“We should read music in the same way that an educated adult will read a book: in silence but imagining the sound.”
~Zoltan Kodály

Inner hearing (or audiation) is the process of thinking sound. It is the ability to hear sounds when they do not exist out loud.

In other words, inner hearing is the ability to “see what you hear” (be able to imagine music you hear written on the staff) as well as “hear what you see” (be able to inner hear the music you see written on a staff).

Kodály-inspired teachers consider inner hearing one of the most important skills for all musicians to have. Alongside this is the fact that inner hearing is an extremely useful teaching technique!

1: Inner hearing through movement.

Games such as I’ve Got a Car help students understand what inner hearing (or singing inside your head) actually means. They perform movements as they’re inner hearing, which supports this.

2: Inner hearing in halves.

Call and Response type songs such as Hill and Gully Rider can be great activities using inner hearing, with half the class singing the call out loud while the other half inner hears it. Then they swap halves. With practice, the entire group can move to all singing one part out loud and inner hearing the other.

3: Inner hearing with repetition.

After students know a song really well, choose a word (or words) for students to sing inside their heads. Begin with songs with repeated words e.g. sing the song Tideo, singing the word “Tideo” inside their heads (inner hearing it) every time it is in the song.

4: Inner hearing particular pitches.

A great way to teach and practice new pitches, is to isolate them via inner hearing.

Or, as an extension of the activity above, use notes that are repeated e.g. sing the song Catch a Flea, but they are only allowed to sing pitches once out loud. If the are repeated they must be inner heard. If they were singing the song this way with the words they would be singing “One” out loud on do, then inner hearing “two, three,” in their heads as these are also on the note do.

5: Inner hearing with instruments.

Once students are familiar with the concept of inner hearing, you can use it in a variety of settings. For instance, as part of your warm-ups in an ensemble. Instruct students to play through a warm-up scale or exercise, and select a specific pitch to be inner heard.

You could even control this in the moment, by having a hand gesture or signal for ‘out loud’ and a different one for ‘inner hear’.

6: Inner Hearing visually.

Another terrific musicianship-extender once the concept of inner hearing has been established is visual recognition of a song from its melody being shown in handsigns. The teacher can handsign a known song, melody or passage and have the class inner hear and guess what it is.