Most practice involves making sounds — running scales, drilling licks, working through chord changes. This exercise asks you to do something different: make music entirely in your imagination, using only sounds you’ve already absorbed from years of listening. It’s one of the most powerful things you can do for improvisation, and you can do it anywhere.

What you’ll get out of this lesson: You’ll learn the “Dream G3 Concert” audiation exercise — imagining three guitarists you know well taking solos and trading licks over a track you know inside out — and understand how this builds the connection between your inner hearing and your musical instincts.

What audiation actually is

“Audiation”, “aural imagination”, “the mind’s ear” — all of these phrases point to the same thing: how well you can 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. The Dream G3 exercise is a structured way to develop it.

Setting up the exercise

Choose three guitarists you know very, very well — players whose tone, vibrato, phrasing, and vocabulary are deeply familiar to you from extensive listening. Pick a track or set of changes you know equally well. Guitarists with a very distinctive and recognisable style work best: David Gilmour, Yngwie Malmsteen, Steve Vai, Stevie Ray Vaughan — anyone whose sound you can recall vividly without having to think about it. This is important: you’re testing your ability to recall what you’ve heard at a subconscious level and then improvise with it.

Running the concert in your head

Imagine a stage. The three guitarists are there with a band, about to jam over your chosen track. First, imagine one of them playing the rhythm — what’s their tone? How do they interpret the rhythm of the song? After a round of rhythm, that guitarist steps forward to solo. Where on the neck do they start? Are they fast or slow out of the gate? Inside the key or pushing outside? Think of as many details as you can while staying true to that player’s actual style. Then repeat the process for the second and third guitarists. Finally, imagine all three trading licks — how do they leave space for each other? How do they react?

Imagine being relaxed and playing the way you want to play. Does the imaginary you play differently to the real you? What can you do to bring yourself closer to playing like the imaginary you?

Taking yourself into the picture

Once you’ve run through the three guitarists, imagine yourself on stage with them — relaxed, playing exactly the way you want to play. Notice whether the imaginary version of you plays differently to how you actually play. Over time, that gap narrows. The goal is to strengthen your ability to hear sounds, tones, and melodies in your head, and then gradually close the distance between that internal musical world and what comes out of your fingers on the guitar.

There is also a guided version of this exercise recorded over a “Little Wing” backing track — a link is included in the written lesson. You can use any track you know well; “Comfortably Numb” is another good option.

There are multiple ways to develop your inner hearing — you can read the text version of the exercise below or follow along to the guided recording: guided recording here.

Taking it further: Try doing the exercise over a backing track rather than in silence — imagining the guitarists clearly while the track is actually playing adds a layer of difficulty and makes the inner hearing more precise. You can also try transcribing the ideas you imagined, which builds the connection between your imagination and notation.

Your homework: Choose three guitarists and one track this week and run the full Dream G3 Concert at least once a day — ideally twice. The first run will feel vague; by the fifth or sixth you’ll notice the sounds becoming more vivid and detailed. Spend a few minutes afterwards noting what you noticed about each guitarist’s style.