mp3's of a midi piano playing repeated chords, although better still, all intervals, first separate and then together. Create your own repetitions that suit your needs, pop em on the ipod and fall asleep listening to them, or on the train, or anywhere. Just be prepared for a long haul, but it can be done. It's like everything else musical, if you put the work, practise and time into it, you'll reap the rewards.


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## Jimmy Hellfire (Jan 23, 2020)

Yes, it's 100% training. It's a good idea to consciously learn to play chords on the piano/keyboard - learn to play scale chords and all inversions and to change from one to the next. Start with triads, then expand to dominant 7ths, etc. etc. - and always make sure that you know exactly what it is you're playing (name the chord and inversion, always be able to tell what it is that makes the chord a min or maj, which note makes it a maj7, dim, etc.,). Eventually your brain will develop the ability to hear the sound of a chord or interval structure, and you'll be able to differentiate between a minor and a sus4, etc.


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## youngpokie (Jan 23, 2020)

The reason you can "hear" melodies in your mind is because of years of exposure and focus on them, conscious or not. So now you have the ear memory, so to speak, to imagine melodies and therefore compose them. In music education, you take foundation music theory class that's focused on intervals and notation, so you can actually write down exactly what you're hearing. You take harmony class, to harmonize the melody, etc. As most people are saying here, the way to "hear" harmony is to study and focus on chords. 

I would just add one thing: you also have to actively listen to music and search for the chords you're studying so you can train yourself to recognize them. 

In a harmony class, they teach you the make up of the chord, its purpose, but the most important part is in the examples. The examples show the position of a given chord in a progression, the actual sound of the chord and the bass note (the bass note is crucial, and it helps a lot in "hearing" the harmony). But without spending time on listening to examples and learning the sound of the chord, the theoretical study is meaningless.

The chords that are the easiest to recognize are I, V and then IV, and the examples are everywhere. You can train yourself to recognize their sound and tell the difference between them almost immediately. And you can/should follow that by composing a melody on top of the I-IV-V or IV-V-I progression in your mind right while focusing on them. 

Then you can train yourself to recognize the Cadential 6/4 chord and then compose on top of it. It's an inversion of the I, but has a really unique dramatic sound in the right place of a progression and it's easy to hear.

And so on and so forth, you get the idea. 

The point is, with a bit of study, it's actually not that complicated. Learn the chord, its bass note and place in progression, then just keep looking for it when listening to music. Once it's in your memory bank, you'll start hearing it when composing.


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## ism (Jan 23, 2020)

It seems like this kind of ear training is something that could be made much more efficient with some kind of ear training app. I know of some expensive ones. Think of something as basic as this:





__





Mahler - Piano Tutor (practice your sight reading skills)


A sight reading app designed to help you practice your music reading skills. You can use it with the on-screen piano for a quick session as well as with any of your MIDI devices (Chrome 43+).



cristiandima.github.io





Which is a simple and effective tool for learning sight reading (though I wish it had alto clef).

But generalize it to basic ear training of for chords - that is, to solidify some basics before going out into the wild and listening to music to identify chords.

As much as a hate the "there's an app for that" culture that reduces every human problem to an app-store product, it really does seem that this basic level of ear training really could be made more efficient via the instant feedback that a software offers.



Anyone know any good software for ear training?


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## Jerry Growl (Jan 23, 2020)

ism said:


> Anyone know any good software for ear training?


Earmaster Pro?

Easy to advanced levels of sight-reading, rhythmical and melodic aural exercises, theory... it's all in there.


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## ism (Jan 23, 2020)

Jerry Growl said:


> Earmaster Pro?
> 
> Easy to advanced levels of sight-reading, rhythmical and melodic aural exercises, theory... it's all in there.



That does indeed seems to cover it.


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## Rob (Jan 23, 2020)

there are several in the applestore... I had one called goodEar, different versions of it, the"Chords" one could be yours


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## ism (Jan 23, 2020)

Larger question though. While there's certainly learning efficiencies in this kind of technical solution, I wonder what's also being lost simultaneously?

I studied ear training in university - though being a scientist at the time, between not having access to a piano and the classes being squeezed in between between Partial Differential Equations and Quantum Mechanics, there were certain aspects I didn't absorb quite as much as I'd like. 

This kind of software would certainly helped on a technical level. But the benefit of a prof, with genuine pedagogical experience was valuable also. And I wonder what of the latter would be lost in learning exclusively from the former.


