Re: [Harp-L] hearing it in your head

["Michael Polesky, MPA" <m.polesky@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi All,

I like that analogy.  My quirky addition to this thread is how important 
musical memory is and how that is a large part of hearing it in your head.

When I took harmony in college, my teacher would get us all in a big room 
with blackboards all over the place and play a four measure phrase in 
four-part harmony.  Our job was to write it down.  It didn't have to be in 
the right key, but it did have to be in the right order and inversion of 
chords.

I quickly learned how little I could remember at once.  As a classically 
trained player on single note instruments (clarinet, etc), I was used to 
hearing the melody line (or a single harmony line) only and also having 
visual cues to aid me from the written music.  My only advantage was that I 
had learned to play a lot of pop tunes from the 70's on harmonica by ear 
over the years.

Quite simply put, I had no ability to compete with the ear-trained musicians 
for most of the year (even those who were not good at reading and writing 
music) because they could remember more than I could at one sitting.  After 
a while, my harmony teacher literally taught me how to "remember" things.

Memory is a curious function and I would be clueless today if my first 
harmony teacher hadn't given me the insight he did.  Now I hear harmonies 
and melodies I can recognize and write down all the time.  It only took me 
25 years to learn it - and I am still learning more every day ;-).

Another fun line on Stolen Moments to quote from is Bizet's Carmen.  I have 
heard people take great advantage of that.

Michael

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Davymax" <dmax@xxxxxxx>
To: <Harp-L@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, February 09, 2009 2:34 PM
Subject: [Harp-L] hearing it in your head


I was playing with a jazz band the other night and had the occasion to play 
Oliver Nelson's "Stolen Moments"

It occured to me that a line from Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" would fit in 
nicely. The guitar picked up on it and doubled.

Jon Hendricks the great jazz vocalist said it best. The mind is like a 
parachute, it only functions when it's open.
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