You also will have a mental picture of your friend that will be evoked by the familiar sound. Most musicians imagine both sound and its notation for a variety of purposes. The ability to mentally rehearse music is a valuable component of a musician s professional skills. You have a kinesthetic or physical memory of the music as well, which arises from the actual muscle actions and nerve patterns used to master the piece. Conductors of instrumental and vocal ensembles must have an imagined performance of the music which they use to evaluate the sounds they hear in actual rehearsal.
Composers rely on their mental rehearsal abilities to generate their original musical ideas.
Beethoven is perhaps the most famous mental rehearser, since his deafness required him to compose for many years without benefit of real sound. You can use your capacity to recall or rehearse sounds quite purposefully. Imagine a staff and the notation of these two tones in the key of C. For more of a challenge, try imagining the sound and notation of the entire first phrase of Happy Birthday in a less familiar clef and key. Then mentally rehearse the beginning of a piece you last used in an audition . . . We will call the imagined notation the image of the music and the imagined sound the audage of the music.