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## mikeh-375 (Jan 23, 2020)

ism said:


> Larger question though. While there's certainly learning efficiencies in this kind of technical solution, I wonder what's also being lost simultaneously?
> 
> I studied ear training in university - though being a scientist at the time, between not having access to a piano and the classes being squeezed in between between Partial Differential Equations and Quantum Mechanics, there were certain aspects I didn't absorb quite as much as I'd like.
> 
> This kind of software would certainly helped on a technical level. But the benefit of a prof, with genuine pedagogical experience was valuable also. And I wonder what of the latter would be lost in learning exclusively from the former.



yes indeed. Isolation is ok to start with as a foundation, but context is also key. Ultimately one has to hear linearly too and that includes lines and chord progressions. I'm still of the mind that one should never run before walking and instead of chords, one should first off work on intervals alone and then consider putting them together in more complex verticals only after assimilation - it'll be much easier that way. The intervals are the building blocks of harmony AND line.


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## ism (Jan 23, 2020)

mikeh-375 said:


> yes indeed. Isolation is ok to start with as a foundation, but context is also key. Ultimately one has to hear linearly too and that includes lines and chord progressions. I'm still of the mind that one should never run before walking and instead of chords, one should first off work on intervals alone and then consider putting them together in more complex verticals only after assimilation - it'll be much easier that way. The intervals are the building blocks of harmony AND line.



This is the perennial failing of music pedagogy - connecting that there with properly contextual practice. 

And whether software approaches make this better or worse, I'm not always sure.


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## Studio E (Jan 23, 2020)

I just started @alainmayrand 's Diatonic Ear Training course as part of his overall course work. I can't speak of results yet as I literally listened to the first lesson just yesterday, but I can speak of Alain's courses in general which are beyond excellent IMHO. scoreclub.net is his website.


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## youngpokie (Jan 23, 2020)

I am thinking that what @ed buller suggests here is probably spot on 

Wonderful YOUTUBE Tutorials.


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## nolotrippen (Jan 23, 2020)

I've been doing this for decades and can't hear chords in my head unless I arpeggiate them. I can hear differences (usually) between Major Minor Aug Dim when someone else plays them, but having that happen in my head just doesn't work for me.


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## ism (Jan 23, 2020)

nolotrippen said:


> I've been doing this for decades and can't hear chords in my head unless I arpeggiate them. I can hear differences (usually) between Major Minor Aug Dim when someone else plays them, but having that happen in my head just doesn't work for me.



https://www.amazon.ca/s/ref=dp_byline_sr_book_1?ie=UTF8&field-author=Dmitri+Tymoczko&search-alias=books-ca (Tymoczko)'s book "A Geometry of Music" has an interesting thesis here. He argues that we perceive (at least a certain type of) music as motion of chord as paths in an n-dimensional space - ie. for a 3 dimensional spaces wherein a progression of 3-note chords traces out a "path". 

His innovation is instead of using a regular pre-Einsteinian flat 3D spaces, he proposed understanding musical spaces as slightly wonky "orbinfolds" (his orbinfolds are kind of like conventional flat geometric spaces, but when you fold them over onto each other to account for musical symmetries - and these symmetries induce a topological wonkiness, which is why we need orbinfolds instead of the vanilla flat geometries of garden variety manifolds). 

He's careful not to claim that that his musicology makes him a neuroscientist. But its very suggestive of how we perceive music as paths in (topologically wonky) spaces. (All of this is much more straightforward if you read this book - it has lots of helpful pictures, it really is much more straightforward that I'm making it sound). 

What's relevant here is that this sense that our perception of music involves a capacity to perceive the "motions" of chords in some kind of (wonky) "musical space". This includes the voice leading of progression - not just a I - IV - V, but the "shape" of the paths traced out by the individual notes).


So our ability to perceive (whether to enjoy or dislike) music (within at least a subset of western musicality) hinges on the ability to somehow perceive chords and their motion through musical spaces. Quite regardless of whether or not we develop the ability to map it to a formalism where we can name the individual chords.


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## jacobthestupendous (Jan 23, 2020)

I don't have any advice for how to learn it other than how I did (probably--I doubt anyone really knows): I was immersed in good music in my formative brain years, and I devoted myself to it after them. I don't intuitively know the chord names for the second movement of Beethoven's seventh symphony, but I can hear it in my head with all the color and texture of a recording; I can imagine what it would sound like if instead of a flute on the opening chord, someone played a lightly overdriven electric guitar.

It seems from reading these responses that mental chordal visualization ("auralization"?) is not unusual to lack an untrained capacity for, but it's fascinating to me that you can't imagine instrument sounds playing the notes either. I don't want to be discouraging, but I suspect your challenge is greater than some of these folks are reckoning.


