Learning Sequences in Music: A Contemporary Music Learning Theory (2012 Edition)

By Edwin E. Gordon

Learning Sequences in Music: Skill, Content, and Patterns is a milestone in music education. This book is perhaps the most provocative exploration ever written of how we learn music, from infancy to adulthood, and what we should do to teach music more effectively.Revised, expanded, and completely rewritten for this eighth and final edition, Professor Edwin E. Gordon's continued research reaffirms his place as perhaps the world's principal thinker and researcher in music education. Early controversial ideas championed by Gordon have now been widely accepted in the field: the importance of standardized tests, the crucial role of early childhood music education, and the fundamental need to teach audiation as a precursor to music reading.Professor Gordon continues to present a feast of ideas in this new edition, combining the latest experimental and observational research in music learning with his own experience teaching students of all ages. Topics covered include: the state of music today, audiation, individual differences, aptitude, readiness, and measurement and evaluation.This book is a monumental achievement sure to be read and reread by generations of music educators to come.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gia Publications
• Release date: Feb 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9781622773329

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Bibliograpy

PREFACE

Long before publication of this eighth edition of the book, I was continually reproached for championing and allowing my name to be identified with a learning theory. Pundits claim it is an old fashioned concept steeped in tradition of early twentieth century thought and associated solely with behavioral psychology. That is wrong. Critics do not understand learning theory is a broad concept going far beyond one school of thought or one group of persons. The fact is our lives are founded on one theory or another. Beliefs pertaining to the nature of existence and moral conduct are based on theories. Religion, politics, education, and shopping habits, for example, originate in theories. More pertinent to this book, competent teachers always have had learning theories for whatever subjects they taught, whether reading, writing, arithmetic, or spelling. Now there are modern learning theories, including one for teaching music, which is the focus of this book. When put into practice, music learning theory allows babies only a few days old as well as children, teens, and adults to interact with music in daily life the way they commonly interact with language. That is not to say all theories are good. Without theories, however, human functioning would ostensibly be sterile. In search of simplicity and understanding, the human mind intuitively organizes and categorizes facts into theories.

What are characteristics of a good theory? Aside from having appeal in terms of reality, a good theory persuades persons of its practical value. Moreover, it adequately accounts for past events, explaining how and why they occurred. Without this attribute, it cannot predict events with any degree of confidence. A good theory embraces both linear and cyclic historical continuity. Perhaps most important, an exemplary theory is endowed with sufficient flexibility to embrace new findings without being distorted. Newly discovered information and facts neatly and easily extend the theory, making it more understandable and beneficial. Ongoing research contributing to fulfillment of a theory is necessary not only for vitality of the theory itself but also for spawning investigations by interested and competent researchers, suggesting the theory possesses power and validity. Albeit, how we learn music actually represents more than a theory. Just when there is ample evidence for a theory to cease being a collection of related hypotheses and become a factual whole, however, is not of central importance. What is significant is music learning theory and audiation indeed have a research base in terms of interaction of teaching and pedagogical observation, confirming empirical conclusions.

Unavoidable hazards are inherent in theories because especially responsible ones are narrow as well as profound. No matter how good a theory is, it cannot encompass, explain, and include wide panoramas of reality surrounding it. It may come close to including most characteristics of actuality when a variety of other researchers become interested in the theory. Thus, a theory can be so attractive it becomes unwittingly unreliable because it diverts thought away from essential, related, and otherwise imperious issues. Over simplicity, when considered in a wide spectrum, is not the only possible complication. A theorist’s bias must not go unnoticed. Partiality associated with a theory must be taken into consideration when merit of the theory is evaluated and applied.

Imagine classrooms where music is being taught according to principles of music learning theory. Regardless of school grade or enrollment in classroom music or performance groups, such as school instrumental ensembles and choruses, students arrive expectant and eager to learn. As they walk through the door, they feel the teacher’s excitement and desire to teach. Learning begins immediately and yet a sense of enjoyment pervades the mood of the class. Because course content is organized as part of a sequential program, everything students are learning builds logically from what they have already learned. As a result, students find what they are learning makes sense. They are able to implement acquired knowledge and skills as they listen to and perform a variety of types of music.

