I just found out not too long ago that people can actually see stuff they think about. I thought how I thought was just normal. I am completely 100% unable to visualize any thought, and I am also not able to imagine any sounds at all. After talking to others about how they think - particularly people who can see and hear things they imagine - I find that when I am thinking or creating anything, it's almost as if my subconscious is doing a lot of the lifting. As things just sort of.. emerge out of it.
Yes I'm the same. When I write an imaginary story, the characters and places just kind of exist as soon as I write it. If there is an imagination of it first, I'm not aware of that.
Not only that, I was shocked to find that people can not only see and hear in their heads, but also evoke all of the senses including smell, taste, touch, sense of temperature, etc.
@@zipper385 yes I understand I myself have Aphantasia so no visual memory or thoughts but I do have auditory and what I call knowing which is a sense of feeling. I feel as others do which can be wonderful or extremely bad as in pain, where I need to distract myself away from that.
Same, and I just learned today it's not normal. I do have a vivid "imagination" when it comes to music, its just the beats, notes, and dynamics are substituted for physical impulses, feelings, and emotions.
I know this is an older video, but I thought you might find this interesting. I am gifted with aphantasia and anauralia, and I've been co-writing music with a friend recently. I can sort of imagine sound in the sense that if I work really hard to memorize it, I can hold basic tunes in my head. They're only abstract notes, though, not through any medium such as piano notes or a human voice, and I can't keep track of multiple sounds at once. The song writing process is very difficult for me because I never know what things will sound like until I hear it, so I essentially have to fiddle around with a piano or my voice until I find a sound I like. I'm fairly good at improvised harmonizing because I have choir experience as an alto, so I can often just harmonize on instinct, but I never know whether it'll work until I've sung it already. Y'all musicians amaze me. I literally can't imagine what you'll come up with next. As for me, I think I'll stick to writing song lyrics and leave the music part to y'all experts.
I constantly hear music in my head. I had a mystery earworm for about 40 years. Then one day I heard the song on Sirius XM and just about soiled my drawers.
I have total aphantasia, thinking imagining something was more used as a methaphore. Turned out most ppl can imagine things I’m left utterly confused and lost for words after finding out at the age of 30...
The realization of paradise or heaven or perfection. You realize that reality is absolute perfection. With the realization of immortality you have no more fear because nothing bad can happen to you. You've literally transcended death and so as an immortal eternal being that you now realize that you are, you're in paradise. You're in heaven. You realize that heaven is right here right now. Heaven is not some place you go to. Heaven is just the realization of eternity, of absolute love.
@@LeviClay Den eneste grunnen til at du er i live her i denne formen er fordi du er redd for å gå over til en annen form. Så det eneste som bokstavelig talt holder deg her på denne planeten er frykten din. Hvis du ikke hadde frykt, ville du ikke vært her lenger og du ville ikke lidd alt dette. Så du skaper bokstavelig talt denne drømmen. Du er i en drøm. Du har konstruert denne drømmen fordi du er redd for å gå til en høyere drøm, og den frykten er det avgjørende elementet som holder absolutt alt sammen. Din frykt for døden.
I thought I just sucked at music, just cuz. I didn't get a chance to play an instrument in school as i was away when they chose them, so i got stuck in singing classes instead, did my 1 year and never went back. I get older and adore music, go to tons of concerts and finally in my 30's try to learn to play a tenor sax, and struggle. some of the stuff you people talk about sounds like magic, and im not a wizard...... 2 weeks ago i find out I'm Aphantasic, in all my senses!!!! Watching every video connected to it I found you. When you talked about hearing a note and going up a fifth...... can you conjure up a bunny rabbit with that ability? I'm flabbergasted that you -people can hear music, that hurts, I'm not gonna lie, but then can use whats in your head to extrapolate? Crazy talk, just crazy. Thanks for doing this video for those of us who are affected and for others to learn about us
I’m real glad I did this too because it’s brought up so many personal stories from people about their experiences. That’s really interesting so thanks for taking the time to share
I learned to sing in church with my three younger brothers. When I would sing they would laugh and get in trouble, so I was the bad influence. In Choir class, all the teachers told me to move my lips and not make a sound. I did try in University to get a stage voice since I was doing comedy and juggling, and I went to my first class of Summer Term. The teacher put up a musical score, I told her I didn't sing. She then asked me what I was, bass, tenor. I told her I didn't sing. She spent 10 minutes plunking at keys on the piano and I sang them back. She then asked if it was too late to be reimbursed. It was. She apologized and taught me some basics, but my confidence was shattered. I told people that I was born with two left ears. It always got laughs. And I started learning the piano last year at 65 yoa, like my Mom. I've been fascinated with your videos and went on my walk today and sang along to the Ninth. Once this week, I sang a Do and Sol and it sounded good. It's not easy, but I have nothing but time. I just have to make sure my neighbours aren't home.
Total aphantasia here. I can consciously choose to whisper in my mind if I want to but that’s it. No music or any kind of auditory memories. I essentially play music purely by muscle memory.
I guess I don't hear sounds either. If I want to reply a song in my mind, I need whistle or hum silently For example, smoke on the water: guitar parts would be hummed, singing parts would be sung through my voice I don't hear the song, but I can at least recreate the essence of it
I have aphantasia, so I can not visualize in my mind. Nor can I hear sounds or imagine smells or textures ... completely mind blind with regard to the 5 senses. Amazing how the mind will compensate in other ways. I'm in my 50s and just recognized this within the last year. Mind blown.
I just stumbled into your video, looking for others on aphantasia and didn't know what audiation is, so I watched. But I have these issues. I have both aphantasia, and anauralia. I also lack the other senses, I can't taste, smell, or touch, from memory/imagination either, these last 3 don't have individual terms yet. Altogether they are referred to as dysikonesia, not a fan of that term since it's very close to a completely unrelated condition called dyskinesia, I've also seen ISAD/ISD (Internal Sensory Analog Deficiency/Internal Sense Deficiency) used to refer to the lack of few or all of these internal "senses", I prefer the acronyms myself. Specifically though, the inability to hear sounds (generate auditory imagery) in your head is called "Anauralia". Coined by Rish Hinwar, and Anthony Lambert, in Oct 2021. So not only can I not hear music in my head, I also don't have an inner voice. But I do have a conscious awareness of my thoughts, and I do get earworms, they are more of a compulsion to listen to that song, than hearing it in my head like most people. I don't think I can get an earworm of a song that I haven't already heard, like a musician who creates music can. When I was a kid I had the ability to sorta play songs on the piano by ear. I could hear a song, run into the front room where the piano was, and figure out how to play it. I sucked, and had to hunt for keys, but only because I had never taken piano lessons at that point, I still knew when I played a wrong note. So I had a memory, knowledge, of what the song should sound like on a piano, when I hear it with my ears, even though I wasn't actively listening to it, nor could hear it in my head.
It's interesting with the taste, small and touch. I am somewhat the same. I can't call forth the taste of something from memory - if I do, it will be more like "raw data" and not an actual sense or taste of it in my "imagination". It'll be stored more like "cheese = good, bacon = very good. Combined = very very good", but not with a taste reference. I have to REALLY focus to even get a hint of what the texture feels like, but I think I might be able to call forth that. I made a longer comment further down on some things related to vision and audio that you might be able to recognize things from too.
I just found this video looking for aphantasia resources, but I actually have both and I'm musically trained in singing. And when I actively sang, not even the loudest tone-deaf singer near me could have thrown me off the note. Once I knew the note, I knew the note. Everything does need to be pre-determined and a lot of repetition for practice
I’m full aphantasia as well, cannot hear nor see anything in my mind. I’m a classically trained oboist, got my degree in music performance. To me, instruments come quite easily but I seriously struggled in ear training and sight singing. Because I couldn’t “hear” the pitches in my head, I literally had to learn by muscle memory where every note sat in my vocal range. Was a rough few years, and I still cannot sing for the life of me 😂
Great video. I'm here as part of my research for my dissertation. I have full sensory Aphantasia; No imagery, sound (Musical or Internal monologue), touch, taste or smell in my mind. I can't imagine hot or cold either. Outside of dreaming the only thing I've ever seen is light. I am studying music, songwriting and performance and never know what the music I play or sing will sound like before it comes out so my whole practice is based on random experimentation, trial and error and rigorous practice. I have been working as a vocalist for years however. If anyone else with anauralia is willing to contribute to my findings for my dissertation then feel free to reply to this comment and let me know. Thank You.
At 1:26 it's that very authenticity with which you say "very strange thing to say this" when defining aphantasia that makes it hard to describe having aphantasia to people. It's when videos come out from people who DON'T have it that legitimizes it, so thank you for putting this out. Further, ironically, I have aphantasia EXCEPT for sound, specifically music and beats, at least I think I do bc I have nothing to compare it to.
I have aphantasia and I love music but I realized I don’t hear it, I don’t hear it in my head and I have a hard time learning notes and music. My bf has tried to reach me to sing and nothing. I have tried online singing lessons and I have the same problem I get what they are saying but I can’t follow along. I have a hard time remembering lyrics and I’m tone deaf af
I actually found this video because i Realized that this was an issue for me so im glad this video exists. I have aphantasia and i am a musican and i have quite godd musical ability. I really dont mind not being able to see things in my head but mysic is such an integral part of my life that i dont want to have this as a crutch in my musical ability. Im glad someone took the time to acknowledge this. I recently have started getting demos for an album made and i started to notice that when i try to grt any kind of melody in my head in any kind of location where its not societally acceptable to sing what i. Thinking, i notices i couldnt get any kind of note to play in my head without humming. I can almost do it by breathing out of my nose to convince myself that im humming but that barely works. And if you still want to do a video on that I would gladly collaborate to help explain it for you
It's easy for me to hear musical intervals and general chords, but it is another skill to get a song racing in my minds ears. And, more difficult is transcribing a novel song in my mind to paper or an instrument.
Fascinating. I just subscribed to your channel after finding this. I have aphantasia AND anauralia. I'm a relatively unskilled beginner at guitar, and was in the school choir and orchestra for a couple years. I also studied three foreign languages at the honors/advanced levels - Spanish, German and Dutch. Oddly enough, I could easy hum a fifth above the root notes. I think I've adapted. For example, when learning a G5 power chord, I'd have my finger on the 3rd fret of the E string and ring finger on the fifth fret of the A string. I can't hear it, but I can sing it. When I tried to understand "how" I could feel my throat tighten up as I exhaled, although I was not making and audible sound. I was going through the motion (subvocalizing with the voicebox). I'm not a great singer, but I can sing in key quite easily as long as it's in my vocal range. I would describe by aphantasia as having a "compressed" stream of thoughts, like a seed that contains the blueprints of a tree, or a file that needs to be "unzipped" on a computer. I can recognizes faces easily. Once, I was working at a gas station, and I saw a customer whom I recognized. I sad "you look familiar" and he said he didn't know how. I asked him if he once got into a car accident at a particular intersection while driving a Chrysler convertible. He had the right of way, and two young women in a Jeep made a turn and they collided. He had a young son, maybe 8 or 10 years old at the time. He was speechless - that was 10 years prior and that son was all grown up. For me, music is best learned using theory. Same thing with language. If I can learn the formula, I can intuit and interpolate from there. I don't hear or see anything in by head, so my brain is either on "input" while observing something or in silent thought. Complete emptiness would be when I'm neither intently observing nor trying to think about anything. I believe this is why I can spend so much time alone and it doesn't bother me. No intrusive thoughts, no daydreams - ever. Never had a song stuck in my head. Just song that I like so I play them a capella.
I can't imagine what it would be like to NOT have music tumbling around in my head. If I get an earworm I really need to get rid of, I will start singing something by Steely Dan. That way I get to choose my own earworm.