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## mikeh-375 (Jan 23, 2020)

that's neat @ism. it tends to suggest (to me anyways) from what you've written that more emphasis on linearity (voice leading) will get you nearer hearing vertically later on. I agree with this, it seems to resonate with what I suggested before about intervals. Learning (mentally singing that is), differing intervallic spaces horizontally with some distance between the notes and then gradually decreasing the distance with practise until they almost become simultaneous in your head (like an acciaccatura), is a good start to achieving vertical hearing. That and scalic transposition of each interval. Chromaticism comes much later. Running before walking not allowed....


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## Paul Grymaud (Jan 23, 2020)

Yes, for sure. Look at this. There's no place for other stuff than music (chords included)


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## Jerry Growl (Jan 23, 2020)

ism said:


> Larger question though. While there's certainly learning efficiencies in this kind of technical solution, I wonder what's also being lost simultaneously?


 Well, what's being lost simultaneously is usually time.. 

Apart from that I don't really think there is a downside to ear training, not with one method vs the other. The one thing this software has is a bunch of exercises and aural tests you don't have to come up with yourself. I think the pro version has over 2000 exercises.

I've had discussions with people claiming too much ear training, harmony study and music theory might stand to gain on analytical approach to music, but to the expense of emotional approach to music. Personally I think these approaches are complementary, I don't see how one would always be at the cost of the other. I guess one should try to keep a balance or try to develop bothways.


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## ism (Jan 23, 2020)

Jerry Growl said:


> Well, what's being lost simultaneously is usually time..  Hopefully only an acceptable portion of it.
> 
> Apart from that I don't really think there is a downside to ear training, not with one method vs the other. The one thing this software has is a bunch of exercises and aural tests you don't have to come up with yourself.
> 
> I've had discussions with people claiming too much ear training, harmony study and music theory might stand to gain on analytical approach to music, but to the expense of emotional approach to music. Personally I think these approaches are complementary, I don't see how one would always be at the cost of the other. I guess one should try to keep a balance or try to develop bothways.


I’m not meaning to draw a dichotomy of one vs the other. The $10 software clearly does add efficiencies and saves some time. Even if used along side a professional instructor.

The question is what is lost in cutting the instructor out altogether. 

In other words, i don’t have a great deal of insight into what the pedagogical dynamics of teaching ear training really are. In fairness, neither do a great many teachers - people why teach music theory generally don’t do so out of any particular love of music theory, in that they’re often musicians prone to the same anti-theoretical biases that musicians are vulnerable to. 

But i’m wondering what a truely great teacher would bring to this type of study that you'de never find in a $10 bit of software.

I also have @alainmayrand ’s scoreclub ear training course (which i should really finish). And there are ways that he’s trying to make the ear training skills relevant to the practice of a working composer (which is where the real depth of the scoreclub courses lie - his insight into the connection between theory and practice). So if anyone would know this perhaps it’s himself.


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## bryla (Jan 23, 2020)

For ear training software I can highly recommend EarMaster.


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## JJP (Jan 23, 2020)

Jerry Growl said:


> I've had discussions with people claiming too much ear training, harmony study and music theory might stand to gain on analytical approach to music, but to the expense of emotional approach to music.


Those people are wrong. Simply having knowledge doesn't force you to apply it in any particular way. 

As people have hinted above, hearing the melody and the bass note are the key foundations to aurally imagining harmony. Start there. Often if you can hear those two items, you can tell the basic harmony from color and context even if you can't identify every note.


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## Dave Connor (Jan 24, 2020)

Jerry Growl said:


> I've had discussions with people claiming too much ear training, harmony study and music theory might stand to gain on analytical approach to music, but to the expense of emotional approach to music. Personally I think these approaches are complementary, I don't see how one would always be at the cost of the other. I guess one should try to keep a balance or try to develop bothways.


The concept of an _emotional approach_ strikes me as rather odd. Most people have a fully developed emotional nature to begin with. Musical study is designed to facilitate the musical statements of objective to emotional statements. Stravinsky and Toscanini famously said emotion played no role in their process whatsoever. We all love the emotional element found in music but that is an unction in the composer not a learned science which for most (including Mozart) was the result of earnest study.


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## Jerry Growl (Jan 24, 2020)

Dave Connor said:


> Most people have a fully developed emotional nature to begin with.


Sorry if we're getting off topic...

