Can you hear music in your head?

[Kevin L. Rietmann]

I've been curious about this for a long time, I can cue up in my head most any bit of music I've ever heard - specific recordings, too. Speech, too, lines from movies, etc. It's a bit distracting at times. Hard to shut off.
So...can you hear music? Or not? Dunno if there are degrees of ability with this - let us know!
Then there are people who can't play music at all without sheet music, or people who will only recognize a tune if they're told what it is. That'd be good for another poll, perhaps.
Wasn't sure what to call this, I'm likely to get some wiseacre type responses...

[peeplj]

I can not only hear music in my head, I get tunes stuck in my head where they revolve around endlessly, sometimes for days.

I don't know if it relates, but I can also do a kind of "mental sightreading" where I look at an unfamiliar tune on the page and hear it note by note in my head.

--James

[Unseen122]

Yes, although I will always get one part of a tune stuck in my head and then not be able to remember the rest.

This is a really helpful thing to have for an ITM player. For a long time I thought I had to have the dots in front of me, but over the past 6ish months I have realized that that was really untrue and with some practice I didn't need it at all. I have even been able to start to pick up tunes by ear. I could not have done that a year ago.

I do that "mental sight reading" thing too. Until right now I thought that was normal.

[Dale]

It's a really interesting question. I've actually talked to a number of people about this and have been surprised that there are people who really enjoy music, but who can't "play it back" in their heads. I hear music in my head, and it sounds as if it's been recorded. If I think of, say, The Beatles' "Let it Be," what I "hear" in my head is pretty much the same as if I played the record. I assumed everybody did that but I've learned that many can't.

[Jumper]

I have little choice in the matter. It's going all the time, unless I make a conscious effort to stop the music. I enjoy it, fortunately, and have gotten pretty good at not "playing" stuff I don't like (over, and over, and...). It could be maddening, I suppose if I didn't have that sort of control over what I "hear."

I frequently go to sleep with a tune in my head, and awake the next morning with the same tune still going. You can get to know a piece pretty well that way, that's for sure.

[Martin Milner]

Most definitely I hear music in my head much of the time - sometimes stuff I'm practising, sometimes original pieces I seem to make up as I go along. When it's stuff I'm trying to learn, I'd say more than half my practising goes on when I'm not even playing my fiddle or melodeon.

Whne it's an existing tune, I hear it so much I end up building in variations, which I later build into my playing.

Avanutria would confirm that I'm frequently whistling a tune, or making up a silly song that is sung once, never to be heard again.

[Tony McGinley]

YES - Doesn't everyone???

In fact, if I cannot hear it in my head,
I simply cannot play it. I thought
everyone was like that?

[MarkB]

I am my own iPod!

MarkB

[peeplj]

YES - Doesn't everyone???

In fact, if I cannot hear it in my head,
I simply cannot play it. I thought
everyone was like that?

Someone trained and practiced in sightreading can play from sheet music whether or not they have any familiarity with the piece or even have ever seen it before.

However, that's not a skill you find associated with trad or folk music nearly as often as with classical or art music.

--James

[Lorenzo]

I have the same problem. That's how I learn new tunes. I whistle tunes most of the day, sometimes voluntarily (ornaments included). Sometimes when I stop whistling, the tune continues in my head just as clearly as if I hadn't stopped. The biggest distraction is that I often get accused of not listening, or focusing completely, when someone is trying to talk to me. So I've learned to keep whistling in my head and still carry on a conversation at the same time. It's one thing while listening, another while talking. Not good.

I knew a fella who could read music so well that he would look at the sheet and hear it being played on his whistle. He read through the entire book of O'Neill's and picked out the tunes he liked best. He could hear the printed chords along with it too...and would often stop and change them.

[Nanohedron]

Hearing music in my head? Yep. Hearing what I'm reading, though, is iffy, although I'm finding that to be getting a bit better. Must be a brain muscle thing.

[artguy]

Sure wish I could read them and hear them. Playing guitar or whistle, I still prefer to hear it before playing so I can play along with the accompaniment in my head.

[Denny]

Hearing music in my head? Yep. Hearing what I'm reading, though, is iffy, although I'm finding that to be getting a bit better. Must be a brain muscle thing.

I have found it so...it gets better with practice.

[Wormdiet]

I have "The Gold Ring" going on now. It's been then since yesterday's session.

I can't hear a melody from reading dots though. Rhythm-sometimes, but I don;t have scale degrees internalized with notation yet.

[doogieman]

I have a CD player in my bedroom with a timer to wake me up in the morning which I can program to play a certain track. It's great for learning a tune - I wake up to hearing it played over and over and then it sticks with me all day. Like others, when I can hear it, then I can play it.
This does bother my wife sometimes! Good thing she understands me!!