I have friends that have "illegal songs to hum". So if I hum certain songs to them it will prompt their brain to spin that song again and again and again until they go crazy. They say they go insane so I don't bother them. Super weird. I rarely get any song on my mind like that. My brain is totally empty. So it is blank all just completely being in a void. If I have a bad day it feels like I am constantly on the verge of falling off a cliff. People so different
I suspect substantial melody memories get stored in a person's brain that they can't easily trigger. The memories are there, likely from early childhood, strong memories enough to whistle hundreds of tunes. If anyone can figure out how to stimulate that part of the brain, many people would love to know the secret. I suspect that the connections from early childhhod get burried under all the millions of muscle coordination brain commands we learn as we grow up.
I'm kind of a strange case. I've never been able to hear sounds in my mind. A head injury 15 years ago left me almost entirely unable to see images in my head. Sometimes I can get blurry colors but that's it. The only sense I can replicate in my mind at all is touch. So when someone asks me "imagine an apple". I can imagine touching a round apple in my hands. On a good day, I can get a little bit of a red circle. It's amazing how little this impacts my day to day life. I was in choir all through high school. Never even realized I was weird.
I have aphantasia, I can't hear anything in my mind , but my brain can still compensate by imagining the sound in a non audible way. That might not make sense but I don't really know how to explain it.
I've been making music for 8 years and I recently found out I suffer from aphantasia. I cannot imagine images, sounds or tastes. It's always completely blank. I'm somewhat shook as to what a huge tool I'm missing in regards to living out my creative side
You can't imagine sounds? It seems unbelievable that people can't imagine sounds or images and even some that don't have an internal monologue. How do you imagine things or do you just not? It seems incredibly difficult to understand.
I cannot see, hear, smell or taste with my mind. Nor can i conjure emotions that i felt during a past experience/event by thinking about it. It generates a dark and empty feeling. I do tend to talk to myself in my head quite often, i think because it’s otherwise too quiet and boring. When people told me they have a song stuck in their head i always figured it was metaphorically rather than literally (same with visualisation). I can also have a song stuck in my head but then it’s me singing it to myself because i’m simply thinking about the song. But the concept of being able to hear a song in your head, actually in the voice of the singer was just shocking to me.
Let me explore that last part, because I think it highlights how complex memory is. For you to be able to sing a song, it must be stored in your memory, but you essentially can’t “preview” it. Fair? I’m fascinated to get an insight into how you conjure it up to be able to actually sing it (I hope this doesn’t result in some existential dread!)
Correct, no previews. People with aphantasia still process and store information ofcourse, but just differently. I indeed remember how the song goes but i cannot hear it. It’s more like remembering facts such as the lyrics ofcourse, but also which parts are sung in a lower/higher tone and where there are pauses or cuts. I think i can better explain this with image rather than sound. Let’s say you play a game of memory 9 cards in 3x3 rows, i’m guessing you’ll conjure up an image to see where you remembered f.e. The star card was located, and i recon you do the same with sound (replay/relive it in your head). But in my head ill simply have the information stored as 2nd row 3rd card was a star. Spatial concepts and facts that’s all. However this makes it very difficult for me to to memorise a new song completely in the correct way, often ill confuse when which verse comes in next f.e. as i can’t preview/replay it in my head. I hope this makes some sense ^^
I can't see or hear sounds in my head. Only my inner monologue although I feel like I've gotten pretty far in music. I can identify most intervals and was able to "hear" the 5th in the video. When I was first learning guitar one thing I did while practicing was to sing what i played while playing it, I feel like that has helped me a lot with hearing what I'm wanting to play before I play it at least note wise. And there have been times when working on a piece of music that I will have like such a strong feeling towards a note or chord moving to a different place but I don't actually hear it but I just like know where it is when I go to play. And when listening to songs that I've heard before at least a couple times I pretty much know the structure of everything. Like I know what the instruments are, when they come in, when this reverb does this, what's the panning on this one part and so on but I wouldn't be able to hear anything in my head I just have a lot of stuff memorized. Not chords tho, but recently i have started doing fast arpeggios in my head to fake hearing chords, I've really tried a lot to get around my aphantasia lol. But Tbh after I found out people heard music in their head and I dont I almost quit being a musician and dropping out of music school. I haven't told my professors that I can't hear sounds because I'm afraid of what they'd say. Idk it's made me kinda depressed, anyways cool video
Awesome!!!! The way that I remember a melody is not exactly by the name or degree of the notes but it seems more spatial kind a like a trip and then Ill know the next note as if It's a place where I've already been.
Makes sense because music and songs are things that move from one note and chord to another building and releasing tension and creating color. Like a motion picture instead of a still photograph.
I find it impossible to see an image as if it was real, yet memory gives me some aspects of it. Music is the same, I hear what I have heard, even if I've only heard a live version, then I remember also the crowds, but not clearly.... Until one night without any thought, a song played out and would not stop, could not rewind, pause, anything.... it was a sign I'm sure.
I have only heard music in my head twice, both involuntary. One time I was half-asleep waking up to an orchestra (stopped as soon as I started paying attention) and the second time I was going to bed dead tired after being up more than 24 hours, heard an original pop-ish sounding song as I was drifting off. According to studies on visual aphantasia, there is a correlation between high activity in the prefrontal cortex and low activity in the visual cortex with good imagination, and low activity in the prefrontal cortex and high activity in the visual cortex, the same could very likely apply to the auditory cortex. But keep in mind that the brain is far, far beyond our understanding and the most complicated machine on the planet, this correlation is likely a factor in aphantasia but it would be one of many. The likely explanation for the experiences I described at the beginning of my post is that according to a study or two i've read, your prefrontal cortex becomes more active the more sleep deprived you are. The topic of curing it is very murky due to this unfortunately. Electrical cranial stimulation to the prefrontal cortex seems to supposedly give slight temporary improvement, but it hasn't been looked into very much if at all. I have read many anecdotes on the matter of a cure, some people say they have cured it with drugs, others say it's done nothing, some even say it made their condition worse. The other most common proposal is to make a balanced diet as well as use supplements that cover common deficiencies people have like iodine, zinc or vitamin deficiencies. I have heard more "successful" anecdotes for the latter course of action, but none of that is really something you could do with confidence in its safety aside from the diet. Personally, I can't voluntarily imagine with any sense except for visual, and my visual imagination most of the time is so useless that it's barely worth making the distinction that I have it. I don't know whether it's correct or not, but I lay the blame on my auditory and to a much lesser extent visual aphantasia for the trouble I have always experienced understanding musical concepts, learning about music beyond the basics, and composing my own music. It might be pessimistic, maybe even defeatist, but I believe to push boundaries in any kind of art and be able to consistently create anything beyond mediocrity a form of imagination is necessary. Trial and error can only get you so far (very slowly as well) and the biggest issue you're faced with is that something created without an imagination will very rarely have the same ethereal qualities such as sounding "natural" or "inspired" as something made, packaged, and delivered to you by the literal supercomputer in your head. To get finished with my rambling here, to anyone who is reading this last paragraph and is in a similar situation to me, the things I just said are NOT an excuse to stop trying at whatever you're doing that requires an imagination. There's an exception to every rule and you could be one.
I enjoyed that. To add to the end bit, while I agree that being creative requires imagination, I just think that your imagination works in a different way. You know stuff, it’s just filed differently.
@@LeviClay Maybe. The only "equivalent" to playing what you hear in your head for people with aphantasia I can think of would be "playing with your fingers" as some people call it. I'm not a practiced enough improviser to attest as to how well that works, but I have often heard discussions in which people argue that it's something that should be avoided in preference to playing what you hear in your head. Edit: Something I forgot to mention in my original post, I really appreciate how you're spreading the word about this topic, I haven't seen a single youtuber make a video about it except for you.
I have total blindness and deafness is the mind’s eye… and mind’s ear I guess. But with music, I have nearly fantastic pitch. And I definitely can “hear” music, just with any sound. I don’t actually hear anything in my mind, but I “know” it. It hear it silently, by knowing the distance and the relationship between the notes. It’s almost like midi information. I don’t hear any sound, but I can experience the song through a mental midi, almost like a blind person would read with braille.
Hi there, I myself have Aphantasia I have no visual thoughts or memory, I also am not a musician but I love listening to music and definitely hear music in my head. So auditory Aphantasia I do not have.
As a kid I imagined what it would be like for SRV to play his blues licks using complicated bluegrass banjo style fingerpicking and so on -- all kinds of things. But I could not actually hear it in my mind. And it turns out that SRV and Santana style amp compression actually smears so much picking that doing so is monumental. I would also surmise Wes Montgomery playing Jazz chord melodies fingerstyle on an L5 like Chet Atkins playing corn on a Gretsch, but couldn't go beyond and actually hear. So imagination and hearing are two different things (skills?). But, the more you play with such imaginations and adjust as you go and mature, letting them guide you, the closer you can sort of play the stuff you had in mind (but could not actually hear).
I hear in my head as if I'm making the sounds, but it is very difficult to distinguish intervals or even if it's the same note. I have enjoyed playing drums, saxophone, but mostly guitar by learning scales and some basic theory. There was an NPR video about how improvisation could be possible when you focus less on conscious thought and let the unconscious parts go. For me, that's kind of the only option. Seems nice to be able to hear in your head and try out stuff.
I’m really curious about what people with auditory aphantasia think about singers? Or if any of them sing themselves? Seems like it would be a very difficult thing to do if you were unable to imagine the sounds as you’re singing
As a person with auditory aphantasia, I quite enjoy singing, though I won't say I'm great at it. I like singing a lot more than wordless music, actually, because I can process and remember words more easily than notes. It is a bit weird, though. I have to loop a song over and over again to learn it, then I pull it from the void of my mind and just sing the notes. I don't know how it works. I just know what to sing. Of course, I don't always get them right, but eh, pretty sure that's more my lack of skill than my memory. But yeah, I'm happy to loop the same song a thousand times. It never gets old, and it's great. I actually co-write music with a friend. I tend to stick more to the lyrics side, but I help with tunes sometimes. I'm always amazed to hear the transformation into the final product though.
I have full sensory aphantasia and have been working as a vocalist for years. singing is the same as writing music, I have no idea what it will sound like until it comes out. Learning to sing a new song is essentially an exercise in trial and error where I sing parts over and over, retrying pitchy or missed notes until I get them right and commit them to muscle memory.
I think I nailed what my problem is, and it is not intervals or chords. I never had any problem recognizing the sound of basic chord structures -- major 7ths, dominant 7ths, 3rds suspended 4ths, 6ths, piled up 5ths, piled 4ths, and ... But I cannot follow even a simple progression and recognize the changes!. Maybe I heard much to much Miles Davis and Orenet Coleman as a toddler. In other words, I can easily as pie hear the vertical shape of music, but hearing the horizontal movement is like abstract physics!
I have never been good at producing images in my mind, probobly why i dont enjoy reading fiction when reading books i dont get any images i just hear the words. i can hear melodies songs and riffs in my mind very clearly, Iv had dreams about playing guitar and been able to rememeber and work out how to play the song from my dream. I have been playing guitar for 25 years and im not sure this is a skill that has been learned subconsciously or if its somthing i could allways do. I have been working on ear training over the past 5 years or so by far the best and most usefull thing i have ever learned music wise. I only wish i could go back in time and focus on ears rather than obsesing over technique for the first 10 years of playing guitar.
I can't picture objects in my mind with any real detail and was surprised to learn that others can actually "see a picture of a pink elephant" in their head. I can however "hear" in my mind, not so much like listening to audio but much less detailed, usually it's only a single part. The idea that people can recall and "listen" to music in their mind is very interesting to me.
There was a BBC article a couple of years ago about aphantasia. I told my wife about it saying ‘hey! Did you know some people don’t have a minds eye?’ She looked at me blankly and then couldn’t do any of the examples. She’s always been obsessed with keeping photos of vacations etc and now I know why!
To elaborate. I asked her to think of her brother. She could tell you his eye colour, hair colour, his style of glasses, the kind of clothes he wears. She could describe the way he walked and common expressions on his face but she couldn’t ‘picture’ any of it in her mind. Just describe it.
@@collinsstudios7098 that sounds very similar to the way I am. I can picture things in concept but when I close my eyes there's nothing, at best a vague image that's very hard to hold onto.
how does this factor into hearing a new song on the radio? Like... how does your brain deal with the filing of the memory of the song after it's ended?
