Visualization, music creation

[RGerhart]

When you are learning new music, or are creating your own music, do you visualize it? And if so, how do you visualize it?

The thought came to me the other day when I was driving when I heard a song I knew on my playlist. As bass is my first and primary instrument, when I hear a riff or musical idea, I automatically translate it to the fretboard visually in my head. I guess you could say I'm very much pattern-oriented.

Do you visualize things with the fretboard? Or do you see it on the musical staff/tablature? I'm curious to hear how everyone approaches this. Say, if you started on a woodwind instrument like sax, clarinet, etc. Do you visualize the music based off of fingerings, or on the musical staff?

 

[Groove Doctor]

I started singing as a very young child. No idea my thinking, it just came out correctly.

I started on piano at 7yrs old then guitar at 13yrs old.

- I see the keyboard visually for complex things.

- I also hear functional harmony (aural) on all instruments, and

- I see/hear but mostly feel relative guitar fingering patterns based on various scale patterns (kinaesthetic).

I can even use finger patterns in my head when pitching complex harmonies on backing vocals - eg. singing the b7 of the chord when singing 3- or 4-part harmony.

I played Euphonium (small tuba) in school (11-17yo). That was mostly memorising fingerings initially, then it became stave oriented once I was a competent sight reader.

Sight reading bass charts on big band gigs can be a bit of everything - I see the stave with my eye and it comes out automatically in my fingers, and I can sing the note in my head and finger it without thinking.

I learnt to read 1-2 bars ahead so there’s a pre-play process going on in my head that I don’t fully understand as it happens on autopilot. It’s akin to driving a car and seeing ahead the line you’ll take thru a corner.

 

[Malcolm35]

When you are learning new music, or are creating your own music, do you visualize it? And if so, how do you visualize it?

Yes. The major scale box and I are old friends. Once I have the key then the Major scale box showing scale degree numbers and the root note on the 4th string is my go-to pattern.

G|---2---|-------|---3---|---4---| 1st string
D|---6---|-------|---7---|---8---|
A|---3---|---4---|-------|---5---|
E|-------|---R---|-------|---2---|4th string

And then change it for what I need. Mix, flat the 7. Lydian sharp the 4th. Dominate Chord tones R-3-5-b7. Or perhaps R-5-8-5, for a basic major chord.

 

[tb-player]

When you are learning new music, or are creating your own music, do you visualize it? And if so, how do you visualize it?

The thought came to me the other day when I was driving when I heard a song I knew on my playlist. As bass is my first and primary instrument, when I hear a riff or musical idea, I automatically translate it to the fretboard visually in my head. I guess you could say I'm very much pattern-oriented.

Do you visualize things with the fretboard? Or do you see it on the musical staff/tablature? I'm curious to hear how everyone approaches this. Say, if you started on a woodwind instrument like sax, clarinet, etc. Do you visualize the music based off of fingerings, or on the musical staff?

I translate it to my fingers, almost like air guitar. So I guess that’s more fingerboard than musical notation. Same thing on piano and saxophone. It always seems to come out of my hands/fingers.

 

[AGCurry]

I do visualize a fretboard sometimes, imagining my fingers going to the right notes.

I also "see" music in my brain, as shapes and patterns in time. Maybe a holdover from youthful psychedelic experiences?

 

[Bob_Ross]

When I'm initially conceptualizing music, it might be semi-sorta visual...maybe. I think there's this nebulous area somewhere in between seeing/knowing the notes or intervals, and just seeing pure geometric shapes when an idea first occurs, but very quickly it resolves to actual notes or intervals. Not notes on an imaginary staff, but just pitch class names or measured intervals. It's only after I've codified a line or passage or event that I maybe think "How would I execute that on the bass?" that I may start to visualize the fingerboard; more often I'll just pick up the bass to work that out after the idea has been solidified (and probably already written down as standard musical notation).

otoh when I need to practice or learn a new piece of music I'll very often use visualization of the fingerboard to mentally rehearse how I'm going to execute a passage. I find that time spent visualizing how to physically negotiate a piece on bass (but away from the bass) can greatly reduce the amount of time it takes to actually learn to play the piece on the bass.

 

[J Wilson]

Certain things I see internally. Minor chords are dark colors. Certain rhythms suggest machines, every time I hear 'Back in Black' I see a giant steam engine flywheel pushing those big con rods like a ship engine. Other songs sound like a sports car flying down a back road on a perfect day. The long solos in 'Comfortably Numb' are a giant ship sliding by in the dark.

I hear the intervals as shapes and never imagine where they are on the fingerboard, or a keyboard if it's a piano day. When the time comes, my hands know what to do, where they're going.

It's all internal without visualizing where they go on the instrument, that would never occur to me to include that in what I'm feeling.

 

[2thAche]

Written stuff I don't visualize, and i don't want to. If there's original music in my head I'd rather not make it mechanical or limit it by seeing frets or patterns, I just want the feel to remain. Then when playing it out it can be expanded by fingers on frets and what feels and sounds right.

Leaning covers I think whatever gets it in your head is fair game. Those parts are already in existence and someone else has made the structure and feel.

 

[TOOL460002]

When you are learning new music, or are creating your own music, do you visualize it? And if so, how do you visualize it?

The thought came to me the other day when I was driving when I heard a song I knew on my playlist. As bass is my first and primary instrument, when I hear a riff or musical idea, I automatically translate it to the fretboard visually in my head. I guess you could say I'm very much pattern-oriented.

Do you visualize things with the fretboard? Or do you see it on the musical staff/tablature? I'm curious to hear how everyone approaches this. Say, if you started on a woodwind instrument like sax, clarinet, etc. Do you visualize the music based off of fingerings, or on the musical staff?

You might like the card game Set. Great for pattern recognition people. I feel patterns as much as I see them. Also, I visualize the construction of music very differently, because I color-code and order audio project templates (DAWs) and use MIDI controllers and synths wirh programmable buttons and colors. The order and parts of a song become patterns and colors. If you learn this way you should heavily customize your environment. You're also a kinesthetic I assume, because bass is that way (except, I would argue, some pick work), so being able to feel your way around helps. You can also see new patterns and therefore be unique by seeing rhe negative space between common note or rhythmic patterns or even production stuff like effects or panning. I have effect send/returns color coded across multiple devices. A delay or fuzz is always the same color. The 3rd marker is probably the verse and that's the same across many things. Makes building songs easier. The fretboard I also see but I feel it more than I see a pattern.

 

[JimmyM]

You should visualize it at some point so you have an idea of where and how to play the notes. I tend to visualize the bass parts by note names and the chord structures first, and then I start with figuring out where on the neck it should go. These days it happens almost instantly as I hear the songs.