In such a class a teacher first engages students in learning sequence activities based on audiation and principles of music learning theory. After the teacher establishes context in terms of tonality or meter, students listen to and perform content in terms of tonal patterns and rhythm patterns. At times students audiate content of patterns in context they establish for themselves as they sing, chant, or move to familiar patterns and unfamiliar patterns. Soon they are creating and improvising. After enough patterns become familiar through listening and performance, students learn to perform, read, and write patterns and larger music forms in music notation.

Emphasis on tonal patterns and rhythm patterns rather than individual pitch letter-names and time-value names is significant in music learning theory. As will be explained, there are logographic languages, those without an alphabet, that consist of only complete words, sometimes referred to as word pictures. The brain functions differently when thinking in a logographic language than when deciphering an alphabetic language. Similarly, accomplished musicians audiate tonal patterns and rhythm patterns (logographs or logograms) but simply conjecture individual pitches and durations (the alphabet of music).

The power of audiation is best understood through analogy. Audiation is to music what thought is to language. When students learn to audiate and perform music as a result of sequential music guidance and instruction, they develop a sense of ownership because they have acquired an understanding of music. It is no different from processes they pursue as they learn to think in words and communicate through speech. Just as words are the smallest units of meaning in language—understood by young children long before they understand phrases, sentences, poems, or stories—tonal patterns and rhythm patterns are the smallest units of meaning in music. They are assimilated first. Learning to listen to and identify patterns in music prepares students to listen to and perform extended music literature with understanding rather than to cope by imitating or memorizing mechanically without music meaning. By giving meaning to music, students are able to perform not only great music of others but also to compose and improvise. Moreover, they are able to look at music notation and know what it sounds like before they perform it on an instrument or hear someone else realize it.

Needlessly and unfortunately, too many students in school think of music classes simply as recess or wasted time, as a break from real work of the school day. Some feel they are doing the teacher and school a favor by singing or listening to music in class or by participating in school band, orchestra, or chorus. Few students go to class expecting to learn to understand music. Mindless participation at best becomes the standard. Teachers, administrators, and parents understand why students feel this way yet their tolerance of prevailing circumstances tends to add to a general sense of demoralization and deterioration. Elitism becomes the rule. Only a small number of students are selected to participate in special performances while the majority continue to routinely engage in required, benumbed activities. Teachers talk about music by glorifying rigid formalities and frozen aesthetics.

This book is focused on audiation and music learning theory. It explains how students learn music. First, the nature of audiation, music aptitude, music achievement, and testing are examined so music educators at all levels and in all instructional settings can better understand music learning theory and teach music more appropriately and efficiently. Second, the plan is to help parents learn enough about music learning theory so they can better guide the music education of their children at home and search for appropriate teachers and instructional programs. Finally, it makes apparent to nonprofessionals how they might develop more enjoyment and satisfaction as listeners and performers.

Anyone who decides to write a book about subjects as highly specialized and technical as audiation and music learning theory while addressing a wide readership—in this case music teachers, music students, parents, professional musicians, and the general public—has to possess a degree of credulity. Be that as it may, writing for a combined audience is exactly what I have attempted to do. I believe if a book is well written it should be accessible to all readers. Without courage to deem such a book possible, frustration and confusion about ways students and teachers enjoy, learn, and teach music will continue to exist in our society.

