Finding the Mind's Ear

Finding the Mind’s Ear

It comes over me like a rogue wave, out of the blue. I’m in 3^rd grade, stopped in my tracks at the corner of West North Street and Highland Avenue. There’s a big willow tree that I think of as my friend, its little leaves quivering in the breeze. I think I hear them, swishing in time to my mind’s ear version of Beethoven that we were listening to in music class. The Pastoral Symphony. The part Miss Williams played for us had a thunderstorm made out of music.

It is Picture Day. I am wearing a checkered dress that I hate. My hair is ridiculous. Why, mothers of that era, did you think it a good idea to style our WASPy hair and add headbands? My glasses are thick and dorky. I’m ten years old and know nothing about anything except that I want to be just like Harriet the Spy and also that music is going to be what I do in life.

I vaguely register that my friends are running over to Campbell’s store for M&Ms and ice pops. I’m frozen to my spot, though. Something is happening inside my head. I can hear the Beethoven symphony loud and clear. I can start and stop and rewind it in my head. This is a revelation - the first moment that the dawn breaks and I become fully conscious of this cool human phenomenon. I realize that I can hear other music inside my head, like Capriccio Español and the Grieg Piano Concerto in A Minor. These are pieces my dad has played for me through the gigantic beige speakers in our living room, boxes of sound that are bigger than me. The music has gotten out of there and lodged itself inside my head, tumbling through my mind and my brain that is covered by the dumbest hairdo of anyone I know.

I’ve just started piano lessons. My teacher is someone that my Auntie C calls an old maid, whatever that is. Miss B has a sister who also teaches piano, so there are two Miss Bs, one for the little kids and one for the scary, older kids. Miss B #2, my teacher, is tall and skinny. Miss B #1 is short and squat. They live in a house full of pianos. I have to walk through short Miss B #1’s studio to get to tall Miss B #2’s studio upstairs. A high school girl wearing a lot of makeup glares at me as I pass by. Does music clang inside her head when she walks home from school, too? Or is this just my own personal secret, music playing inside my head?

I find out eventually that we all have a mind’s ear. In college I discover that I’m really good at harmonic dictation, because the notes hang out in my brain until I can write them all down. Sometimes they float through, especially when I’m in a non-musical class like sociology.

The mind’s ear is an amazing place where whole symphonies or conversations or love songs or friends’ voices or bird calls reside and you can listen to them anytime. I do this all through school, through church services, boring lectures, plane trips. It’s a way to keep music playing if there isn’t any around.

Everyone has a mind’s ear. Musicians develop ours to a high degree. Our professors hit us with “Drop the Needle,” back in the olden days when there were vinyl recordings and needles you could drop on them. They tested our knowledge by requiring: piece, composer, opus, key, movement, section. Then we created our own opposite, erudite version of Name that Tune. Someone would announce piece, composer, opus, key, movement, section and we had to sing it out loud.

The game became a contest and then it turned into anti-fun. My personal brain space got crammed with useless details, the chore of being right and accurate about a beautiful piece of music instead of appreciating it. I wanted the wonder back, my bad hair self’s epiphany at the willow tree. It did come back, but took a while. A long, long while.

Your mind’s ear is waiting for you. No need to go down the rabbit hole that snared me for a time. Check out your internal tunes and be surprised. Be in wonder about the music in our heads.