I'm not the expert in neuroscience, but I'm quite sure there is a great deal of personal growth possible in what modern day (plastic dark ages) neuroscience understands of 'right hemisphere activity'.
But you are right , emotions is only a small part of what goes on there. 

I'm also quite sure that if a modern day MRI scan of Stravinsky and Toscanini were possible, it would have disproved their whole assumptions. It was quite à la mode in their times and surroundings to look down on 'simple emotions' or anything going on subconsciously.


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## Dave Connor (Jan 24, 2020)

You can’t dismiss or discount the process the composer or musician declares his/her own. That shouldn’t be done to even you let alone the giants. These guys knew what they were doing and how. How much emotion went into Rembrandt's mixing of paint? It was a scientific, chemical process - that belonged to that day. Same with Beethoven’s form: scientific structures to an astonishing degree. Not emotionally conceived (or else anyone with only emotions could approximate it.)

Why such a thorough study of the scientific properties of music by the majority? Because that’s what sets them apart from someone who _feels_ they would like to write music.


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## ism (Jan 24, 2020)

Dave Connor said:


> You can’t dismiss or discount the process the composer or musician declares his/her own. That shouldn’t be done to even you let alone the giants. These guys knew what they were doing and how. How much emotion went into Rembrandt's mixing of paint? It was a scientific, chemical process - that belonged to that day. Same with Beethoven’s form: scientific structures to an astonishing degree. Not emotionally conceived (or else anyone with only emotions could approximate it.)
> 
> Why such a thorough study of the scientific properties of music by the majority? Because that’s what sets them apart from someone who _feels_ they would like to write music.



Freud writes on the mystery of the artistic process, with insight, but in that such creation will inevitably be entangled with the drives and energies emanating from the (by definition, inaccessible) unconscious, the way an artist might attempt to objectively describes the act of creation is likely to be an artifact of the ego, and necessarily incomplete.

But even if you’re not partial to Freud, modern psychology has long rejected introspection as anything remotely definitive In the data it provides on the workings of the mind.

in both cases there’s a need to resist the Cartesian theory of the human mind that assumes that we are transparent and observable to ourselves. 

Not that i don’t value the insights of composers into the process of composing, but there’s a point at which its like asking fish to tell you about water.


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## Dave Connor (Jan 24, 2020)

Freudian analysis is one thing and hardly an exact science. Analysis of a Beethoven Sonata is far more exact in nature because it was designed by the application of established structural (scientific in nature - not emotional) principles. Much more akin to the design of a house with x number of floors, rooms etc. To say an architect who declares the objective nature of his work was actually far more emotional is (as I said about music) a strange imposition.

The workings of the brain etc., does not figure into one’s sense of their emotions historically. Given that _cheerful_ works are written among tragic circumstances and vice-verse tells you how unrelated the two can be. And that’s a scientific observation.


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## ism (Jan 24, 2020)

Analysis of the syntax of music can be made, if not into an exact science, them at least an axiomatic one. So in this sense i agrees that one can be objective in a at least a certain type of analysis of the human mind. But the object of such is the syntax of music (within a particular axiomatization), not the experience of musicality, not its meaning. 

So to clarify, my point wasn’t that Freudian analysis provides a reliable account of the artistic process, just that it warns of the complexity, maybe the impossibility, of any such objective, scientific account. (Although i do think it offers some insight).



Dave Connor said:


> The workings of the brain etc., does not figure into one’s sense of their emotions historically. Given that _cheerful_ works are written among tragic circumstances and vice-verse tells you how unrelated the two can be. And that’s a scientific observation.



But here I must admit that I have no idea what you’re trying to say. So maybe this is a rabbit hole to avoid.


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## gsilbers (Jan 24, 2020)

bryla said:


> There is no such thing as a heavenly gift in this profession. It's a matter of practice and repeated practice.



Unless you are rick Beatos son


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## Dave Connor (Jan 24, 2020)

ism said:


> So to clarify, my point wasn’t that Freudian analysis provides a reliable account of the artistic process, just that it warns of the complexity, maybe the impossibility, of any such objective, scientific account. (Although i do think it offers some insight).


 My points are very simple and will be far easier to understand than your first paragraph : ) Also not primarily directed at you:

The assigning of an artistic process - after the fact - that stands contradictory to the stated process employed by a composer or artist - in the name of _science _or _anything else_ - is fallacious and even _unscientific_. Particularly when the underlying science is so apparent, easily apprehended and measurable. Which is to say that much of the visible results of their process confirms their statement: that an emotional element played no role at all.