The main problem for me as I saw it when I set out to write was if I used difficult terminology extensively in an attempt to explain, I would limit readers to only a few hearty professionals. On the other hand, if I wrote imaginatively using extensive metaphor and analogy, I would appeal only to those who respond with fascination to such writing. I have found a middle ground by dividing what was originally one book into two parts. Part 1: The Foundation is for readers who desire thorough knowledge of the theoretical basis of audiation and music learning theory. Part 2: Practical Applications is for readers who are primarily interested in how audiation skill is acquired and how music learning theory is applied to sequential music instruction in classrooms and ensembles. Although sections of Part 1 are, when relevant, presented and discussed again in Part 2, readers whose primary interest is Part 2 will gain direct familiarity with some content of Part 1. Parts 1 and 2 of the Study Guide for Learning Sequences in Music: A Contemporary Music Learning Theory, developed for the previous edition, include summaries of each chapter, multiple choice questions, and questions for discussion. Some questions encourage thought beyond what the text covers.

I hope you will find my writing to be clear, simple, and direct. I have included only those technical terms, usually with concise definitions, that are absolutely necessary. Nevertheless, ordering of the fourth and fifth chapters was a dilemma. Each includes explanatory information relevant to the other. For readers unfamiliar with skill learning sequence, I suggest Chapter 5 be scanned before reading Chapter 4. An additional benefit is later reading of Chapter 5 will be enhanced. To facilitate ease in reading, I have taken care so footnotes do not encumber the page. The Bibliography includes a broad but not complete overview of my writing and research as well as work of others who have influenced my thinking. Frequent use of the Glossary will prove helpful.

The style is intended to be personal without frills, evasions, or nonsense. As a result, any reader with a modest grasp of music and sincere desire to understand should be able to do so. Only integrity and determination are necessary. Fruitful outcomes become evident when professionals are open minded and embrace positive change. Not to be receptive to what music learning theory imparts is to be gripped by an old learning theory. In essence, to learn something new, one questions some cherished beliefs. Those with and without formal music achievement who are interested in continuing and enriching their music education will need to take time to consider new as well as old thoughts associated with music. Nonprofessionals as well as professionals who make an honest effort to grapple with new ideas and technical terms will find concepts of audiation—that is, the way we comprehend in silence and afterthought the sound of music—and music learning theory of assistance in pursuing their pastime with pleasure and fulfillment and performing careers with responsibility.

Because unfamiliar words, definitions, and unique concepts are found throughout chapters, both parts of the book might be browsed before studying individual chapters in detail. Just as notation at best represents only a generalization of what is heard in music, writing at best can represent only an outline of thought transmitted through spoken language. Although explanations are repeated in crucial places, expect to read each chapter more than once. In Part 1, you will find Chapters 1 through 4 easily accessible if read slowly with frequent pauses for reflection. Chapters 5 through 9 especially require receptiveness and patience from professionals and industry from nonprofessionals. Overall, chapters in Part 2 provide straightforward reading. As previously suggested, frequent reference to the Glossary for purposes of recall, clarification, explanation, and definition will prove advantageous. Learning Sequences in Music Lecture CDs, developed for the previous edition, include an overview of each chapter. They are available from the publisher. You may find it helpful to listen to appropriate recordings and review the summary for each chapter in the Study Guide both before and after reading each chapter.

New and some old words with new meanings are found throughout the book. They explain new ideas about music and music learning for which there is as yet no vocabulary. For example, a standard word does not exist to describe sounds in rhythm the way pitch and tone describe tonal sounds. Beats are underlying structure of rhythm and notes are written symbols. Thus, I use the word duration to describe sounds of various lengths heard in rhythm regardless of whether seen in notation. Distinctions of that kind are necessary to ensure dependability and accountability in teaching. Moreover, they emphasize important differences between note time-values and pitch letter-names as seen on a staff and how they are audiated.

Another example is coining of the word keyality to make clear the difference between a key signature, which is written with one, multiple, or no sharps or flats in music notation, and keyality which is audiated within music context. Consider the key signature of one sharp. It may indicate one of several things. For example, when music is in major tonality, one audiates G keyality; in minor tonality, E keyality; in Dorian tonality, A keyality, and so on. Keyality is audiated whereas a key signature is seen.