@@LeviClay it's a tough thing to explain, feels almost like trying to explain the experience of hearing itself. I think the best way I can describe it is I can recite it in my head, and sing back to you (if I could sing) but it's my own version so to speak. The fundamental parts of the song are there, even details I can remember, and the component pieces I can label, but it's not like a playback in my head. Guitar tone is something that might be a good example. I remember how a guitar part sounds in a song, but I don't hear how it sounds afterwards. If I were to hear the same notes with an reasonably different tone I can remember that it's not the same, and if it were to get closer I could recognize that, but again it's not like if I were to A/B audio. Do you hear audio memories as clearly as listening to music? I'm sure all these explanations are very confusing but hope it's of some value.
I was gonna reply with just a few sentences, but I got carried away - starting out with aphantasia and then coming to audiation towards the end. Maybe it's useful, maybe not. I'm not sure all of it necesarily makes sense, but it's an interesting topic that I've had conversations about before, but given how it seems to be a relatively unstudied field it can be difficult to find the right words. I always thought my "way of thinking" was just how everyone else was thinking. So when they say they imagined something, I thought it was the same as in my head...where there's nothing, but I know what it means when it's something like "Dumbledore had long grey hair, a long beard and glasses", cause I know them as individuel concepts, but I don't see a person in any way in my mind. It's just sort of automatically recognized as those concepts and an acceptance that those characteristics belong to him, but no image of it. For the longest time I thought that was just normal. Then some people go "no, that is what inner vision is!" and yet some people talk about playing out entire scenes, being able to twist and turn an object in their mind, see it from different angles and so on. Interestingly enough I never had problems with working with objects in math, turning, thinking and knowing what they would look like if mirrored, turned 180 degrees etc. I've sometimes described the "inner" of my mind as a computer without a monitor or speakers connected. The data is still there, and you can still put things into the hard drive, memory, do tasks and so on. If you knew your Guitar Pro icon is the 7th from the top left, you could access it without a monitor. If you knew that an Eb minor chord is Eb, Gb and Bb and you could type that as 6th fret on the A string, 9th fret on A, 13th fret A or whatever strings you please. Add in the 9th (F). I'm not hearing it actively in my head, but I remember what it sounds like and that I like that sound, same as I know how dinner table with plates, glasses and cutlery look like without seeing it in my head. So I am pretty sure I'm on the aphantasia spectrum. I don't see anything when I try to envision something people tell me to envision. That red star image people use? I see nothing but darkness. Or rather, I see what is more of a "TV static backside of my eyelids" things. As for music... I think it's tricky. I've played for about 20 years now and I know what I like, I know what I think sounds good. I know that to me added a major second/ninth makes me think a minor or major chords get sadder/happier. I know that a 5th sounds more stable to me, that the interval determining minor and major is the third and so on with all the other intervals, and when played I absolutely recognize all of this without problem. I know what they do from memory and experiments, but I don't hear anything in my head like you'd hear a song on the radio. I know when something isn't sounding in tune, I know if pitches are higher and lower etc., but I have no actively trained my ear to recognize a minor 7th etc. But that feels a bit different to "hearing music in my head", as if someone plays and interval...the intervals are there to be analyzed. However, I know the intervals and I know what they do, what I like and how I can use them. Same as I like green guitars, cause I remember seeing many and liking them, but closing my eyes I can't imagine see anything at all in my mind's eye. I don't feel like I need to envision things to know what they are and the same goes for music and a few other things in life. No in a savant way at all, but just something feels a bit more like plucking things from thin air without needing a big envisioning going on. I was gonna say "like muscle memory", but maybe it's more like...memory memory. If I focus HARD I can perhaps sort of recreate lines from songs in my head. "Live another day, climb a little higher, find another reason to live" - I know the movement of the melody and could maybe ballpark it, but I kinda want to describe it as data in my head rather than sound. And if write it down (in GP) and listen as I go, I can probably also find the correct melody line. I'm not sure where that puts me in terms of audiation. I'm not a trained singer, so for instance singing a minor third up from a given note can be a struggle, but I still "remember" what it sounds like in the same way that I remember what a table looks like even if I can't close my eyes and see it in my mind's eye. I compose music just fine though (if not for a few creative rut struggles that I don't think are related to aphantasia and audiation).
@@LeviClay Sorry about the spelling mistakes and grammar mistakes. I think it was like 6 am when I wrote that. I spotted a few mistakes just now reading through it again. I think it's an interesting subject, but a difficult one at times as it can be difficult to find the right words. My words are still very much tied to how everyone else uses language, so all of a sudden I might say: "I hear something like this over that part" and play a line, melody or riff, but I'm not sure it's something I hear, but more so something that's picked from a different part of my brain. Memory related maybe. But then again, I could be completely wrong! This is the only way I've ever known.
@@Cloudburzt I’m working on a a video on theory being a descriptive tool, not a prescriptive one, and this throws a bit of a spanner in the works. I’d imagine, if someone is playing a dominant chord, you don’t say “this is the sound I want to hear on that”, is it more of a “this is the sound I know will work on that”?
@@LeviClay I end up rambling so much here, but I hope there's something useful, if nothing else it helps me understand myself better! Well, I know the different functions of chord types, and I can definitely hear their functions when they are played and examplified. For instance, when played, I can hear the V7 pulling towards a I-chord etc. and I know and can hear the pull of the b7 to the to the 3rd of the I-chord and the 3rd of V7 to the root of the I-chord. It also visually (bad word choice maybe, but relate this to "knowing by non-visual memory" then) makes sense in terms of half steps in sheet, tab or on an instrument. It does NOT render me unable to compose freely with note choices that are outside of a scale or key though, cause I can still experiment as much as anyone else. But maybe I jump more regularly to what chords I KNOW work, i.e. V7 to I. But maybe more of my composing is "by knowledge/memory" and "chance" rather than me having an audible idea in my head of what I want to hear. But it's still very much composing by knowledge, memory of what works and toying with ideas in the moment. Also, I'm 20 years deep in this, and I'm sure you're bound to learn something in that time...hopefully. I don't recall that much from the beginning stage though, but I got into music wanting to compose my own songs and started doing that relatively quickly after a year or two - back in Powertab and maybe Guitar Pro 3...could have been 4. Back in 2003 or 2004. Interestingly enough I actually often find myself struggling to repeat a riff I've just played (if more proggy and note just a 3 chord song). "That sounded really cool! Play it again!", but I'll struggle, not so much from not having focused, but maybe because it doesn't latch onto my brain in the same way? I don't know the answer, I'm just sort of rambling here. I write and notate any music and idea that I have, so maybe I've just not trained that "muscle" enough. Notation can be so pleasing to look at! Haha! And helps me remember how to play things again, so I rely heavily on the notation, especially when recording, to remember my ideas. And really like detailed notation (and was thrilled when I found your channel some 5 years ago). Here's an example: imgur.com/a/vyelaKJ I'm trying to pick some examples here, but for instance the start of A Change of Seasons. I don't hear the low B, then the octave, E, G...low B, octave, E, F# etc. I don't hear it in my head, but I can actually still "air guitar" that (and probably the first 6 minutes of the song). I know the contours of movement of songs, but maybe again just stored as "data". There's a fall from the G to the F# (half step), but I don't feel as if I'm pulling it from something audible in my brain or a visual reference. Next it goes B, B, D, E... it's just sort of "there without visualising/hearing it". I kinda dislike doing this, but I have no real problem improvising (apart from being at whatever skill level I'm at). Here's a recent example: th-cam.com/video/Zn-l_XF-_Ao/w-d-xo.html I'm sorry if I've thrown a spanner into the works though! And as said, I might be talking complete nonsense and just not use the right words. For the reference, here are some more compositions (2020 though): th-cam.com/video/f7rl1SH8Qik/w-d-xo.html I kinda don't like posting links in comments, but since it relates to the topic and my own experiences in audiation and aphantasia I've decided to do it anyway.
Also, those screenshots of the notation are not any official release, so I haven't really proof-read them closely. I try to make it as much a habit as I can to get it as good/correct as possible even when it's just something I use myself.
I have aphantasia and have known about it for 2 years. But I just found out that some people could actually hear sounds with the mind. What.... music also. Songs have previously gotten stuck in my mind but its not like I could hear them
I would not say i "suffer" from aphantasia, but i do have aphantasia and for me it affects all senses, which is fairly common for people with aphantasia. I'm not much of a musician (found this video randomly from watching a different video related to aphantasia). I have very little musical talent, not for lack of trying in the past, and after watching this I very much wonder if it's (at least partially) due to this inability. But the way you described it as going through the motions of a dance, yes that is EXCACTLY what music is like for me. It's a sequence of steps to follow. If a song is stuck in my head, I might almost sing it or hum it using my inner monologue (granted I don't hear it per se). I'm curious if you hear yourself talking when you use your inner monologue? Side note, there are also people who don't have an inner monologue at all. Think about that one. Anyway yeah, there is no sound in my head and honestly I'm rather grateful for that, kinda sounds like a chaotic headache to me lol.
The not hearing an inner monologue is what resulted in people looking into aphantasia. I can hear a monologue in any voice I like, I can change it every word. I can hear 100 people I've met in my life repeating my name.... that's hellish. Anyway, when you say "If a song is stuck in my head", what does that mean if you can't hear it?
@@LeviClay It's more of an impulse to recite the lyrics in my head, or perhaps hum it. But there is no pitch or anything like that. More of just intensity and timing? It's difficult to describe really, it's very abstract.
I can't see images or hear music. Altough I played for many years live with bands (guitar, bass and drums) but I can never imagine the way a note will sound before I play. I wrote also a lot of songs, but was only able to do this by adding one instrument a time. Only my own inner voice is in my head, no music at all.
This makes no sense to me. So hearing one of your favorite songs is like hearing it for the first time every time you listen to it? No clue of the melody of the next vocal line will be if you hit pause in the middle of the song? I mean, even if you can hum something as simple as twinkle twinkle little star, the melody has got to be in your head. You say you can never imagine what a note is going to sound like before you play it. If picked up a guitar that was in an alternate tuning and played the major scale, you would not realize something didn't sound right and assume it must be right because you are fretting the correct positions?
@@TheC0zz When I practiced with my band the other guitar player could figure out songs by ear and immediately pick the wright note. I always had to try the note and compare it, even after 20 years of playing guitar. I can hear mistakes very well, but I wonder if there are people who can hear major or minor chords in their head. Because I only hear my innervoice reproducing music, I can not hear chords because the innervoice is just one tone and not three or more different ones. My son told me he could really hear the voice of Freddy when he is thinking about a song from Queen. I just hear my own voice producing one part of all the sounds. I thought this was normal.
imagine sound? so you imagine sound waves in your heads? sound is just a wave of the medium = a medium propagating - pressure changes no medium no sound wave so describe what exactly it is you imagine?
I am hesitant to comment this because it doesn’t make sense but this is the first thing I’ve seen that seems to target my issues. I’m not quite as bad as you described but close. Struggled with ear training apps for several years and still can’t tell major from minor chords or intervals. It’s also difficult to remember even simple melodies. It’s weird because I’ve played guitar for about 50 years and can play some fairly advanced pieces. For example I just learned Joe Robinson’s arrangement of “Hit the Road Jack. “ I guess I should mention I am deaf in my left ear and wear hearing aids in both. I don’t think that’s the problem though.
That’s not really aphantasia I don’t think. Maybe more a sort of musical dyslexia? Because it’s not that you can’t imagine the sound of a major or minor chord, it’s that when they’re in front of you… you can’t tell them apart. Is that fair?
@@LeviClay That may be. I can hear that they are different but can’t identify which is which. I get them right about the same as if I simply guessed without having heard them.