Whatever the merits of Freud’s approach, it does not fall into nearly the same objective category as the formal structure of a Sonata or a Hotel suite for that matter. To say the latter two had _emotional approaches _when the authors say they didn’t, is rather strange and stems from I don’t know what. Citing the complexities of the human mind and all its elements is once again, imposing an overly complex analysis when you can simply take the author at his word.

If I hear a piece of your music that elicits sadness in most listeners and ask you if you were sad when you wrote it and you say, _No, not in the least._ I’m going to believe you, not go on about how your going along with some popular mode of thinking and contradict you. That’s nonsense. There were no more independent spirits and thinkers than Toscanini and Stravinsky in their day. Neither went with the crowd in some weak conformity.

You and countless others know this subject very well: Does music have objective scientific properties or is it all an emotional gush? To make my point even clearer: If someone tells me, _I just gush. _I’m going to take them at their word. If they say, _Composition is not an emotional exercise for me. It’s more like building a house. _I’m going to believe them.


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## ism (Jan 24, 2020)

Dave Connor said:


> If they say, _Composition is not an emotional exercise for me. It’s more like building a house. _I’m going to believe him.



Well I'm not. And certainly no psychoanalyst is. And no psychologist in the last 100 years or so is going to take this kind of self reporting at face value. Any modern science of the human mind starts any questioning the Cartesian notion of self-transparency inherent in such statements.

There's a simply political objection to taking such statements at face value. The ideology of the towering intellect of the composer ... or the tortured emotion of the composer arises in a very 19th century discourse, not coincidentally around about the time the concept and enforcement of intellectual property starts to really make it in the artist's self interest to construct himself as the sole author of a work. The whole concept of a work of art having a single author really doesn't fully arise in it's modern form until roughly the 19th century. 

Paul McCartney repeatedly told the story about how "Yesterday" - the single most commercially successful song in history by some metrics - just magically came to him in a dream. It made for good press, and it benefited his brand, probably sold more copies, encouraged more covers. Yet the road crew also tell stories of him labouring intensively on it month after month (under the working title "scambled eggs". And it eventually becomes a song that's both viscerally emotional, and used some surprisingly complex modulation to achieve that emotion). Lennon has similarly unreliable accounts of his creative process, that simply feed his own brand and self dramatization as an artist. 

If Stravinsky or someone wants to frame composition as "more like building a house", well perhaps he's tired of a particularly interviewer being put upon on the Beethoven or Van Gogh-esque pedestal of the emotionally tortured genius. Or maybe he's annoyed that the intellectual side of his composition isn't getting the credit it deserves. Or maybe he's trying to escape depression by focusing feeling the intellectual side of the composition process. Einstein reports great angst at the fetishizing worshipfulness with which his genius was revered later in his life, and made his own attempts to deflate it.


Which is all perfect fine. People find way to express things that are virtually impossible to express objectively - which is why we have art in the first place.

But science certain doesn't offer any particular support to taking such statements literally. 


That said . ...I kind of still suspect we're talking about different things


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## Dave Connor (Jan 24, 2020)

Btw, Toscanini and Stravinsky are responsible for some of the most emotionally charged music and music-performances of the 20th century. They are also two the most learned and scholarly. If they arrived at such by extremely objective means who would quibble? They both said they did just that, which proves arriving at extreme levels of emotional intensity need not be an emotional process at all.

There are very few endeavors where you are advised to first work yourself up into a highly emotional state and then, _take that test, give that speech, talk to your boss or wife or kids, or fly that plane, or perform that piece etc. _Emotions may be the easiest thing for a human being to produce. Works of art - a different story.


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## Dave Connor (Jan 24, 2020)

ism said:


> Well I'm not. And certainly no psychoanalyst is. And no psychologist in the last 100 years or so is going to take this kind of self reporting at face value. Any modern science of the human mind starts any questioning the Cartesian notion of self-transparency inherent in such statements.


 I’m not vested in what those people think. Interested yes, but they’re not going to open the worlds that Mozart and Beethoven have to me. Not remotely. I’m interested precisely in the thought process of a Stravinsky who was interested in Bach’s thought process etc. If I understood his psychological makeup perfectly it would benefit me not at all. Not musically anyway.


ism said:


> There's a simply political objection to taking such statements at face value. The ideology of the towering intellect of the composer ... or the tortured emotion of the composer arises in a very 19th century discourse...