It all began in the middle 1950s before I received a PhD in 1958 from the University of Iowa in Iowa City and became a professor there, a position I held until 1972. In addition to assignments in graduate school, I was asked to teach music methods classes to undergraduate students. Although I was also teaching elementary and secondary music, both classroom and instrumental, in the university laboratory schools, kindergarten through grade twelve, I had quickly realized neither I nor anyone else knew much if anything about how students learn music. The emphasis in my own traditional education had been on teaching, not learning. To prepare myself for teaching undergraduate courses, I began to teach in the early childhood music program associated with the university primarily to observe learning processes of preschool children as they interacted with me, other teachers, and with one another. That activity was sustained for more than ten years. After systematically documenting what I observed, I extrapolated information to design objective investigations with children my colleagues and I were teaching. Finally, I collated information into an initial music learning theory. The content of my methods classes was based on knowledge gained from personal experience. It paved the way for further development of music learning theory, insights into audiation and music aptitudes, and design of Musical Aptitude Profile.

Much of my research in development of Primary Measures of Music Audiation and Intermediate Measures of Music Audiation for young children was undertaken while I was a professor at State University of New York at Buffalo from 1972 to 1979. It was there and then it became obvious music aptitude is a product of innate potential and informal and formal environmental influences. Without the level of music aptitude with which a child is born being continually nourished by a good music environment, the child’s music aptitude will decrease and, for all intents and purposes, be lost. Moreover, appropriate informal and formal guidance must be fostered before age nine, the sooner the better. Environmental influences no longer have an appreciable, if any, effect on innate potential. That is, after approximately age nine, music aptitude ceases to be developmental. It becomes stabilized. The impact of appropriate informal guidance in music at the earliest possible age—particularly the critical age from birth to eighteen months and the sensitive age from eighteen months to five years old—is enormous.

A few years after I left Buffalo, I again began to observe and teach preschool children, this time in the Children’s Music Development Program at Temple University in Philadelphia. From 1984 to 1996, when I retired from routine teaching, I taught off and on music classes to children ranging in age from birth to eighteen months, eighteen months to three years, three to four years, and four to six years. I methodically experimented with different sequences of skill, context, and content by offering informal guidance and formal instruction. As I adapted and generalized what I learned from young children to school age children, I periodically taught elementary and middle school students learning sequence activities in accordance with concepts of audiation and the music learning theory curriculum being refined. Administrators and teachers in neighborhood private and public schools were kind enough to allow me to teach in their classrooms as practical needs of research required. After retiring from full time university teaching, I engaged in research pertaining to music aptitudes, audiation, and music learning theory as a visiting professor at the University of South Carolina and Michigan State University.

Objective, indirect evidence bearing on both audiation and music learning theory was gathered through numerous classically designed research studies directed toward the nature, description, measurement, and evaluation of music aptitudes. Published reports of numerous studies spanning more than fifty years of my continuing research are reported in my own and others’ books, test manuals, professional monographs, journals, and magazines. Most important and relevant among them are cited in the Bibliography. To be sure, however, not all my research was designed in classical tradition; that is, using inferential statistics and tests of probability. Given limited possibilities of gathering enough children of different ages with different music backgrounds and levels of music aptitude, in addition to identifying teachers of comparable experiences and abilities who were teaching in similar types of schools, I decided to use more practical and direct research methods of discovery through empirical observation and inferential analyses. Also, because it was not usually possible and rarely feasible to conduct research using parallel and multiple experimental groups, I did not attempt to compare music learning theory with popular methods or to compare achievement of different groups of children in terms of sequential levels of music learning theory in association with every type and stage of audiation. Rather, I chose to observe and examine longitudinally comparative achievement of the same children when they were encouraged to respond to different types and stages of audiation and exposed to different counterbalanced, sequential levels of music learning theory. For the most part, I was sole teacher in research that emphasized children’s individual musical differences as well as process, not necessarily product, of learning. I took direct aim through pragmatic inquiry.

