Can you hear music in your head?

[Joseph E. Smith]

I usually hear music in my head that hasn't been (to the best of my knowledge) written yet. I've been hearing this music most of my life and it has lead to many songs and tunes I have written over the span of my years. I don't know where I would be if I didn't hear this music, but it is doubtful I'd be a musician.

[maire]

Only if they are lilting or singing sean nos in the Gaelic. Otherwise you have not only strayed from the tradition but have turned daft... and really, aren't they both the same

Here is where I have a problem with that AaronMalcomb:

Tunes - yes
Lilting - NO

It takes a certain kind of intelligence to understand Séan nos and appreciate lilting.
Unfortunately I'm too stupid to cope with anything but tunes!
At least thats what the voices in my head tell me, and they should know, they've known me longer than anyone

[Ptarmigan]

Yes, I hear Music in my head............& I see dead people...............

[LeeMarsh]

From my childhood training in Choirs and Choruses we had to learn to sight read notes and sing. We were also taught to hear the notes in our head first. So now I silently read music books on the train to review the tunes I'm learning. Getting them down in my head. My memory for tunes isn't that good, but being able to read the dots and hear the tune in my head makes learning tunes a little easier.

[Innocent Bystander]

From my childhood training in Choirs and Choruses we had to learn to sight read notes and sing. We were also taught to hear the notes in our head first. So now I silently read music books on the train to review the tunes I'm learning. Getting them down in my head. My memory for tunes isn't that good, but being able to read the dots and hear the tune in my head makes learning tunes a little easier.

Never trained with a Choir, but I do the same thing.

Lately I'm getting the words to "Roch the Wind, in the Clear Day's Dawing" when I play (actually, or in my head) "An Leanbh Sí".

[Tia]

I too most deffinitly hear music all time, whether its a full song or pieces that get stuck in my head untill i figure what i'm singing, and I can also hear the music in my head when looking at it for the first time. I read that this is called earworm and women, worriers and musicians are most likly to have songs stuck in their head. Most of the time I love it, few other times I hate it...

[s1m0n]

Lately I'm getting the words to "Roch the Wind, in the Clear Day's Dawing" when I play (actually, or in my head) "An Leanbh Sí".

That's a terrific song, and Dick Gaughan is right: it SHOULD be the scottish national anthem.

[Caj]

I never have problems with tunes getting "stuck" in my head, which probably makes me an anomaly. But I, like Dale, have a sort of tape-recorder brain.

Interestingly, I have a very poor ability to visually reconstruct things I have seen. There are no especially vivid pictures in my head, only a few blurry snapshots. I'm not even that good at recognizing faces.

Also interestingly, I have a poor attention span for everything but music. With music I can sit back and mentally replay even an hour's worth of it. More than once I got through a very boring lecture by going over all of Dvorak's 9th or Mahler's 1st, which is conveniently about 50 minutes.

I wonder the extent to which this is a learnable trait. I listened to a lot of this kind of music in my childhood. It's not the kind of music you can play while doing other stuff (if you turn the volume loud enough to hear the quiet parts, the loud parts shake the ceiling,) so it occupied my full attention; plus it is often delivered in hour-long packages.

On the other other hand, while I've always had a case of tape-recorder-brain, I was never able to play those notes until I learned the concertina five years back. I would hear a pitch clear in my head, and not be able to find it on a piano. It took some extra listening practice before I could really connect pitches in memory with pitches in real life.

Caj

[cocusflute]

I chew my food in time to a tune.
If I walk I walk in time to the tune.
If I pedal my bike the pedals turn
In time to the tune in my head.
It may be like this until I am dead.
Like Mozart walking the streets of Vienna,
Scarlatti the hills of Sienna,
There’s always an air
in the air, in my ear,
Crying release me, do. Oh! Set me free.
If I set the tune free it will aid my digestion,
Keeping it in will cause constipation.
Sometimes it’s fast and sometimes slow:
A curse or a blessing I’d like to know.

[nonagon]

I have dozens of earworms, but only one has been around for many years: the Beatles' Golden Slumber-carry that weight-end medley.
I humm/whistle/sing it very often.
Funny though... I hardly ever listen to it.
I'm going to do so right now.

[PallasAthena]

I can't say that I'm very good at playing by ear, but things do get stuck in my head. I count the rhythem of my steps as I walk, I find music going through my head at random times....

Worse yet is the way my mind seems to be a magnet for poetry and song lyrics...they surface the most frequently. Unfortunately, in the case of the latter, I can't sing at all...