 So if you inquire about someone’s mock-up process and mindset and they tell you they prefer Spitfire libraries and chose them without any emotional considerations - you would object on “Political grounds?” Or is there such a thing as a simple answer to a simple question? You can’t tell me their subconscious isn’t involved and there isn’t an ounce of emotional involvement, perhaps due to goals and desires that could go back to two years old or whatever. That’s a given and not what I’m talking about. I’m not divorcing those elements from Stravinsky. I am talking about his basic disposition intellectually, psychologically, emotionally and otherwise, that he operates in when practicing his art. And that he’s perfectly capable of articulating it reliably and accurately. Same as a window washer could. Do we need to hook these people up to monitors and do brain scans for us to understand their frame of mind? No. Understanding their cerebral cortex, neurons and brain hemispheres is not vital for them to fill us in on their method. That’s too esoteric. The basic human machine can answer basic human questions

A child can tell you if they had a good day at school or if they were bullied and found themselves in an emotional state. Right? Stravinsky and co., can tell you their basic process, from the color of pencils, to paper, to preferred mental and emotional state. Period. I don’t care what some philosopher or shrink who wants to torture the _real meaning _out of that thinks. It’s simple, not overwrought super-psychoanalytical nonsense. Not everyone bows at that alter. You should consider that. I am far more interested in Mahler’s symphonies than anything Freud had to say about him.

When Mahler told his wife that _composition takes up the whole force of a man, _obviously that includes his emotions. But his thorough education in and out of school hardly hampered his emotional statements. That is the context of this discussion, hence my posts. It was suggested that knowledge of the science of music could have a negative impact on a composer‘s emotional expression. I’ll settle for a single example from the last three centuries.


ism said:


> If Stravinsky or someone wants to frame composition as "more like building a house", well perhaps he's tired of a particularly interviewer being put upon on the Beethoven or Van Gogh-esque pedestal of the emotionally tortured genius. Or maybe he's annoyed that the intellectual side of his composition isn't getting the credit it deserves. Or maybe he's trying to escape depression by focusing feeling the intellectual side of the composition process.


Are you really comfortable with all that disparate speculation? Why not ask the guy? Same as asking a ball player what shoes he wears and why. Maybe Stravinsky took an essentially intellectual approach to his art exactly as he said. An approach so abundant that universities have been packed for centuries for objective scientific learning such as medicine, agriculture, architecture. There is art in all of those. Those people don’t need to take an emotional approach to achieve their aims. Why is some emotional state or approach necessary to write some music? It is to me an unscientific postulate.


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## Dave Connor (Jan 25, 2020)

We may be talking about different things I agree. I tried to make my original point which was not in response to you more clear above. While also addressing your points.


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## mikeh-375 (Jan 25, 2020)

@ism and @Dave Connor, this is great stuff guys.
In my own experience, I can say that when I've written music that might be deemed melancholy, sad, I have personally never felt that way at the time. Likewise happy, or any other emotion - they just don't really come into play at the moment of creativity. Music tends to have its own internal logic, the external perception and intention is open to controversy.

I take care of the musical housekeeping, the building (structure), the logic, the progression, the development - teasing out what is inherent in the material, (a bit like sculpting and digging deep via technically instinctual means to find something merely hinted at, or more contentiously, felt initially).

I leave anything else to the music itself. If I happen to hit on a moment that turns the emotional arc on its head and which feels right (inevitable) for the work at that moment, I go with it and progress from there searching for what will inevitably follow. This isn't as cold as it sounds and the emotional efficacy is dependant on the parameters chosen for composing with - be it in a common or grittier language.
I am prepared to accept that there may well be a sub-conscious "flow" involved however and the reasons for an idea resonating with the creative urge and starting off a piece is open to speculation.

Excellent exchange chaps.


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## styledelk (Jan 25, 2020)

I tend to agree with @ism here. The narrator is always in question. The owls are not what they seem. 
But to the same token, while I don’t trust what a composer (or author) says was their process or intent, I do think intent (unconscious or conscious) is essential. 
I just also accept that “knowing” it is outside our individual and collective abilities and sciences today. 
if I told you a piece I wrote was sad, and I intended it to be sad: all you can read is that I maybe think it’s sad, and I maybe had intended it to be that way. I could be lying to you, myself, or just misunderstand and mistranslated myself. You could have misheard. Or maybe I wrote it from my perceived, but perhaps wrong, point of view and interpretation of what Sad Is. Or maybe you heard it as happy, and that’s incongruous with the sad of my intent. Are you wrong? Am I wrong?
It doesn’t really matter, and perhaps the “emotional content is suspect, therefore irrelevant” sort of argument actually makes sense. 