Process, as I use the word, relates to method of learning whereas product relates to goals accomplished as a result of process. The process of how and the product of what is learned are different only in theory. In actual teaching they are not mutually exclusive. I soon discovered, however, their distinction was nonetheless important when designing and conducting research. In initial study, I was concerned primarily with determining most dynamic ways to combine audiation skills, context, and content to accomplish learning with greatest ease and understanding. Audiation skills are fundamental, for example, in listening, singing, chanting, moving and breathing, creating, improvising, reading, and writing. Music content refers, for example, to tonal patterns, rhythm patterns, and harmonic patterns and progressions in terms of their different levels of difficulty. Music context refers, for example, to tonalities and meters. Researching processes of music learning meant determining what should be taught, why it should be taught, and most importantly, when sequentially it should be taught. I did not investigate which specific methods or techniques were superior. When teaching is based on learning rather than the reverse, any one of a potpourri of methods and techniques proves satisfactory.

PART 1

THE FOUNDATION

CHAPTER 1

AUDIATION

Audiation is integral to both music aptitude and music achievement. However, it functions differently in each. Audiation potential cannot be taught. It is a matter of music aptitude which comes naturally. By providing children and students with appropriate knowledge and experiences, they can be taught how to audiate; that is, how to use inborn audiation as determined by their music aptitude and to maximize acquired music achievement as determined by quality of their environment. Because all students do not share the same innate capacities, it is only with collective grasp of characteristics of audiation, music aptitude, and music achievement teachers and parents realistically become aware of how best to render responsibilities in meeting individual musical needs of all children and students in terms of audiation and music learning theory. Everyone can learn how to audiate but it takes longer with age. And level of music aptitude, of course, will be an influential factor.

Sound itself is not music. Sound becomes music through audiation when, as with language, we translate sounds in our mind and give them meaning. The meaning we give to these sounds will be different depending on the occasion as well as different from meaning given them by any other person. Audiation is the process of assimilating and comprehending (not simply rehearing) music momentarily heard performed or heard sometime in the past. We also audiate when we assimilate and comprehend in our minds music we may or may not have heard but are reading in notation or composing or improvising. In contrast, aural perception takes place when we are actually hearing sound the moment it is produced. We audiate sound only after we have aurally perceived it. In aural perception we are dealing with immediate sound events. In audiation we are dealing with delayed music events. Moreover, compared to what is often called musical imagery, audiation is a more profound process. Musical imagery casually suggests a vivid or figurative picture of what music might represent. It does not require assimilation and comprehension of intrinsic elements of music as does audiation.

We audiate when listening to, recalling, performing, interpreting, creating, improvising, reading, or writing music. Though it may seem contradictory, we can listen to music and at the same time audiate music. Certainly you would agree you are automatically thinking about what has been said and predicting what will be said while at the same time you are listening to or participating in conversation. Listening to music with comprehension and listening to speech with comprehension involve similar operations. Further, as will be explained later about notational audiation, as you will begin to give meaning to words you are reading now only after you have read them, likewise you give meaning to music notation not as but only after you have seen it.

Audiating while listening to sound in music is much like simultaneous translation. Translation does not take place only between different languages. Each of us continually translates what we are hearing spoken in our own language into unique meaning. Talk to me and another person at the same time about any subject. What each of us perceives and brings away from the conversation is relative to our intelligence as well as knowledge and experience concerning the subject. Similarly, not until a short time after you hear sound do you audiate and give meaning to sound as music. Of course, you are also aurally perceiving and then giving meaning to additional sounds following in the music. Specifically, you are doing more than one thing at the same time when you are audiating. You are attending to and also comprehending music and, depending on your knowledge and experience, perhaps more. Why do persons readily agree this is the case for language but not for music? I suspect it is because we have grown so far removed from and uncomfortable with cogent music we are no longer able to apprehend its natural sequence.