My dad who is absolutely tone deaf had an weird experience where he could all-of-a-sudden whistle all kinds of tunes from old movies and songs from way back. This happened a day or two after he had suffered a stroke that absolutely paralyzed his whole left side about a year ago which he since recovered from. Even though the muscles in the left side of his face were all paralyzed, he could still whistle. And not just, he was also able to whistle old tunes he had heard as a child. But the ability didn't seem to last but for a couple of days before it fizzled.
I can't imagine any of the senses in my head. I don't have an inner voice / monologue either. Closest thing to an inner monologue is sub-vocalizing which is essentially talking to myself.
Found out I have aphantasia just reacently at 55 yrs old. I can't hear music in my head but do get ear worms that I hum. I can tell immediately when a note is wrong in a song that I am familiar with when played live. My dad and I both have always liked to "play around" with a keyboard or piano. Neither of us are musicians but we can play what, for no better word, sounds like a nice basic song. I've never tried to compose a song at all. It's not a savant talent or anything but just interesting. My dad has been gone a long time so I can't ask him. But for me, it feels like I just sort of know what should go next to sound good. I wonder if anyone else can relate to doing that? I am going to look into not being able to smell or feel anything from memory just out of curiousity as well.
I have multi-sensory aphantasia which include my being unable to create any of the senses in my mind. Vision, sound, texture, smell, taste. I also do not have an inner voice...I don't hear myself think!
that's interesting. I want to ask more questions like, if I ask you a question like "what is 7x12?" what happens in your mind... but is that something you can even answer :/ Interesting stuff
I don't think I have complete inability to audiate (at least I don't want to believe that maybe it's denial), my hope is that it's only an underdeveloped skill of mine (especially because I haven't gotten any formal musical training at a young age (since then I have been trying to catch up on my own with ear training and music theory.)), anyway I can hum and whistle melodies, and recognize intervals and scale degrees (although a bit harder from outside the diatonic scale). I can associate intervals with emotional concepts (like minor 6th is sad, and minor 7th is tense and has this eerie-query-ness-like quality, dim 5th and major 7th are way more tense etc.) But maybe it is a different skill set that works like a feedback loop, on a trial-and-error basis (with the same trial-and-error method I can play melodies on the keyboard) which might be independent from audiating, and you don't need to have complete tonal-deafness to be unable to audiate. I don't know. But I am struggling to imagine melody lines, when I try to replicate something in my mind it feels like physical toil, I hold my breath, and my muscles tense up, I can feel how involuntarily my brain tries to send weak signals to my vocal muscles to imitate something (the rhythm is usually easy to imagine), and most of the time I can feel it is not in the right pitch in my head, and either I try to imagine the sound/the timbre of the instrument with one note or the melody line (with my virtual humming sound), but it's much harder to do the two together. But everything is vague, uncertain and feels out-of-pitch and unclear, so slow, like an outdated GPU that cannot keep up with the rendering task.. (maybe a sound card analogy would be more fitting here because I don't have problems with visual imagery). Imagining two-notes or accords seems even harder. I don't think it should feel so demanding (should it?), If I had normal musical abilities. Sometimes this makes me so despondent, frustrated and just plain unfair that I decide to avoid listening any music at all (at least for weeks).
I can't see or hear in my mind. I do everything by memory. I music it took me years to memorize scales and could never just play music out of thin air. As seeing I recall memories if I've never seen something before I can not grasp what people want me to. I've been this way my whole life.
yeah, didn't know people could do this... Imagine sound I mean... I can't do that. Or visuals, or smells, touches, or emotions, or taste for the matter. Only one I got is inner monologue and that can like "Hum the tracks" or maybe have two voices talking but not overlapping, but is my voice with a larger dynamic range. I was in band from grade school through college marching band, couldn't solo for sh!p, which now it makes a little more sense... didn't help that I didn't understand chord progression, either =oD
@@mizeves5626 I mean, it hasn't been formally diagnosed or anything (is that even a thing? I don't know), but yes, I consider myself to have aphantasia. And while I have ways of imagining things, including shapes and various things, that experience is not one that I consider to be visual in nature. Certainly, it's not the case that I can "see" something that then gives me information I didn't already know about the thing, as some apparently can.
I can mimic sounds very well! But i cant tell you anything about individual notes, if they are ascending/descending. I cant tell if its the same as a previous song. I cant hold any sensory information in my mind without using verbal cues as a memory device. Without music training, i have no way to describe or contextualize sounds once they're gone. Even with good ear & detail awareness, im basically tone deaf. I also have autism & auditory processing disorder, where i cant distinguish multiple sounds at once. Songs sound like a complete piece, i cant pick out instruments, rhythm, scales, etc. I do my best thinking out loud!
I have total aphantasia. Found out last week. I can't hear anything. I love to sing and remember lyricd to many songs. I'm just time deaf. Now I know why. Lol
I was reminded of Money money money when you played the major seventh then the minor seventh, I don't know whether that's what it actually is? (I've just checked and I reckon it's Fmaj7 moving to F7? More likely Am moving to F7?) If it is there's a harmonic example too. (Not of its Am moving to F7 though!) As for your question regarding aphantasia: I can't 'hear' sounds however I can imagine them, like sort of a ghost of the sound, like an expectation of what it would be. So I can almost hear it but not quite! I should say I'm pretty good at visualizing things, but to actually 'see' things (and not a ghostly framework/idea) in my head I have to meditate whilst thinking about the subject but then I don't always see what I'm trying to see! And more recently that has become more difficult.
Just curious, I’ve been trying to learn music for decades. Lots of instruments, many teachers university classes, and I play for fun all the time. I can’t hear a difference between ANY given note unless it’s a comparison. Like tests for ton deafness where they present one note and then the other-that’s fine. I can pick that out. I can’t produce a c4 on demand or tell the difference between played notes unless they are rising and falling. If someone is singing a note I can match it so long as it’s playing but if it ends, I could never match it, with voice or any instrument. It’s like I have no memory for sound. I wonder if that’s actually just part of anauralia. When I imagine tunes I love, I see them more than hear them in my head, though I can visualize the rhythm. Ode to joy is visually stunning in my mind and I remember the rhythm. I can pick it out when played but it’s not…sound in my head exactly.
I am unable to imagine any sensory experience in my head outside of dreaming, which i have always felt is kind of odd because in theory i think my mind should be able to if i can in a dream. Regardless, i have never had success with ear training, but am a musician and aspiring songwriter. Every time i try to do ear training i struggle to differentiate intervals to a very high degree. At times not being able to reliably distinguish between an octave, perfect 5th, or perfect 4th despite being told they are "easy." I dont know if i will ever be able to truly train my ears but i hope to someday
Nah, go easy on yourself. One way to look at octaves 5ths and 4ths is that octaves and 5th both sound really stable, so I see students making that mistake. And a 4th (C to F) is a 5th inverted (F to C) so again… easy to mix them up! Keep at it!
specifically for the b7 I think of the original Star Trek theme (I've found that on a website a long time ago, and even though I didn't know the theme, it's such a strong theme that it stuck with me). but also I tend to arpeggiate the dom7 chord in my mind. it comes from the Animaniacs doing it all the time, and from barbershop quartet songs or songs inspired by that like many Beach Boys songs. and then it just occured me that I could and probably should arpeggiate the other intervals. what do you think of this method compared to the reference song one?
Yes, but our concepts of what dreams are are probably very different. One person told me their aphantasia results in more of an inner monologue for thoughts rather than images.
I am autistic. I have an amazing visual imagination with absolutely no sound. If I want something like a word to exist, I have to pretend to make it with my mouth and 'feel' it. I also have trouble with decoding, meaning that if I'm not paying attention to you and you say something, I will hear the sound but not recognize the words. You could say my name but to me it's just like ggihfrhj fghbddhj ghhbffg
i can replay songs in my head, but i cant make new melodies or imagine how a new melody would sound. I need like garage band to make one up. is that everyone ?
I can't see or hear anything that isn't there. Not sure I want to either. For some reason I lost my sense of smell (anosmia) about 15 yrs ago for about 4 years - during that time my nose would sometimes make up smells (that were not there) like gas leaks and sewerage - never anything nice! - probably why I don't mind not seeing or hearing imaginary things - I'd probably get ghosts and screaming babies. Lol.
I ask people not to read their credit card numbers in front of me because I'll create a rhythm out of it and remember the song. I do not have a verbal inner monologue, however.
I essentially have aphantasia, but cannabis absolutely remedied this problem. Up to this point, I can't write a piece of music while in my complete normal state to save my life, (and haven't), but I've written lots of really cool ideas on cannabis, especially vocal melodies.
I don’t think creativity and aphantasia are linked though are they? Like, you can not be able to hear music in your head… but still fiddle around on the guitar until you find something you like
I used to be able to listen to lengthy musical compositions in my head like Miles Davis' bitches brew album. Or I could hear what Elvis Presley and Nancy Sinatra would sound like singing a Beatles song together in place of John and Paul. Just for starters. Usually going without sleep would stimulate that part of my brain. But I don't know where the switch is anymore to do that.
Perhaps... though I think I do alright at at least some forms of visual art, despite aphantasia. Also, apparently you're unusual (in an interesting cool way)! See _Anauralia: The Silent Mind and Its Association With Aphantasia_ by Rish P. Hinwar and Anthony J. Lambert, School of Psychology and Centre for Brain Research, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand. :)
I cannot imagine sound or taste at all. Pictures - vaguely. Like short split second flashes, but I wouldn't describe them as a picture, more like a feeling (but not an emotion). Like how when you think of numbers you don't see a number in your head, you just kind of know the number.
Damnnnn dude I thought it was a fucking default settings for humans. I just discovered the term and am 22. Can't see shit nor hear shit. Damn now I can feel what it means to be mentally disordered. Just felt like my whole life was a lie as well as that the whole system was against me lol and my friends were surely cheating for my standards 😂😂
I'm almost 50 and only found out recently on reddit that other people can see, hear, taste or smell things in their minds. I'm still not sure how I feel about this.
I never had any troubles visualing things in my mind when I was a kid except the faces of beautiful girls I fell in love with when their faces were not directly in front of my eyes.😒
Anyone who says it’s a bad teaching technique clearly isn’t a teacher or perhaps shouldn’t be as everyone learns in different ways so one technique will not work for everyone.
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I just found out not too long ago that people can actually see stuff they think about. I thought how I thought was just normal. I am completely 100% unable to visualize any thought, and I am also not able to imagine any sounds at all.
After talking to others about how they think - particularly people who can see and hear things they imagine - I find that when I am thinking or creating anything, it's almost as if my subconscious is doing a lot of the lifting. As things just sort of.. emerge out of it.
Yes I'm the same. When I write an imaginary story, the characters and places just kind of exist as soon as I write it. If there is an imagination of it first, I'm not aware of that.
I’m exactly the same and was shocked that people hear and see in their heads
Not only that, I was shocked to find that people can not only see and hear in their heads, but also evoke all of the senses including smell, taste, touch, sense of temperature, etc.
@@zipper385 yes I understand I myself have Aphantasia so no visual memory or thoughts but I do have auditory and what I call knowing which is a sense of feeling. I feel as others do which can be wonderful or extremely bad as in pain, where I need to distract myself away from that.
Same, and I just learned today it's not normal. I do have a vivid "imagination" when it comes to music, its just the beats, notes, and dynamics are substituted for physical impulses, feelings, and emotions.
I know this is an older video, but I thought you might find this interesting. I am gifted with aphantasia and anauralia, and I've been co-writing music with a friend recently. I can sort of imagine sound in the sense that if I work really hard to memorize it, I can hold basic tunes in my head. They're only abstract notes, though, not through any medium such as piano notes or a human voice, and I can't keep track of multiple sounds at once. The song writing process is very difficult for me because I never know what things will sound like until I hear it, so I essentially have to fiddle around with a piano or my voice until I find a sound I like. I'm fairly good at improvised harmonizing because I have choir experience as an alto, so I can often just harmonize on instinct, but I never know whether it'll work until I've sung it already.
Y'all musicians amaze me. I literally can't imagine what you'll come up with next. As for me, I think I'll stick to writing song lyrics and leave the music part to y'all experts.