Anyway. One way I approached moving beyond hearing simple melody was really just intense listening and trying to recreate parts and pieces in my head. And getting very frustrated when it didn’t work. 
Eventually, it does. Doing this with the music of others first may benefit you more, since you take away the burden of composition. Then you can work on changing the chords on the original in your head. How different does that sound? Etc.


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## Jerry Growl (Jan 25, 2020)

Interesting points though this discussion may have started out as knitting a pair of socks and resulted in a giant blue whale blouse.

Not denying the importance of music education, stylistic refinement and analytic insight in music structure, I can not help but add creativity, intuition, and a good portion of illogical and even accidental behaviour to the table.

If emotions were to be narrowed down to basic moods (happy, sad, angry,...) I wouldn't have brought it up. There are people who hear a minor chord and think: that sounds sad. That's an over-simplification too.

Musical language, expression, vibe, atmosphere, empathy, narrative, cultural values or references, ... are only some of many concepts that include or at least refer to a set of emotional values or sentiments far more refined than just 'happy' or 'sad'. I think we should have a broader spectrum on musical 'feeling', intuition, empathy, etc.

I also don't think everyone just has a perfect emotional understanding or the ability to fully emphasize by default or by birth. Unless again you would only be talking of 'sad' or 'happy'. Yes you can refine your sentiments. Maybe not so much your emotional state, but definitely your emotional insight, your empathy and your intuition.

From personal experience I would bring up improvisation as an example, a valuable skill for composing (one of many). I'm sure it feeds greatly on the interaction between music tuition (scholarship) and music intuition.

I would describe it as a time related and consequent interaction between musical memory, musical language, music structure (harmony, melodic phrasing,etc), mechanical memory (fingers doing stuff they've done before), rhythmic feel, musical expectation, and the inclusion of little mistakes or accidents....

When composing I bring the same process to work, but with a lot of filtering, selecting and a vague idea of form or global result.

I have noticed over the years how the right mindset of not interfering the process of improvisation (but rather staying on the side as it happens, trying to follow from an audience perspective) has greatly improved my workflow (and I think the quality of the music too). I think I'm trying to reduce my personal or at least conscious involvement in the process and it yields a lot for me.

Maybe it's working with sample libraries and virtual instrument plugins where not only you are creating a concept of music, but also a performance or a (pre)production, has me wondering too about the importance of emotional involvement...


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## ProfoundSilence (Jan 25, 2020)

I mean, intervals are big. One of the things I do when I'm imagining something - is I hear melody's place in the chord. This is actually more obvious to when it's a non-chord tone. 

for instance - when your melody is playing a B natural, and you imagine a minor 2nd rub over a major chord, poke around the different options. If you imagine that minor 2nd, then it's one of these options

B and C
(like from an F major, a lydian type sound - or 7th of a Cmaj7 - maybe even the 5th next to a b6 on top of an E major. least likely is a B natural rub against an Ab which would be minor+major at the same time)

or B and Bb - that 3/4 sus sound over Gb major, the b6 itself over an Eb major. Could be the bC(enharmonic) 2nd over a Bb major chord. 

this is ruling out the obvious(if it's a chord tone of a triad. This should be obvious - if not - play major/minor chords and then sing the 3rds, 5ths, and octaves of the root until you can hear the individual intervals in your head.


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## Craig Duke (Jan 25, 2020)

Dave Connor said:


> You and countless others know this subject very well: Does music have objective scientific properties or is it all an emotional gush? To make my point even clearer: If someone tells me, _I just gush. _I’m going to take them at their word. If they say, _Composition is not an emotional exercise for me. It’s more like building a house. _I’m going to believe them.


I generally agree with you but would like to show it in a different light.

A common description of emotions include happy, sad, pensive, gobsmacked, i.e. general states your conscious mind is experiencing. I think "emotions" is more useful when thought of as signals provided to our consciousness from non-conscious parts of the brain. These impulses drive our every thought and action. As Daniel Kahneman said "Emotions are the foundation of every decision." (I think he said that).

I'm hungry, I wish I wasn't standing in line, I like that version of red, that's a nice modulation, I don't like your melody. You *feel *these things in your conscious mind because the non-conscious mind is reporting them to it. If I ask you why you feel something, you will gladly provide a reason but, in fact, you can't be certain because you didn't make the decision to feel that way. We fool ourselves into thinking we know. This is a bedrock belief of the neuroscience writings I am exposed to.