Consider language, speech, and thought. Language is the result of need to communicate. Speech is the way we communicate. Thought is what we communicate. Music, performance, and audiation have parallel meanings. Music is the subject of communication. Performance is the vehicle for communication. Audiation is what is communicated. Although music is not a language, the process is the same for audiating and giving meaning to music as for thinking and giving meaning to speech. When you are listening to speech you are giving meaning to what was just said by recalling and making connections with what you heard on earlier occasions. At the same time you are anticipating or predicting what you will be hearing next based on experience and understanding. Similarly, when you are listening to music, you are giving meaning to what you just heard by recalling what you heard on earlier occasions. At the same time you are anticipating or predicting what you will be hearing next based on music achievement. In other words, when you are audiating as you are listening to music, you are summarizing and generalizing content of music patterns in the context you just heard as a way to anticipate or predict what will follow. Every action becomes an interaction. What you are audiating depends on what you have audiated. As audiation develops, it becomes broader and deeper and, thus, reflects more on itself. Members of an audience who are not audiating usually do not know when a piece of unfamiliar or even familiar music is nearing its end. They may applaud at any time or not at all unless they receive clues from others in the audience who are audiating.

Despite analogies drawn between language and music, it is well to emphasize music is not a language. Music has no words or grammar. Instead it has syntax, the orderly arrangement of sounds within context. It is interesting to speculate, however, whether language may indeed be a form of music. Also, consider the impact of using music as a verb as well as a noun. If it were a verb, audiation would then be implied and so perhaps the concept of audiation would not be needed. We would say confidently to someone, Did you music that? not vaguely and doubtfully, Did you hear that?

Through the process of audiation we sing and move in our minds without need to sing and move physically. We learn from the outside in, from the general to specific. Though we are capable of memorizing specific material without comprehending what we have memorized, we quickly forget it. That is the case with many young and older musicians as well who give recitals. They are encouraged to memorize notes but do not know how to audiate what they have memorized and are performing. Many Suzuki students, though they are fortunate to be taught to perform before they read notation, typically are not guided in crossing the bridge from imitation to audiation. As a result, they may never experience the joyful realization that audiation is excitingly circular in musical space, back and forth motion, and not at all like imitation and memorization which are boringly linear in physical space. Musical space occurs in audiation whereas timing in physical space is manifest in performance. Albeit, when students learn how to audiate, imitation and memorization become unnecessary. The experience of audiation becomes magical when compared to boredom and folly in memorization and imitation.

Varieties of audiation

It would be difficult if not impossible to describe all ways and combinations of ways musicians audiate. For example, consider how drummers in jazz ensembles audiate melody when improvising solo and how conductors continually audiate intricate patterns of sound while guiding a symphony orchestra. Consider also how performers audiate differently when they interpret a piece of music as soloist and when performing in ensemble. Obviously, it is more difficult for ensemble players to audiate what other ensemble players are performing concurrently than to audiate their own part. However, whether elementary or advanced, vocal or instrumental, solo or ensemble, audiation is a matter of concentrating on one set of musical sounds while at the same time attending to or performing one or more sets of other musical sounds. When they are practicing and not audiating, musicians are conscious of what they are doing and they absorb music. When they are performing and audiating, musicians are unconscious of what they are doing and music absorbs them. Fine musicians know when they are audiating: it occurs when ears become more important than fingers and arms.

Some musicians are capable of audiating one piece of music while listening to or performing another. Other musicians are capable of audiating inner and lower parts of music while they are audiating its melody. Musicians who are truly improvising a melody may be audiating chords underlying the melody or a variation of another melody. Jazz instrumentalists, scat singers, and rap performers may audiate a phrase from one piece of music and substitute it for the original phrase in music they are performing. They, like some instrumentalists, may not be able to explain in technical or theoretical terms what they are audiating. Whereas most musicians who perform jazz through imitation can perform in only one style, those who audiate can comfortably perform jazz in two or more styles; for example, both swing and bebop. Composers who audiate, those who are not dependent on an instrument while composing, simultaneously audiate several components of music they are creating, such as melody, harmony, phrasing, and instrumentation. Great composers audiate just as fine artists see in the dark. All capable musicians anticipate and predict in audiation what they expect to hear, perform, improvise, and create before they actually engage in listening, performing, improvising, and composing.