Hello
I constantly hear music in my head. I had a mystery earworm for about 40 years. Then one day I heard the song on Sirius XM and just about soiled my drawers.
Love it. As an Aphantasiac I cannot relate, but I can imagine the tension that had built up over the years haha
I have Aphantasia. Thanks for the video and for bringing awareness to it.
Hello
I have total aphantasia, thinking imagining something was more used as a methaphore. Turned out most ppl can imagine things I’m left utterly confused and lost for words after finding out at the age of 30...
The realization of paradise or heaven or perfection. You realize that reality is absolute perfection. With the realization of immortality you have no more fear because nothing bad can happen to you. You've literally transcended death and so as an immortal eternal being that you now realize that you are, you're in paradise. You're in heaven. You realize that heaven is right here right now. Heaven is not some place you go to. Heaven is just the realization of eternity, of absolute love.
I just realized there's a million pounds in my bank account. Just because you believe something. It doesn't make it true. Go away.
@@LeviClay Den eneste grunnen til at du er i live her i denne formen er fordi du er redd for å gå over til en annen form. Så det eneste som bokstavelig talt holder deg her på denne planeten er frykten din. Hvis du ikke hadde frykt, ville du ikke vært her lenger og du ville ikke lidd alt dette. Så du skaper bokstavelig talt denne drømmen. Du er i en drøm. Du har konstruert denne drømmen fordi du er redd for å gå til en høyere drøm, og den frykten er det avgjørende elementet som holder absolutt alt sammen. Din frykt for døden.
This channel is so underrated.
You can change that! Spread the word 🙌🏻
I thought I just sucked at music, just cuz. I didn't get a chance to play an instrument in school as i was away when they chose them, so i got stuck in singing classes instead, did my 1 year and never went back. I get older and adore music, go to tons of concerts and finally in my 30's try to learn to play a tenor sax, and struggle.
some of the stuff you people talk about sounds like magic, and im not a wizard...... 2 weeks ago i find out I'm Aphantasic, in all my senses!!!! Watching every video connected to it I found you.
When you talked about hearing a note and going up a fifth...... can you conjure up a bunny rabbit with that ability?
I'm flabbergasted that you -people can hear music, that hurts, I'm not gonna lie, but then can use whats in your head to extrapolate? Crazy talk, just crazy.
Thanks for doing this video for those of us who are affected and for others to learn about us
I’m real glad I did this too because it’s brought up so many personal stories from people about their experiences. That’s really interesting so thanks for taking the time to share
I learned to sing in church with my three younger brothers. When I would sing they would laugh and get in trouble, so I was the bad influence. In Choir class, all the teachers told me to move my lips and not make a sound. I did try in University to get a stage voice since I was doing comedy and juggling, and I went to my first class of Summer Term. The teacher put up a musical score, I told her I didn't sing. She then asked me what I was, bass, tenor. I told her I didn't sing. She spent 10 minutes plunking at keys on the piano and I sang them back.
She then asked if it was too late to be reimbursed. It was. She apologized and taught me some basics, but my confidence was shattered.
I told people that I was born with two left ears. It always got laughs.
And I started learning the piano last year at 65 yoa, like my Mom.
I've been fascinated with your videos and went on my walk today and sang along to the Ninth. Once this week, I sang a Do and Sol and it sounded good.
It's not easy, but I have nothing but time. I just have to make sure my neighbours aren't home.
Fascinating topic, I had never heard of this condition. Thanks for sharing this information Levy and of course your instruction too.
Total aphantasia here. I can consciously choose to whisper in my mind if I want to but that’s it. No music or any kind of auditory memories. I essentially play music purely by muscle memory.
I guess I don't hear sounds either. If I want to reply a song in my mind, I need whistle or hum silently
For example, smoke on the water: guitar parts would be hummed, singing parts would be sung through my voice
I don't hear the song, but I can at least recreate the essence of it
I've got it, and my mind was blown.
I have aphantasia, so I can not visualize in my mind. Nor can I hear sounds or imagine smells or textures ... completely mind blind with regard to the 5 senses.
Amazing how the mind will compensate in other ways. I'm in my 50s and just recognized this within the last year. Mind blown.
Same here at 55
I just stumbled into your video, looking for others on aphantasia and didn't know what audiation is, so I watched. But I have these issues. I have both aphantasia, and anauralia. I also lack the other senses, I can't taste, smell, or touch, from memory/imagination either, these last 3 don't have individual terms yet. Altogether they are referred to as dysikonesia, not a fan of that term since it's very close to a completely unrelated condition called dyskinesia, I've also seen ISAD/ISD (Internal Sensory Analog Deficiency/Internal Sense Deficiency) used to refer to the lack of few or all of these internal "senses", I prefer the acronyms myself.
Specifically though, the inability to hear sounds (generate auditory imagery) in your head is called "Anauralia". Coined by Rish Hinwar, and Anthony Lambert, in Oct 2021. So not only can I not hear music in my head, I also don't have an inner voice. But I do have a conscious awareness of my thoughts, and I do get earworms, they are more of a compulsion to listen to that song, than hearing it in my head like most people. I don't think I can get an earworm of a song that I haven't already heard, like a musician who creates music can.
When I was a kid I had the ability to sorta play songs on the piano by ear. I could hear a song, run into the front room where the piano was, and figure out how to play it. I sucked, and had to hunt for keys, but only because I had never taken piano lessons at that point, I still knew when I played a wrong note. So I had a memory, knowledge, of what the song should sound like on a piano, when I hear it with my ears, even though I wasn't actively listening to it, nor could hear it in my head.
I appreciate this comment so much, I changed the title to reflect it :)
Hey fellow.. aphantasic?
I am the same. No visual or audio imagination.
I am the same. I used to play piano and currently play trumpet.
It's interesting with the taste, small and touch. I am somewhat the same. I can't call forth the taste of something from memory - if I do, it will be more like "raw data" and not an actual sense or taste of it in my "imagination". It'll be stored more like "cheese = good, bacon = very good. Combined = very very good", but not with a taste reference. I have to REALLY focus to even get a hint of what the texture feels like, but I think I might be able to call forth that.
I made a longer comment further down on some things related to vision and audio that you might be able to recognize things from too.
Thank you for all of the information. I really appreciate it.
I just found this video looking for aphantasia resources, but I actually have both and I'm musically trained in singing. And when I actively sang, not even the loudest tone-deaf singer near me could have thrown me off the note. Once I knew the note, I knew the note. Everything does need to be pre-determined and a lot of repetition for practice
I’m full aphantasia as well, cannot hear nor see anything in my mind. I’m a classically trained oboist, got my degree in music performance. To me, instruments come quite easily but I seriously struggled in ear training and sight singing. Because I couldn’t “hear” the pitches in my head, I literally had to learn by muscle memory where every note sat in my vocal range. Was a rough few years, and I still cannot sing for the life of me 😂
Great video. I'm here as part of my research for my dissertation. I have full sensory Aphantasia; No imagery, sound (Musical or Internal monologue), touch, taste or smell in my mind. I can't imagine hot or cold either. Outside of dreaming the only thing I've ever seen is light. I am studying music, songwriting and performance and never know what the music I play or sing will sound like before it comes out so my whole practice is based on random experimentation, trial and error and rigorous practice. I have been working as a vocalist for years however.
If anyone else with anauralia is willing to contribute to my findings for my dissertation then feel free to reply to this comment and let me know. Thank You.
I’d like to discuss the possibility you are proposing
At 1:26 it's that very authenticity with which you say "very strange thing to say this" when defining aphantasia that makes it hard to describe having aphantasia to people. It's when videos come out from people who DON'T have it that legitimizes it, so thank you for putting this out. Further, ironically, I have aphantasia EXCEPT for sound, specifically music and beats, at least I think I do bc I have nothing to compare it to.
I have aphantasia and I love music but I realized I don’t hear it, I don’t hear it in my head and I have a hard time learning notes and music. My bf has tried to reach me to sing and nothing. I have tried online singing lessons and I have the same problem I get what they are saying but I can’t follow along. I have a hard time remembering lyrics and I’m tone deaf af
I actually found this video because i Realized that this was an issue for me so im glad this video exists. I have aphantasia and i am a musican and i have quite godd musical ability. I really dont mind not being able to see things in my head but mysic is such an integral part of my life that i dont want to have this as a crutch in my musical ability. Im glad someone took the time to acknowledge this. I recently have started getting demos for an album made and i started to notice that when i try to grt any kind of melody in my head in any kind of location where its not societally acceptable to sing what i. Thinking, i notices i couldnt get any kind of note to play in my head without humming. I can almost do it by breathing out of my nose to convince myself that im humming but that barely works.
And if you still want to do a video on that I would gladly collaborate to help explain it for you
It's easy for me to hear musical intervals and general chords, but it is another skill to get a song racing in my minds ears. And, more difficult is transcribing a novel song in my mind to paper or an instrument.
Fascinating. I just subscribed to your channel after finding this. I have aphantasia AND anauralia. I'm a relatively unskilled beginner at guitar, and was in the school choir and orchestra for a couple years. I also studied three foreign languages at the honors/advanced levels - Spanish, German and Dutch. Oddly enough, I could easy hum a fifth above the root notes. I think I've adapted. For example, when learning a G5 power chord, I'd have my finger on the 3rd fret of the E string and ring finger on the fifth fret of the A string. I can't hear it, but I can sing it. When I tried to understand "how" I could feel my throat tighten up as I exhaled, although I was not making and audible sound. I was going through the motion (subvocalizing with the voicebox).
I'm not a great singer, but I can sing in key quite easily as long as it's in my vocal range. I would describe by aphantasia as having a "compressed" stream of thoughts, like a seed that contains the blueprints of a tree, or a file that needs to be "unzipped" on a computer. I can recognizes faces easily. Once, I was working at a gas station, and I saw a customer whom I recognized. I sad "you look familiar" and he said he didn't know how. I asked him if he once got into a car accident at a particular intersection while driving a Chrysler convertible. He had the right of way, and two young women in a Jeep made a turn and they collided. He had a young son, maybe 8 or 10 years old at the time. He was speechless - that was 10 years prior and that son was all grown up. For me, music is best learned using theory. Same thing with language. If I can learn the formula, I can intuit and interpolate from there. I don't hear or see anything in by head, so my brain is either on "input" while observing something or in silent thought. Complete emptiness would be when I'm neither intently observing nor trying to think about anything. I believe this is why I can spend so much time alone and it doesn't bother me. No intrusive thoughts, no daydreams - ever. Never had a song stuck in my head. Just song that I like so I play them a capella.
I can't imagine what it would be like to NOT have music tumbling around in my head. If I get an earworm I really need to get rid of, I will start singing something by Steely Dan. That way I get to choose my own earworm.
I have friends that have "illegal songs to hum". So if I hum certain songs to them it will prompt their brain to spin that song again and again and again until they go crazy. They say they go insane so I don't bother them. Super weird.
I rarely get any song on my mind like that. My brain is totally empty. So it is blank all just completely being in a void. If I have a bad day it feels like I am constantly on the verge of falling off a cliff.
People so different
I suspect substantial melody memories get stored in a person's brain that they can't easily trigger. The memories are there, likely from early childhood, strong memories enough to whistle hundreds of tunes. If anyone can figure out how to stimulate that part of the brain, many people would love to know the secret. I suspect that the connections from early childhhod get burried under all the millions of muscle coordination brain commands we learn as we grow up.
Can anyone else also not imagine taste/smell?
My whole life, whenever I see a picture of a food, I don't imagine its taste.
6:44 i'm training by myself and i think to me it's more helpfull think about my throat like a map and remember the tension areas.
I'm kind of a strange case. I've never been able to hear sounds in my mind. A head injury 15 years ago left me almost entirely unable to see images in my head. Sometimes I can get blurry colors but that's it. The only sense I can replicate in my mind at all is touch. So when someone asks me "imagine an apple". I can imagine touching a round apple in my hands. On a good day, I can get a little bit of a red circle.