For example, why don't you like my melody? You say there are too many repeated notes or it's not using the notes implied by the harmony. Right or wrong, that is your own analysis of a decision your non-conscious mind has already made for you. If you pay close attention to life, you realize we are constantly trying to describe why we feel something or did something we actually didn't decide to do (it's that other guy in our head). We were in fact coerced into to doing it by these emotion signals from a system other than our consciousness.

This brings us to music theory and creativity. MT gives us a language for describing music and takes a stab at describing how and why it works (on our brains). The problem is "how it works" is something our non-conscious mind tells us. But that's OK. MT not a complete and perfect theory of how we experience music. MT can be used to analyze existing music and used to create music. But here's the thing, the decisions you make, decisions that put the notes on the page, are, in the end, a product of your non-conscious mind rather than a theory or even your conscious mind (you are not in control). What the theory can do is make more options available to you. This makes you more "creative," not less. 

Conscious Mind: "I think a plagal cadence will work well here. I'll play it for you." 

Non-conscious Mind: "I heard it. It's not working for me. Try something else."

Conscious Mind: "OK, how about this?"

Non-conscious mind: "Fantastic!"

Conscious Mind: "Shall I explain what I did? I used a chord substitution ..."

Non-conscious mind: "I don't care. My job is to feed you emotions; likes and dislikes, goods and bads. We all have our jobs. Oh, and BTW, you're very thirsty now."

Conscious Mind: "Take five. I'm thirsty, I'm going to get a drink."

Non-conscious mind: "Ya, I know.


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## Ashermusic (Jan 25, 2020)

Composing music for hire is a bit different from composing for yourself. When you compose for yourself, regardless of how much training you have or have not had, presumably your emotions are fully involved, otherwise you wouldn't bother to do it.

Composing for hire can be a bit like acting in a play, you become the character the music needs. So you may not be feeling sad, but you "act" (compose) sad, because that is what is required of you. If you are very skilled, the difference will not be discernible to the listener.

But the notion that knowledge somehow limits your ability to create emotionally is frankly imbecilic, almost not even worthy of a response.


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## Dave Connor (Jan 25, 2020)

We have all grown up in an age where the workings of the mind and it’s various components is well accepted. In fact Stravinsky would copy out Bach compositions in order to deliberately sink it down into his unconscious (and conscious obviously) mind. He was neither Romantic nor Primitive in this approach but scientific in his learning process. Mozart’s modeling of J.C. Bach’s works was an exercise in extreme objectivity. He was literally copying the surface features to create a structure he knew was well organized and effective. The results of both composer’s could stir any number of emotions in the listener and vary in each listener: _I almost cried... The piece did nothing for me._

No one is discounting the emotional element found in music or even that it may be a part of many artists process. However, if Bach writes a Gigue while composing a suite, is it because he feels an emotional impulse to dance? Or is it one of the styles and structures of that particular form? The results may make you want to dance but by necessity, far more objective elements need to be present to satisfy both form and content.

If a baseball player is asked if he was emotional or nervous batting in a critical situation and he says, _No, not particularly - _he is telling you his sense of himself - his process. His heart-rate may be elevated, palms sweating, blood pressure increased scientifically speaking, but that is nearly a different subject. In fact he may have worked at being relaxed at the plate to filter out even natural emotions for more efficient control of all his faculties. I’m not saying the blood pressure monitor is wrong, I’m saying the ball player’s statement is not in conflict the the underlying science. When Stravinsky says emotion is not a part of his composition process - that’s Babe Ruth talking.


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## Alexandre (Jan 25, 2020)

youngpokie said:


> The reason you can "hear" melodies in your mind is because of years of exposure and focus on them, conscious or not. So now you have the ear memory, so to speak, to imagine melodies and therefore compose them. In music education, you take foundation music theory class that's focused on intervals and notation, so you can actually write down exactly what you're hearing. You take harmony class, to harmonize the melody, etc. As most people are saying here, the way to "hear" harmony is to study and focus on chords.
> 
> I would just add one thing: you also have to actively listen to music and search for the chords you're studying so you can train yourself to recognize them.
> 
> ...


THIS is so helpful! Actually this whole thread and many of it s great advice seems like golden nuggets that we never ever see anywhere but is actually so Essential!! Thanks to op for making it happen and all of you for such meaningful insights for those of us who are self trained composers...


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## Alex Fraser (Jan 25, 2020)

gsilbers said:


> Unless you are rick Beatos son


You refer to perfect pitch? I could pull the same party trick shown in the video when I was the same age. Alas, whilst I can still mostly identify notes and chords by ear alone, like an old analogue synth, I'm drifting out of tune as I get older.


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