Notational audiation

Audiation of music notation is called notational audiation. Just as aural perception is different from audiation, decoding notation is different from notational audiation. If you give meaning to what you see in music notation before you perform it, before someone else performs it, or as you write it, you are engaging in notational audiation. However, one may read or write notation without audiating the music it represents. When that occurs the person is simply decoding symbols (individual written notes) and is not conscious of patterns and context that constitute the music. That would be akin to reading individual letters rather than words and making syntactical connections. Words and syntax, not recognition of letters of the alphabet, are bases of comprehension. The following excerpt may help prove the point.

Aoccdring to rsceearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mattaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteers be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a total mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not aed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

Also, one can eat ghotti The alternate spelling and pronunciation of ghotti is fish. The gh taken from enough, the o from women, and the ti from nation.

To audiate notationally, one transcends print and audiates what music symbols represent. Notation is a window one sees through. Audiation is on the other side. A musician who audiates brings musical meaning to notation. A musician who cannot audiate can only take theoretical meaning from notation. For example, if instrumentalists cannot transpose without aid of notation or knowledge of music theory, they are playing by notes and lacking in audiation competence. Music notation is a collection of visual symbols intended to represent sound of music. Music theory attempts to define and explain the rationale behind use of those visual symbols and yet, at best, notation works like still photography whereas music flows like a motion picture. Audiation is understanding the flow of music. Whether or not one understands notation or music theory, there is value in audiating flow of music, and jazz and folk artists demonstrate that every day. Value of understanding notation and music theory without audiating, however, is questionable. Nevertheless, there are students in music classes who are taught that ritually. In fact, it may be reasonable to define common practice music theory as ignorance of audiation glorified and reduced to a system.

Notation and music theory are often taught to students as substitutes for audiation. Some teachers never think about audiation and those who do may not know how to teach it. Others know it is easier to teach notation and music theory than to teach students how to develop their audiation. Likewise, it is easier to teach students parts of speech than to teach them how to think. Fortunately, parents automatically and naturally model thinking for their children long before children enter school. The situation is not so fortunate with audiation. Apparently, reality of audiation is so remote in our culture, parents teaching their children to audiate is instead left to professionals if anyone long after the most precious time in a child’s life to develop audiation potential has passed. Music literacy is no further from extinction than only one generation of adults not singing and chanting to newborn and preschool children.

Distinguishing audiation from imitation

Audiation, as opposed to imitation which is the preliminary step in developing audiation potential, are often confused. Imitation, sometimes called inner hearing, is a product whereas audiation is a process. It is possible and unfortunately too often the case to perform a piece of music by imitation without engaging in audiation. It is not possible to imitate and audiate at the same time. Learning by rote is not the same as learning with understanding, whether the subject be history, mathematics, or music.

Just as you can learn to say nonsense syllables, such as ah va di, or repeat a sentence in a foreign language and not give meaning to what you are saying, children can learn to sing a song by rote without giving it musical meaning; that is, without understanding context or content of the song. Those children are, of course, imitating but not audiating. That children’s skill in imitation is more highly developed than their audiation becomes obvious when they are asked to sing alone. Observant teachers know although a group of children can perform a song in ensemble relatively free of errors, only one or two members of the group may be able to sing the entire song solo. When children are audiating, ensemble performances are no different for them than solo performances because in both cases they are simultaneously performing and recreating music in their minds. If, for some reason, they forget exact notes, they improvise convincing substitutes.

