Hearing Music just by looking at the score file

[jeremy]

Hi,
There is a famous scene in film Amadeus of Milos Forman, that always fascinated me.
It is the scene where Mozart's wife give his music score to Salierie. This one, just by reading the score file could hear immediately all the music, as if it was played live.
I am mediocre musician, so if I can read a melody, I can hummed it in order to hear, but there is no way that I can do what Salierie is doing in film.
I would to know, if it is a fiction, or if some people are able to hear a symphony work just by reading the music.
Thanks
Jeremy

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=PGSzeHKgHfI&feature=related

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=A5BpzmTIZMU&feature=related

[H. A.]

Its not fiction at all. If you would like to get to that point, just start of small and slow with some solfege/sight reading exercises. In fact use your own compositions for practice as well. Then try composing creating a simple melody and humming it then trying to notate it without being at an instrument or some type of software. you can then check yourself after. You can also listen to other pieces and do dictations. Choose a piece or a section of a piece that is easy enough for you and write down a melodic part/bass line etc.

Solfege and sight reading is about the intervalic relationships between the notes. I know a number of conservatories here in the US use the Danhauser Solfege exercise book to teach ear training. In fact solfege ear training is designed to teach you perfect pitch...as it certainly can be learned if you are not born with it.

Also, if you buy a few scores of some works you enjoy and follow along it will also increase your skill and you will get used to following along many parts at a time and hearing various things at a time. Then when you see a score you will be able to hear what is going on AND if you are listening to a piece you will almost "see" the score in your mind as well.

[H. A.]

Oh...just a side note...

Unfortunately, the movie Amadeus has branded Salieri as a composer of slander and mediocrity. The real Salieri was a great admirer of Mozart's works and actually had some of Mozart's Works performed during the coronation of the new emperor. Mozart and Salieri even worked together to compose a small piece for fun.

The difference between the music of Salieri and Mozart is that Mozart's music employed counterpuntal techniques and his music benifit from the layers while Salieri did not employ counterpoint as a means to his music but Salieri (although no Mozart) had a great sense of drama and an early romantic feel almost forward looking in his operas and opera overtures.

The whispers of the Salieri vs Mozart rivalry occured after Mozart's death which ruined Salieri's career and helped to leave his music forgotten.

[James Semple]

...and if I remember correctly, the opening night at La Scala in Italy played a Salieri work, so he was hardly unpopular in his lifetime.

[Marius Amado-Alves]

There's that sound again of hollywood doors shutting up on me but I can't help it. Here's a live example of what has been discussed here at many places, that "composers" are taking over the market for composers. From the data available Jeremy is a film music professional who cannot read music.

[Marius Amado-Alves]

Maybe "perfect picth" is not "absolute ear", thou I'd love to know what it is then...
(Absolute ear cannot be learnt.)

[Per-Erik Rosqvist]

Mediocrities of the world, I absolve thee..

I absolve thee...

I absolve thee...

[H. A.]

Simon, I too will have to disagree with you as well. One of the composition teachers at the conservaotry had perfect pitch and was truthful about the matter in saying that he was not born with it. He actually acquired perfect pitch from his ear training/solfege studies during his college years. In fact, when I took advanced ear training with him his method was geared to teaching one to acquire perfect pitch. I also have other friends who acquired perfect pitch from ear training/solfege. My on the other hand I have very good relative pitch.

Perfect pitch is nothing more than pitch memory. The mechanics of the ear memorize the various mathematical vibrations of the notes that we call C D E/DO Re Mi...and so it is possible to learn perfect pitch.

Of course reading and hearing a score does not mean one has perfect pitch, but as I mentioned it can be learned. Before attending the conservatory, I too had taught myself how to read scores and "hear" them but when I got to the conservatory I learned there was a big difference between learning or teaching yourself to read scores and "hear" them and the method of studying ear trainging/solfege.

[H. A.]

Thanks Simon, but you really didn't do anything to me ;)
I am very familiar with such articles and studies.

I am not talking about learning to memorize a single note once with external reference or hearing some external reference to utilize one's relative pitch. I am talking about knowing individuals demostrate perfect pitch acquired through ear training and solfege. In fact, I knew a timpanist who was trained by his father. His father had acquired absolute pitch because of the nature of tuning and playing Timpani and could detect the change of pitch by cents.

The research presented in the wikipedia article is accurate but you and the research will have to explain to me the proof I have come across in some of the musicians I am mentioning who were not born with perfect/absoulte pitch and yet demostrate absolute and not relative pitch.

[H. A.]

I have been in debates and been among nay sayers and yea sayers on this topic and other musical/scientific topics as well but have also seen solid proof demostrated in one way or another. If you read the "Difference in cognition, not elementary sensation" portion of the article it reflects and expands on what I mentioned about the meachnics of the ear and the measured vibration of pitch just as how the other sections support the argument that perfect/absolute pitch can not be taugh according the research data. If we are to go on the basis of the article alone there is enough room to go back and forth between arguments.

[AndrewG]

For me reading music is similar to reading an ordinary (non-musical) text. When we read a book, we usually hear our "internal speech". We can stop, rethink, repeat some phrases, analyze separate words etc. This is the result of our intensive training in the primary school. Our music-reading training usually is less extensive. In the initial stage I could not read music at all. My first success was achieved when I started to imagine that I am playing what I read. As the bad side of this method, I can read, relatively wel, only a piano music.

Today I (and probably some of you) work with a piano roll rather than with a conventional notation. Unfortunately I cannot hear it well by sight. Do any of you read it well?

[Chris Alpiar]

I think, regardless of whether you are gifted with perfect pitch or have acquired relative pitch, hearing music based on score only is very doable talent, nurtured simply from practice. If you wrote 20 symphonies using no computer, only score paper and piano, I guarantee you will hear it all as its written on the page. My background is more in Jazz and so some of the more dense sections of a symphonic score trouble my ability, but give me a 20 piece big band score or a smaller chamber orchestra and I absolutely can hear it from reading. I think kids today will be able to do this less and less as we create only electronically. The craft of hearing from paper absolutely is derived from many hours of using your inner hearing while putting black dots on paper and hearing it later and remembering it.

[Ray Kemp]

Steve,
Do you sing? I ask the question because if you sing a particular song in a particular key then would you be able by imagining yourself singing that song, use it as a reference for pitching.

PS. I just thought of singing a song in F and by magic I picked up my guitar played an F chord and amazingly was in tune. What does this mean. Am I a freaking freak?