It's amazing how little this impacts my day to day life. I was in choir all through high school. Never even realized I was weird.
I have aphantasia, I can't hear anything in my mind , but my brain can still compensate by imagining the sound in a non audible way. That might not make sense but I don't really know how to explain it.
I've been making music for 8 years and I recently found out I suffer from aphantasia. I cannot imagine images, sounds or tastes. It's always completely blank. I'm somewhat shook as to what a huge tool I'm missing in regards to living out my creative side
Hello
You can't imagine sounds? It seems unbelievable that people can't imagine sounds or images and even some that don't have an internal monologue. How do you imagine things or do you just not? It seems incredibly difficult to understand.
I cannot see, hear, smell or taste with my mind. Nor can i conjure emotions that i felt during a past experience/event by thinking about it. It generates a dark and empty feeling. I do tend to talk to myself in my head quite often, i think because it’s otherwise too quiet and boring.
When people told me they have a song stuck in their head i always figured it was metaphorically rather than literally (same with visualisation). I can also have a song stuck in my head but then it’s me singing it to myself because i’m simply thinking about the song. But the concept of being able to hear a song in your head, actually in the voice of the singer was just shocking to me.
Let me explore that last part, because I think it highlights how complex memory is.
For you to be able to sing a song, it must be stored in your memory, but you essentially can’t “preview” it. Fair?
I’m fascinated to get an insight into how you conjure it up to be able to actually sing it (I hope this doesn’t result in some existential dread!)
Correct, no previews. People with aphantasia still process and store information ofcourse, but just differently. I indeed remember how the song goes but i cannot hear it. It’s more like remembering facts such as the lyrics ofcourse, but also which parts are sung in a lower/higher tone and where there are pauses or cuts.
I think i can better explain this with image rather than sound. Let’s say you play a game of memory 9 cards in 3x3 rows, i’m guessing you’ll conjure up an image to see where you remembered f.e. The star card was located, and i recon you do the same with sound (replay/relive it in your head). But in my head ill simply have the information stored as 2nd row 3rd card was a star. Spatial concepts and facts that’s all. However this makes it very difficult for me to to memorise a new song completely in the correct way, often ill confuse when which verse comes in next f.e. as i can’t preview/replay it in my head. I hope this makes some sense ^^
I can't see or hear sounds in my head. Only my inner monologue although I feel like I've gotten pretty far in music. I can identify most intervals and was able to "hear" the 5th in the video. When I was first learning guitar one thing I did while practicing was to sing what i played while playing it, I feel like that has helped me a lot with hearing what I'm wanting to play before I play it at least note wise. And there have been times when working on a piece of music that I will have like such a strong feeling towards a note or chord moving to a different place but I don't actually hear it but I just like know where it is when I go to play. And when listening to songs that I've heard before at least a couple times I pretty much know the structure of everything. Like I know what the instruments are, when they come in, when this reverb does this, what's the panning on this one part and so on but I wouldn't be able to hear anything in my head I just have a lot of stuff memorized. Not chords tho, but recently i have started doing fast arpeggios in my head to fake hearing chords, I've really tried a lot to get around my aphantasia lol. But Tbh after I found out people heard music in their head and I dont I almost quit being a musician and dropping out of music school. I haven't told my professors that I can't hear sounds because I'm afraid of what they'd say. Idk it's made me kinda depressed, anyways cool video
Awesome!!!! The way that I remember a melody is not exactly by the name or degree of the notes but it seems more spatial kind a like a trip and then Ill know the next note as if It's a place where I've already been.
Makes sense because music and songs are things that move from one note and chord to another building and releasing tension and creating color. Like a motion picture instead of a still photograph.
I find it impossible to see an image as if it was real, yet memory gives me some aspects of it.
Music is the same, I hear what I have heard, even if I've only heard a live version, then I remember also the crowds, but not clearly....
Until one night without any thought, a song played out and would not stop, could not rewind, pause, anything.... it was a sign I'm sure.
I have only heard music in my head twice, both involuntary. One time I was half-asleep waking up to an orchestra (stopped as soon as I started paying attention) and the second time I was going to bed dead tired after being up more than 24 hours, heard an original pop-ish sounding song as I was drifting off.
According to studies on visual aphantasia, there is a correlation between high activity in the prefrontal cortex and low activity in the visual cortex with good imagination, and low activity in the prefrontal cortex and high activity in the visual cortex, the same could very likely apply to the auditory cortex. But keep in mind that the brain is far, far beyond our understanding and the most complicated machine on the planet, this correlation is likely a factor in aphantasia but it would be one of many.
The likely explanation for the experiences I described at the beginning of my post is that according to a study or two i've read, your prefrontal cortex becomes more active the more sleep deprived you are.
The topic of curing it is very murky due to this unfortunately. Electrical cranial stimulation to the prefrontal cortex seems to supposedly give slight temporary improvement, but it hasn't been looked into very much if at all. I have read many anecdotes on the matter of a cure, some people say they have cured it with drugs, others say it's done nothing, some even say it made their condition worse. The other most common proposal is to make a balanced diet as well as use supplements that cover common deficiencies people have like iodine, zinc or vitamin deficiencies. I have heard more "successful" anecdotes for the latter course of action, but none of that is really something you could do with confidence in its safety aside from the diet.
Personally, I can't voluntarily imagine with any sense except for visual, and my visual imagination most of the time is so useless that it's barely worth making the distinction that I have it.
I don't know whether it's correct or not, but I lay the blame on my auditory and to a much lesser extent visual aphantasia for the trouble I have always experienced understanding musical concepts, learning about music beyond the basics, and composing my own music. It might be pessimistic, maybe even defeatist, but I believe to push boundaries in any kind of art and be able to consistently create anything beyond mediocrity a form of imagination is necessary. Trial and error can only get you so far (very slowly as well) and the biggest issue you're faced with is that something created without an imagination will very rarely have the same ethereal qualities such as sounding "natural" or "inspired" as something made, packaged, and delivered to you by the literal supercomputer in your head. To get finished with my rambling here, to anyone who is reading this last paragraph and is in a similar situation to me, the things I just said are NOT an excuse to stop trying at whatever you're doing that requires an imagination. There's an exception to every rule and you could be one.
I enjoyed that.
To add to the end bit, while I agree that being creative requires imagination, I just think that your imagination works in a different way. You know stuff, it’s just filed differently.
@@LeviClay Maybe. The only "equivalent" to playing what you hear in your head for people with aphantasia I can think of would be "playing with your fingers" as some people call it. I'm not a practiced enough improviser to attest as to how well that works, but I have often heard discussions in which people argue that it's something that should be avoided in preference to playing what you hear in your head.
Edit: Something I forgot to mention in my original post, I really appreciate how you're spreading the word about this topic, I haven't seen a single youtuber make a video about it except for you.
I have total blindness and deafness is the mind’s eye… and mind’s ear I guess. But with music, I have nearly fantastic pitch. And I definitely can “hear” music, just with any sound. I don’t actually hear anything in my mind, but I “know” it. It hear it silently, by knowing the distance and the relationship between the notes. It’s almost like midi information. I don’t hear any sound, but I can experience the song through a mental midi, almost like a blind person would read with braille.
Hi there, I myself have Aphantasia I have no visual thoughts or memory, I also am not a musician but I love listening to music and definitely hear music in my head. So auditory Aphantasia I do not have.
As a kid I imagined what it would be like for SRV to play his blues licks using complicated bluegrass banjo style fingerpicking and so on -- all kinds of things. But I could not actually hear it in my mind. And it turns out that SRV and Santana style amp compression actually smears so much picking that doing so is monumental. I would also surmise Wes Montgomery playing Jazz chord melodies fingerstyle on an L5 like Chet Atkins playing corn on a Gretsch, but couldn't go beyond and actually hear. So imagination and hearing are two different things (skills?). But, the more you play with such imaginations and adjust as you go and mature, letting them guide you, the closer you can sort of play the stuff you had in mind (but could not actually hear).
Great video. For the Maj7 interval I use Moon River. My Huuuck of "My Huckleberry Friend".
I hear music in my head constantly and while it's great, it would be nice to never have an earworm! 😅
I have this for both. Reference songs don't help much, because I can't change the reference tone.
I hear in my head as if I'm making the sounds, but it is very difficult to distinguish intervals or even if it's the same note.
I have enjoyed playing drums, saxophone, but mostly guitar by learning scales and some basic theory.
There was an NPR video about how improvisation could be possible when you focus less on conscious thought and let the unconscious parts go. For me, that's kind of the only option. Seems nice to be able to hear in your head and try out stuff.
I’m really curious about what people with auditory aphantasia think about singers? Or if any of them sing themselves? Seems like it would be a very difficult thing to do if you were unable to imagine the sounds as you’re singing
As a person with auditory aphantasia, I quite enjoy singing, though I won't say I'm great at it. I like singing a lot more than wordless music, actually, because I can process and remember words more easily than notes. It is a bit weird, though. I have to loop a song over and over again to learn it, then I pull it from the void of my mind and just sing the notes. I don't know how it works. I just know what to sing. Of course, I don't always get them right, but eh, pretty sure that's more my lack of skill than my memory.
But yeah, I'm happy to loop the same song a thousand times. It never gets old, and it's great. I actually co-write music with a friend. I tend to stick more to the lyrics side, but I help with tunes sometimes. I'm always amazed to hear the transformation into the final product though.
I have full sensory aphantasia and have been working as a vocalist for years. singing is the same as writing music, I have no idea what it will sound like until it comes out. Learning to sing a new song is essentially an exercise in trial and error where I sing parts over and over, retrying pitchy or missed notes until I get them right and commit them to muscle memory.
you can hear your own voice when you sing though, dont really get your point
I think I nailed what my problem is, and it is not intervals or chords. I never had any problem recognizing the sound of basic chord structures -- major 7ths, dominant 7ths, 3rds suspended 4ths, 6ths, piled up 5ths, piled 4ths, and ... But I cannot follow even a simple progression and recognize the changes!. Maybe I heard much to much Miles Davis and Orenet Coleman as a toddler. In other words, I can easily as pie hear the vertical shape of music, but hearing the horizontal movement is like abstract physics!
I have never been good at producing images in my mind, probobly why i dont enjoy reading fiction when reading books i dont get any images i just hear the words.
i can hear melodies songs and riffs in my mind very clearly, Iv had dreams about playing guitar and been able to rememeber and work out how to play the song from my dream. I have been playing guitar for 25 years and im not sure this is a skill that has been learned subconsciously or if its somthing i could allways do.
I have been working on ear training over the past 5 years or so by far the best and most usefull thing i have ever learned music wise. I only wish i could go back in time and focus on ears rather than obsesing over technique for the first 10 years of playing guitar.
I can't picture objects in my mind with any real detail and was surprised to learn that others can actually "see a picture of a pink elephant" in their head. I can however "hear" in my mind, not so much like listening to audio but much less detailed, usually it's only a single part. The idea that people can recall and "listen" to music in their mind is very interesting to me.
There was a BBC article a couple of years ago about aphantasia. I told my wife about it saying ‘hey! Did you know some people don’t have a minds eye?’
She looked at me blankly and then couldn’t do any of the examples. She’s always been obsessed with keeping photos of vacations etc and now I know why!
To elaborate. I asked her to think of her brother. She could tell you his eye colour, hair colour, his style of glasses, the kind of clothes he wears. She could describe the way he walked and common expressions on his face but she couldn’t ‘picture’ any of it in her mind. Just describe it.
@@collinsstudios7098 that sounds very similar to the way I am. I can picture things in concept but when I close my eyes there's nothing, at best a vague image that's very hard to hold onto.
how does this factor into hearing a new song on the radio? Like... how does your brain deal with the filing of the memory of the song after it's ended?
@@LeviClay it's a tough thing to explain, feels almost like trying to explain the experience of hearing itself. I think the best way I can describe it is I can recite it in my head, and sing back to you (if I could sing) but it's my own version so to speak.
The fundamental parts of the song are there, even details I can remember, and the component pieces I can label, but it's not like a playback in my head.