Imitation is learning through someone else’s ears. Audiation is learning through one’s own ears. Imitation is analogous to using tracing paper to draw a picture whereas audiation is analogous to visualizing and then drawing a picture. Imitation is like painting a canvas; it deals with both the essential and inessential. Audiation is like sculpture; it emphasizes the essential. Just as you must think for yourself, so must you audiate for yourself. You imitate when you repeat what you heard just a few seconds ago, which is immediate imitation, or when you repeat what you heard a while ago, which is delayed imitation. In either case, they are reactive responses and have only initial and limited value for learning because, unless we audiate what we have imitated, we soon forget it. This is so often the case, for example, with names and dates children learn in school. Audiation, however, is a different kind of learning because when we audiate we retain, instantiate, and think about what we heard seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, or even years ago. Audiation is an active response. When we imitate we know what to perform next in familiar music by remembering what we just performed. It is a process of looking backward. When we audiate, however, we know what to perform next, without negating memory, by anticipating in familiar music and predicting in unfamiliar music what is to come. It involves forward thinking. What is audiated plays a formidable role in how we learn. What we audiate is never forgotten. It becomes a component of more complex audiation. In cognitive terms, the structure of audiation is deep and serves in background conception. The structure of imitation is superficial and serves simply as foreground perception.

Clarifying the audiation process

Like imitation, memory (not memorization) and recognition are part of audiation processes. Alone, however, they are not audiation. We can recognize music even when it is performed with some incorrect pitches and durations and still not be able to audiate it. We might be aware of at most only its melodic contour and rhythm. Many persons who recognize Jingle Bells are unable to sing its resting tone, to identify and move to its fundamental beats, to hear its tonality and meter, or to specify chord progressions underlying its melody. Think, if you can bear it, about the last time your heard a radio commercial with an ordinary person singing, a group of waiters and waitresses singing Happy Birthday in a restaurant, or fans singing the national anthem at a sports event. Without words being used as support, the rhythm would have been even more disturbing than the intonation.

Most students and probably most musicians memorize music without audiating contextually. Memorizing music on an instrument is primarily related to fingerings and other technical matters, not to audiation. How many persons do you know who can play a melody on an instrument but are unable to sing what they played; to play a variation of the original melody; to play the melody in a different keyality, tonality, meter; to play the melody with alternate fingerings; or to demonstrate with body movement phrases of the melody? If they cannot do these things they are not audiating what they have performed. It is as if they were reciting words they had memorized without ascribing meaning to them.

Just as a calculator becomes a crutch for students who cannot multiply or divide, so music instruments become a crutch for students who cannot audiate. This is immediately obvious when novices learn to play scales by memorizing fingerings. Although students may recognize they are performing with poor intonation or inaccurate rhythm, their lack of audiation makes it virtually impossible for them to correct those problems by themselves. Audiation may be expressed through a music instrument but it cannot be taken from a music instrument. A music instrument is an extension of the body of the person who is playing it. When students complain about having vocal or instrumental technique problems or memory lapses while performing a piece of music, the most likely cause is they were not audiating what they were performing because they memorized the music. For the most part, technical and memory problems, not the least of which relate to tone quality, can be corrected through audiation and away from the instrument. About two hundred years ago in France, Pierre Galin observed students who had devoted many years to learning to play an instrument were not able to sing what they played or to read music notation by singing and moving. In other words, what concerned him was students, although considered accomplished, could not audiate. Most had to consult their violin, pianoforte, or flute to read a new tune. It was actually the instrument doing reading for them. It is as if to read a book they had to operate a machine designed to say words.

We give meaning to music by audiating context and content of music. When listening, performing, reading, writing, improvising and creating pattern content and simultaneously and continuously attending to tonality and meter contexts, we are audiating even if we do not have formal words to explain what we are comprehending. That kind of audiation is primarily five dimensional. It involves audiating tonality and keyality, tonal patterns moving in linear space toward and away from one or more tonal centers, meter, rhythm patterns moving in circular space as they relate to number and grouping of underlying macrobeats, and tempo. Tonal patterns and rhythm patterns are audiated in inexact time. Other dimensions audiated are tone quality, chord progressions, form,