At any given time, I always have some song or another playing in my head, and I can recall songs I’ve memorized and “play them back” at will. Usually it’s just the melody, though; the harmony usually doesn’t seem to get captured as easily. (I’ve taken piano lessons for most of my life and I’m told I’m rather talented, although I’m nowhere near as good as professional musicians.)
Sometimes, an earworm gets attached to the point where I can’t tell the difference between what’s in my head and what I’m hearing with my ears. This usually happens when I’ve been playing a video game with MIDI-like music for a long period of time.
(On a side note, I must have no taste, because I find I prefer the MIDI-like sounds of the NES and SNES-era to the more elaborate music of today’s video games. The FF6 soundtrack is my favorite music, ever.)
There’s a lot of great music that’s gotten into videogames. Anything that people can listen to for hours on end and not get sick of must have some merit.
(Anyhow, the only true measure of taste is what people like years hence. And even supposedly great musicians can be unreliable predictors.)
I think a lack of aural imagination explains a lot of mediocre musicians who are beginners, and who stay beginners, in traditional music. They are only trying to waggle their fingers in the right magical sequence to get the tune to somewhat come out. They’re not hearing the tune in their head and letting it come out.
No, some of the music of the NES and SNES era are the best music ever written. And I was born AFTER that era, so by the childhood argument my favourite music ought to be of the early Pentium games I played… I only heard the music of the SNES era more recently. They are actually THAT GOOD.
Ditto, the thing that people still listen to Mozart and Beethoven even though they’ve been dead for centuries.
I’d argue that music nowadays is regressing to the lowest common denominator of rhythm and losing all the melodic complexity I like. And melodic complexity is perfectly achievable using only 8-bit instruments.
On my end my visual imagery is poor, I can barely remember faces, places clearly, but it does exist somewhat.
HOWEVER
My aural imagery is nearly peerless relative to any of the people I know in real life, I can sing songs in languages I know after two passes and in languages I don’t after about 10 passes, I can isolate specific instruments from my memory of a song and play them back, not just the melody; I remember music not just as a whole, but as coordinations of multiple single instruments.
The idea that aural and visual imagery must be closely linked in itself is a generalisation.
Heck, for an extreme example I’d bet that the blind from birth generally don’t have visual imagery and have greatly above par aural imagery, whereas the deaf from birth generally don’t have aural imagery and have greatly above par visual imagery, though there will be instances where they have neither.
I’d argue that music nowadays is regressing to the lowest common denominator of rhythm and losing all the melodic complexity I like. And melodic complexity is perfectly achievable using only 8-bit instruments.
I’ve also read that restrictions of the systems in those days are probably why there were so many games with memorable melodies; melodic complexity was the only kind of complexity possible, so that’s what we ended up with. (I agree with this theory.)
On my end my visual imagery is poor, I can barely remember faces, places clearly, but it does exist somewhat.
HOWEVER
My aural imagery is nearly peerless relative to any of the people I know in real life, I can sing songs in languages I know after two passes and in languages I don’t after about 10 passes, I can isolate specific instruments from my memory of a song and play them back, not just the melody; I remember music not just as a whole, but as coordinations of multiple single instruments.
I think this is something that varies between people. I was very surprised to learn that my sister doesn’t even listen to the lyrics of songs, whereas I do and want to learn them so I can sing along (probably very badly, but hey) and get annoyed if I come to a part where I don’t know the words. Likewise if I’m fully engaged during a film I can recall almost all of it, even some time later, whereas my sister can’t (or perhaps wasn’t as engaged in the examples I have in mind).
I’m sure experience helps too though. When I was younger used to listen to songs from anime and memorise the words despite not knowing the language. I probably wouldn’t be as good at picking up lyrics if I wasn’t as obsessive about knowing them and didn’t listen to the same songs a lot.
Ditto, the thing that people still listen to Mozart and Beethoven even though they’ve been dead for centuries.
This point is less strong than the SNES point. Mozart and Beethoven can be (more easily) explained by simple selection. There have been a lot of pieces of music written over many centuries.… etc.
At any given time, I always have some song or another playing in my head, and I can recall songs I’ve memorized and “play them back” at will. Usually it’s just the melody, though; the harmony usually doesn’t seem to get captured as easily. (I’ve taken piano lessons for most of my life and I’m told I’m rather talented, although I’m nowhere near as good as professional musicians.)
Sometimes, an earworm gets attached to the point where I can’t tell the difference between what’s in my head and what I’m hearing with my ears. This usually happens when I’ve been playing a video game with MIDI-like music for a long period of time. (On a side note, I must have no taste, because I find I prefer the MIDI-like sounds of the NES and SNES-era to the more elaborate music of today’s video games. The FF6 soundtrack is my favorite music, ever.)
There’s a lot of great music that’s gotten into videogames. Anything that people can listen to for hours on end and not get sick of must have some merit.
(Anyhow, the only true measure of taste is what people like years hence. And even supposedly great musicians can be unreliable predictors.)
I think a lack of aural imagination explains a lot of mediocre musicians who are beginners, and who stay beginners, in traditional music. They are only trying to waggle their fingers in the right magical sequence to get the tune to somewhat come out. They’re not hearing the tune in their head and letting it come out.
No, some of the music of the NES and SNES era are the best music ever written. And I was born AFTER that era, so by the childhood argument my favourite music ought to be of the early Pentium games I played… I only heard the music of the SNES era more recently. They are actually THAT GOOD.
Ditto, the thing that people still listen to Mozart and Beethoven even though they’ve been dead for centuries.
I’d argue that music nowadays is regressing to the lowest common denominator of rhythm and losing all the melodic complexity I like. And melodic complexity is perfectly achievable using only 8-bit instruments.
On my end my visual imagery is poor, I can barely remember faces, places clearly, but it does exist somewhat.
HOWEVER
My aural imagery is nearly peerless relative to any of the people I know in real life, I can sing songs in languages I know after two passes and in languages I don’t after about 10 passes, I can isolate specific instruments from my memory of a song and play them back, not just the melody; I remember music not just as a whole, but as coordinations of multiple single instruments.
The idea that aural and visual imagery must be closely linked in itself is a generalisation.
Heck, for an extreme example I’d bet that the blind from birth generally don’t have visual imagery and have greatly above par aural imagery, whereas the deaf from birth generally don’t have aural imagery and have greatly above par visual imagery, though there will be instances where they have neither.
I’ve also read that restrictions of the systems in those days are probably why there were so many games with memorable melodies; melodic complexity was the only kind of complexity possible, so that’s what we ended up with. (I agree with this theory.)
How did you manage to develop this superpower?
I think this is something that varies between people. I was very surprised to learn that my sister doesn’t even listen to the lyrics of songs, whereas I do and want to learn them so I can sing along (probably very badly, but hey) and get annoyed if I come to a part where I don’t know the words. Likewise if I’m fully engaged during a film I can recall almost all of it, even some time later, whereas my sister can’t (or perhaps wasn’t as engaged in the examples I have in mind).
I’m sure experience helps too though. When I was younger used to listen to songs from anime and memorise the words despite not knowing the language. I probably wouldn’t be as good at picking up lyrics if I wasn’t as obsessive about knowing them and didn’t listen to the same songs a lot.
This point is less strong than the SNES point. Mozart and Beethoven can be (more easily) explained by simple selection. There have been a lot of pieces of music written over many centuries.… etc.