Guitar tone is something that might be a good example. I remember how a guitar part sounds in a song, but I don't hear how it sounds afterwards. If I were to hear the same notes with an reasonably different tone I can remember that it's not the same, and if it were to get closer I could recognize that, but again it's not like if I were to A/B audio.
Do you hear audio memories as clearly as listening to music?
I'm sure all these explanations are very confusing but hope it's of some value.
Aphantasia is not a new condition, it just didn't have a name until 2015. The phenomenon was first described by Francis Galton in 1880.
I was gonna reply with just a few sentences, but I got carried away - starting out with aphantasia and then coming to audiation towards the end. Maybe it's useful, maybe not. I'm not sure all of it necesarily makes sense, but it's an interesting topic that I've had conversations about before, but given how it seems to be a relatively unstudied field it can be difficult to find the right words.
I always thought my "way of thinking" was just how everyone else was thinking. So when they say they imagined something, I thought it was the same as in my head...where there's nothing, but I know what it means when it's something like "Dumbledore had long grey hair, a long beard and glasses", cause I know them as individuel concepts, but I don't see a person in any way in my mind. It's just sort of automatically recognized as those concepts and an acceptance that those characteristics belong to him, but no image of it. For the longest time I thought that was just normal. Then some people go "no, that is what inner vision is!" and yet some people talk about playing out entire scenes, being able to twist and turn an object in their mind, see it from different angles and so on. Interestingly enough I never had problems with working with objects in math, turning, thinking and knowing what they would look like if mirrored, turned 180 degrees etc.
I've sometimes described the "inner" of my mind as a computer without a monitor or speakers connected. The data is still there, and you can still put things into the hard drive, memory, do tasks and so on. If you knew your Guitar Pro icon is the 7th from the top left, you could access it without a monitor. If you knew that an Eb minor chord is Eb, Gb and Bb and you could type that as 6th fret on the A string, 9th fret on A, 13th fret A or whatever strings you please. Add in the 9th (F). I'm not hearing it actively in my head, but I remember what it sounds like and that I like that sound, same as I know how dinner table with plates, glasses and cutlery look like without seeing it in my head. So I am pretty sure I'm on the aphantasia spectrum. I don't see anything when I try to envision something people tell me to envision. That red star image people use? I see nothing but darkness. Or rather, I see what is more of a "TV static backside of my eyelids" things.
As for music... I think it's tricky. I've played for about 20 years now and I know what I like, I know what I think sounds good. I know that to me added a major second/ninth makes me think a minor or major chords get sadder/happier. I know that a 5th sounds more stable to me, that the interval determining minor and major is the third and so on with all the other intervals, and when played I absolutely recognize all of this without problem. I know what they do from memory and experiments, but I don't hear anything in my head like you'd hear a song on the radio. I know when something isn't sounding in tune, I know if pitches are higher and lower etc., but I have no actively trained my ear to recognize a minor 7th etc. But that feels a bit different to "hearing music in my head", as if someone plays and interval...the intervals are there to be analyzed. However, I know the intervals and I know what they do, what I like and how I can use them. Same as I like green guitars, cause I remember seeing many and liking them, but closing my eyes I can't imagine see anything at all in my mind's eye. I don't feel like I need to envision things to know what they are and the same goes for music and a few other things in life. No in a savant way at all, but just something feels a bit more like plucking things from thin air without needing a big envisioning going on. I was gonna say "like muscle memory", but maybe it's more like...memory memory.
If I focus HARD I can perhaps sort of recreate lines from songs in my head. "Live another day, climb a little higher, find another reason to live" - I know the movement of the melody and could maybe ballpark it, but I kinda want to describe it as data in my head rather than sound. And if write it down (in GP) and listen as I go, I can probably also find the correct melody line. I'm not sure where that puts me in terms of audiation.
I'm not a trained singer, so for instance singing a minor third up from a given note can be a struggle, but I still "remember" what it sounds like in the same way that I remember what a table looks like even if I can't close my eyes and see it in my mind's eye. I compose music just fine though (if not for a few creative rut struggles that I don't think are related to aphantasia and audiation).
I really appreciate you taking the time to write that, it’s interesting
@@LeviClay Sorry about the spelling mistakes and grammar mistakes. I think it was like 6 am when I wrote that. I spotted a few mistakes just now reading through it again. I think it's an interesting subject, but a difficult one at times as it can be difficult to find the right words. My words are still very much tied to how everyone else uses language, so all of a sudden I might say: "I hear something like this over that part" and play a line, melody or riff, but I'm not sure it's something I hear, but more so something that's picked from a different part of my brain. Memory related maybe. But then again, I could be completely wrong! This is the only way I've ever known.
@@Cloudburzt I’m working on a a video on theory being a descriptive tool, not a prescriptive one, and this throws a bit of a spanner in the works. I’d imagine, if someone is playing a dominant chord, you don’t say “this is the sound I want to hear on that”, is it more of a “this is the sound I know will work on that”?
@@LeviClay I end up rambling so much here, but I hope there's something useful, if nothing else it helps me understand myself better!
Well, I know the different functions of chord types, and I can definitely hear their functions when they are played and examplified. For instance, when played, I can hear the V7 pulling towards a I-chord etc. and I know and can hear the pull of the b7 to the to the 3rd of the I-chord and the 3rd of V7 to the root of the I-chord. It also visually (bad word choice maybe, but relate this to "knowing by non-visual memory" then) makes sense in terms of half steps in sheet, tab or on an instrument.
It does NOT render me unable to compose freely with note choices that are outside of a scale or key though, cause I can still experiment as much as anyone else. But maybe I jump more regularly to what chords I KNOW work, i.e. V7 to I. But maybe more of my composing is "by knowledge/memory" and "chance" rather than me having an audible idea in my head of what I want to hear. But it's still very much composing by knowledge, memory of what works and toying with ideas in the moment. Also, I'm 20 years deep in this, and I'm sure you're bound to learn something in that time...hopefully. I don't recall that much from the beginning stage though, but I got into music wanting to compose my own songs and started doing that relatively quickly after a year or two - back in Powertab and maybe Guitar Pro 3...could have been 4. Back in 2003 or 2004.
Interestingly enough I actually often find myself struggling to repeat a riff I've just played (if more proggy and note just a 3 chord song). "That sounded really cool! Play it again!", but I'll struggle, not so much from not having focused, but maybe because it doesn't latch onto my brain in the same way? I don't know the answer, I'm just sort of rambling here. I write and notate any music and idea that I have, so maybe I've just not trained that "muscle" enough. Notation can be so pleasing to look at! Haha! And helps me remember how to play things again, so I rely heavily on the notation, especially when recording, to remember my ideas. And really like detailed notation (and was thrilled when I found your channel some 5 years ago). Here's an example: imgur.com/a/vyelaKJ
I'm trying to pick some examples here, but for instance the start of A Change of Seasons. I don't hear the low B, then the octave, E, G...low B, octave, E, F# etc. I don't hear it in my head, but I can actually still "air guitar" that (and probably the first 6 minutes of the song). I know the contours of movement of songs, but maybe again just stored as "data". There's a fall from the G to the F# (half step), but I don't feel as if I'm pulling it from something audible in my brain or a visual reference. Next it goes B, B, D, E... it's just sort of "there without visualising/hearing it".
I kinda dislike doing this, but I have no real problem improvising (apart from being at whatever skill level I'm at). Here's a recent example: th-cam.com/video/Zn-l_XF-_Ao/w-d-xo.html
I'm sorry if I've thrown a spanner into the works though! And as said, I might be talking complete nonsense and just not use the right words.
For the reference, here are some more compositions (2020 though): th-cam.com/video/f7rl1SH8Qik/w-d-xo.html
I kinda don't like posting links in comments, but since it relates to the topic and my own experiences in audiation and aphantasia I've decided to do it anyway.
Also, those screenshots of the notation are not any official release, so I haven't really proof-read them closely. I try to make it as much a habit as I can to get it as good/correct as possible even when it's just something I use myself.
Original star trek theme... first 2 notes for the flat 7. It's the best.
I have aphantasia and have known about it for 2 years. But I just found out that some people could actually hear sounds with the mind. What.... music also. Songs have previously gotten stuck in my mind but its not like I could hear them
It’s interesting to know what it means to have a song stuck in your mind, but not being able to hear it.
I would not say i "suffer" from aphantasia, but i do have aphantasia and for me it affects all senses, which is fairly common for people with aphantasia. I'm not much of a musician (found this video randomly from watching a different video related to aphantasia). I have very little musical talent, not for lack of trying in the past, and after watching this I very much wonder if it's (at least partially) due to this inability. But the way you described it as going through the motions of a dance, yes that is EXCACTLY what music is like for me. It's a sequence of steps to follow. If a song is stuck in my head, I might almost sing it or hum it using my inner monologue (granted I don't hear it per se). I'm curious if you hear yourself talking when you use your inner monologue? Side note, there are also people who don't have an inner monologue at all. Think about that one. Anyway yeah, there is no sound in my head and honestly I'm rather grateful for that, kinda sounds like a chaotic headache to me lol.
The not hearing an inner monologue is what resulted in people looking into aphantasia. I can hear a monologue in any voice I like, I can change it every word. I can hear 100 people I've met in my life repeating my name.... that's hellish. Anyway, when you say "If a song is stuck in my head", what does that mean if you can't hear it?
@@LeviClay It's more of an impulse to recite the lyrics in my head, or perhaps hum it. But there is no pitch or anything like that. More of just intensity and timing? It's difficult to describe really, it's very abstract.
@@andrewmazar4921 fascinating
Mine so bad💀, i got a 0 out of 10 notes right in a musical school test and
We just had to tell which notes were high pitched or low pitched on paper.
I have aphantasia, both visual and auditory
I can't see images or hear music. Altough I played for many years live with bands (guitar, bass and drums) but I can never imagine the way a note will sound before I play. I wrote also a lot of songs, but was only able to do this by adding one instrument a time. Only my own inner voice is in my head, no music at all.
This makes no sense to me. So hearing one of your favorite songs is like hearing it for the first time every time you listen to it? No clue of the melody of the next vocal line will be if you hit pause in the middle of the song? I mean, even if you can hum something as simple as twinkle twinkle little star, the melody has got to be in your head. You say you can never imagine what a note is going to sound like before you play it. If picked up a guitar that was in an alternate tuning and played the major scale, you would not realize something didn't sound right and assume it must be right because you are fretting the correct positions?
@@TheC0zz When I practiced with my band the other guitar player could figure out songs by ear and immediately pick the wright note. I always had to try the note and compare it, even after 20 years of playing guitar. I can hear mistakes very well, but I wonder if there are people who can hear major or minor chords in their head. Because I only hear my innervoice reproducing music, I can not hear chords because the innervoice is just one tone and not three or more different ones.
My son told me he could really hear the voice of Freddy when he is thinking about a song from Queen. I just hear my own voice producing one part of all the sounds. I thought this was normal.
@@tijntjeofive8219 FWIW, what you describe sounds normal to me! ;) (An aphantasiac and anauraliac, AFAICT.)
Do you also not dream?
@@andrimatthiasson5718 The strange thing is that I can only visualise in dreams...
imagine sound?
so you imagine sound waves in your heads?
sound is just a wave of the medium = a medium propagating - pressure changes
no medium no sound wave
so describe what exactly it is you imagine?
Colour is just a light wave frequency. Imagine the colour red. What do you see?
I genuinely don’t know if you’re asking or trying to appear smart.
I am hesitant to comment this because it doesn’t make sense but this is the first thing I’ve seen that seems to target my issues. I’m not quite as bad as you described but close. Struggled with ear training apps for several years and still can’t tell major from minor chords or intervals. It’s also difficult to remember even simple melodies.
It’s weird because I’ve played guitar for about 50 years and can play some fairly advanced pieces. For example I just learned Joe Robinson’s arrangement of “Hit the Road Jack. “
I guess I should mention I am deaf in my left ear and wear hearing aids in both. I don’t think that’s the problem though.
