“Audiation”, “Aural Imagination”, “The minds Ear” – All of these phrases can essentially mean the same thing; How well can you produce sounds in your imagination while they aren’t being played.

There are levels to this. Maybe you can just about imagine the melody to Mary had a little lamb, or maybe you can recreate a whole symphony hearing multiple layers and accurate timbres. There is however one undeniable truth, that this could be considered one of the most important musical skills for the improviser or composer.

There are multiple ways to develop your inner hearing and in this video I give an example, I’ve also recorded me guiding you through the exercise here, alternatively you can read the text.

So here’s the exercise;

Imagine a stage, theres a band on it, including your three favourite guitarists, about to jam over a track you know very well.

Firstly they play through the changes, focus on one of the guitarists. How does he interpret the rhythm of the song. whats his tone?

after a round of rhythm, one guitarist takes centre stage, they step into the light and start to solo. Where does he start? where on the neck? what tone? is he starting fast or slow? is he inside the key or playing outside?

think of as many things as you can making sure you are true to this guitarists style and personality.

Repeat this process for 2 more guitarists you know very well.

Now they begin to trade licks, how do they leave space for each other, how do they react?

I recommend doing this completely in your head or using a backing track to keep you in time and stop you drifting. Use songs and guitarists that you know very well! this is important, we are testing your ability to recall what you’ve heard on a subconscious level and improvise with it.