That’s not really aphantasia I don’t think. Maybe more a sort of musical dyslexia? Because it’s not that you can’t imagine the sound of a major or minor chord, it’s that when they’re in front of you… you can’t tell them apart.
Is that fair?
@@LeviClay That may be. I can hear that they are different but can’t identify which is which. I get them right about the same as if I simply guessed without having heard them.
My dad who is absolutely tone deaf had an weird experience where he could all-of-a-sudden whistle all kinds of tunes from old movies and songs from way back. This happened a day or two after he had suffered a stroke that absolutely paralyzed his whole left side about a year ago which he since recovered from. Even though the muscles in the left side of his face were all paralyzed, he could still whistle. And not just, he was also able to whistle old tunes he had heard as a child. But the ability didn't seem to last but for a couple of days before it fizzled.
I can't imagine any of the senses in my head. I don't have an inner voice / monologue either. Closest thing to an inner monologue is sub-vocalizing which is essentially talking to myself.
Found out I have aphantasia just reacently at 55 yrs old. I can't hear music in my head but do get ear worms that I hum. I can tell immediately when a note is wrong in a song that I am familiar with when played live. My dad and I both have always liked to "play around" with a keyboard or piano. Neither of us are musicians but we can play what, for no better word, sounds like a nice basic song. I've never tried to compose a song at all. It's not a savant talent or anything but just interesting. My dad has been gone a long time so I can't ask him. But for me, it feels like I just sort of know what should go next to sound good. I wonder if anyone else can relate to doing that? I am going to look into not being able to smell or feel anything from memory just out of curiousity as well.
I have multi-sensory aphantasia which include my being unable to create any of the senses in my mind. Vision, sound, texture, smell, taste. I also do not have an inner voice...I don't hear myself think!
that's interesting. I want to ask more questions like, if I ask you a question like "what is 7x12?" what happens in your mind... but is that something you can even answer :/
Interesting stuff
I don't think I have complete inability to audiate (at least I don't want to believe that maybe it's denial), my hope is that it's only an underdeveloped skill of mine (especially because I haven't gotten any formal musical training at a young age (since then I have been trying to catch up on my own with ear training and music theory.)), anyway I can hum and whistle melodies, and recognize intervals and scale degrees (although a bit harder from outside the diatonic scale). I can associate intervals with emotional concepts (like minor 6th is sad, and minor 7th is tense and has this eerie-query-ness-like quality, dim 5th and major 7th are way more tense etc.)
But maybe it is a different skill set that works like a feedback loop, on a trial-and-error basis (with the same trial-and-error method I can play melodies on the keyboard) which might be independent from audiating, and you don't need to have complete tonal-deafness to be unable to audiate. I don't know.
But I am struggling to imagine melody lines, when I try to replicate something in my mind it feels like physical toil, I hold my breath, and my muscles tense up, I can feel how involuntarily my brain tries to send weak signals to my vocal muscles to imitate something (the rhythm is usually easy to imagine), and most of the time I can feel it is not in the right pitch in my head, and either I try to imagine the sound/the timbre of the instrument with one note or the melody line (with my virtual humming sound), but it's much harder to do the two together. But everything is vague, uncertain and feels out-of-pitch and unclear, so slow, like an outdated GPU that cannot keep up with the rendering task.. (maybe a sound card analogy would be more fitting here because I don't have problems with visual imagery). Imagining two-notes or accords seems even harder.
I don't think it should feel so demanding (should it?), If I had normal musical abilities.
Sometimes this makes me so despondent, frustrated and just plain unfair that I decide to avoid listening any music at all (at least for weeks).
I can't see or hear in my mind. I do everything by memory. I music it took me years to memorize scales and could never just play music out of thin air. As seeing I recall memories if I've never seen something before I can not grasp what people want me to. I've been this way my whole life.
Do you still play?
yeah, didn't know people could do this...
Imagine sound I mean...
I can't do that.
Or visuals, or smells, touches, or emotions, or taste for the matter.
Only one I got is inner monologue and that can like "Hum the tracks" or maybe have two voices talking but not overlapping, but is my voice with a larger dynamic range.
I was in band from grade school through college marching band, couldn't solo for sh!p, which now it makes a little more sense... didn't help that I didn't understand chord progression, either =oD
I have aphantasia and cannot hear things in my head. I do have very good relative pitch and can work out most parts of a song that I heard earlier.
I can recall music, sight, smell and taste in my head and I assumed everyone else could.
Nope, none of those for me :(
@@mizeves5626 nor for me!
@@DavidLindes do you have aphantasia ? Can you visualize ?
@@mizeves5626 I mean, it hasn't been formally diagnosed or anything (is that even a thing? I don't know), but yes, I consider myself to have aphantasia. And while I have ways of imagining things, including shapes and various things, that experience is not one that I consider to be visual in nature. Certainly, it's not the case that I can "see" something that then gives me information I didn't already know about the thing, as some apparently can.
I can mimic sounds very well! But i cant tell you anything about individual notes, if they are ascending/descending. I cant tell if its the same as a previous song. I cant hold any sensory information in my mind without using verbal cues as a memory device. Without music training, i have no way to describe or contextualize sounds once they're gone. Even with good ear & detail awareness, im basically tone deaf. I also have autism & auditory processing disorder, where i cant distinguish multiple sounds at once. Songs sound like a complete piece, i cant pick out instruments, rhythm, scales, etc. I do my best thinking out loud!
I have total aphantasia. Found out last week. I can't hear anything. I love to sing and remember lyricd to many songs. I'm just time deaf. Now I know why. Lol
I have aphantasia with every sense EXCEPT auditory, which is dope for me as a musican lol
i just found out i have 100% aphantasia - DO NOT tell me you people hear sounds ?!?!?!
Sorry 🤷
i get a massive headache trying to think about this.
@@jesserantakangas5594 at least it’s a very quiet headache I guess? 😂
I was reminded of Money money money when you played the major seventh then the minor seventh, I don't know whether that's what it actually is? (I've just checked and I reckon it's Fmaj7 moving to F7? More likely Am moving to F7?) If it is there's a harmonic example too. (Not of its Am moving to F7 though!) As for your question regarding aphantasia: I can't 'hear' sounds however I can imagine them, like sort of a ghost of the sound, like an expectation of what it would be. So I can almost hear it but not quite! I should say I'm pretty good at visualizing things, but to actually 'see' things (and not a ghostly framework/idea) in my head I have to meditate whilst thinking about the subject but then I don't always see what I'm trying to see! And more recently that has become more difficult.
Just curious, I’ve been trying to learn music for decades. Lots of instruments, many teachers university classes, and I play for fun all the time. I can’t hear a difference between ANY given note unless it’s a comparison. Like tests for ton deafness where they present one note and then the other-that’s fine. I can pick that out. I can’t produce a c4 on demand or tell the difference between played notes unless they are rising and falling. If someone is singing a note I can match it so long as it’s playing but if it ends, I could never match it, with voice or any instrument. It’s like I have no memory for sound. I wonder if that’s actually just part of anauralia. When I imagine tunes I love, I see them more than hear them in my head, though I can visualize the rhythm. Ode to joy is visually stunning in my mind and I remember the rhythm. I can pick it out when played but it’s not…sound in my head exactly.
Brains are spooky things
I am unable to imagine any sensory experience in my head outside of dreaming, which i have always felt is kind of odd because in theory i think my mind should be able to if i can in a dream. Regardless, i have never had success with ear training, but am a musician and aspiring songwriter. Every time i try to do ear training i struggle to differentiate intervals to a very high degree. At times not being able to reliably distinguish between an octave, perfect 5th, or perfect 4th despite being told they are "easy." I dont know if i will ever be able to truly train my ears but i hope to someday
Nah, go easy on yourself. One way to look at octaves 5ths and 4ths is that octaves and 5th both sound really stable, so I see students making that mistake. And a 4th (C to F) is a 5th inverted (F to C) so again… easy to mix them up!
Keep at it!
I have both
I have it too
specifically for the b7 I think of the original Star Trek theme (I've found that on a website a long time ago, and even though I didn't know the theme, it's such a strong theme that it stuck with me). but also I tend to arpeggiate the dom7 chord in my mind. it comes from the Animaniacs doing it all the time, and from barbershop quartet songs or songs inspired by that like many Beach Boys songs.
and then it just occured me that I could and probably should arpeggiate the other intervals.
what do you think of this method compared to the reference song one?
Do people with afantasia dream??
Yes, but our concepts of what dreams are are probably very different. One person told me their aphantasia results in more of an inner monologue for thoughts rather than images.
I have aphantasia and dream quite often
I am autistic. I have an amazing visual imagination with absolutely no sound. If I want something like a word to exist, I have to pretend to make it with my mouth and 'feel' it. I also have trouble with decoding, meaning that if I'm not paying attention to you and you say something, I will hear the sound but not recognize the words. You could say my name but to me it's just like ggihfrhj fghbddhj ghhbffg
i can replay songs in my head, but i cant make new melodies or imagine how a new melody would sound. I need like garage band to make one up. is that everyone ?
I have this.
I rarely can imagine sounds. What the serious what...... I have aphantasia and limited inner monologue. I think my brain broken.
I can't see or hear anything that isn't there. Not sure I want to either. For some reason I lost my sense of smell (anosmia) about 15 yrs ago for about 4 years - during that time my nose would sometimes make up smells (that were not there) like gas leaks and sewerage - never anything nice! - probably why I don't mind not seeing or hearing imaginary things - I'd probably get ghosts and screaming babies. Lol.
I ask people not to read their credit card numbers in front of me because I'll create a rhythm out of it and remember the song.
I do not have a verbal inner monologue, however.
i got both, its all silent or telepathic in my mind
I am the opposite, I synthesize new melodies 24/7 by association.
I essentially have aphantasia, but cannabis absolutely remedied this problem. Up to this point, I can't write a piece of music while in my complete normal state to save my life, (and haven't), but I've written lots of really cool ideas on cannabis, especially vocal melodies.
I don’t think creativity and aphantasia are linked though are they? Like, you can not be able to hear music in your head… but still fiddle around on the guitar until you find something you like
@@LeviClay You indeed have a point there Levi about fiddling with the guitar until you find something. I agree with that part for sure.
I used to be able to listen to lengthy musical compositions in my head like Miles Davis' bitches brew album. Or I could hear what Elvis Presley and Nancy Sinatra would sound like singing a Beatles song together in place of John and Paul. Just for starters. Usually going without sleep would stimulate that part of my brain. But I don't know where the switch is anymore to do that.
I can’t imagine images! Sound I can hear in my “mind’s ear.” That’s why I’m good at music and not visual art
Perhaps... though I think I do alright at at least some forms of visual art, despite aphantasia.
Also, apparently you're unusual (in an interesting cool way)! See _Anauralia: The Silent Mind and Its Association With Aphantasia_ by Rish P. Hinwar and Anthony J. Lambert, School of Psychology and Centre for Brain Research, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand. :)
I cannot imagine sound or taste at all. Pictures - vaguely. Like short split second flashes, but I wouldn't describe them as a picture, more like a feeling (but not an emotion).
Like how when you think of numbers you don't see a number in your head, you just kind of know the number.
That last paragraph is off. I see numbers along with a representation of the number of relevant. I just asked my partner, she’s the same.
Damnnnn dude I thought it was a fucking default settings for humans. I just discovered the term and am 22. Can't see shit nor hear shit. Damn now I can feel what it means to be mentally disordered. Just felt like my whole life was a lie as well as that the whole system was against me lol and my friends were surely cheating for my standards 😂😂
I'm almost 50 and only found out recently on reddit that other people can see, hear, taste or smell things in their minds. I'm still not sure how I feel about this.
Still I prefer Avantasia, lol
I never had any troubles visualing things in my mind when I was a kid except the faces of beautiful girls I fell in love with when their faces were not directly in front of my eyes.😒
Anyone who says it’s a bad teaching technique clearly isn’t a teacher or perhaps shouldn’t be as everyone learns in different ways so one technique will not work for everyone.
Npc