1.2 Audiation

One should never forget how bizarre a phenomenon film music really is. When placed alongside the supposed realism of the photographed image our experience with film music is radically at odds with our experience of the world… Our passage through everyday life is not as a rule serenaded by alien melodies… (Lack, 1997, 65-66).

It has been established that film music fulfils necessary functions. Our experience with film music is not quite at odds with our experience of the world as Lack would suggest. Many humans surround themselves with music, and as such, a film with no music would seem bare and unfriendly to our ears. This study also contends that we are serenaded by alien melodies, alien in the sense that there is no physical sound source for them.

Edwin E. Gordon coined a term for a phenomenon that has been largely neglected by academics and theorists. The phenomenon has been known as musical imagery, musical recall, and intrapsychic experience (Fiske, 1993; Jourdain, 1997; Sloboda, 2001a; Van de Wall, 1936). Gordon called the phenomenon "audiation", and defines it thus; "audiation takes place when one hears music silently, that is, when the sound is not physically present." (Gordon, 1984, 11). Audiation remains an unexplored topic for research, receiving only passing reference in musical research.

Gordon is concerned with audiation as a tool for musical education in children. Composers have encouraged the notion of musical imagery as an elite activity undertaken by those with superb musical abilities (Fiske, 1993; Jourdain, 1997). References and interpretations of the "haunting melody" can be found in psychoanalytic theory. Reik (1983) believes that this imagery (audiation) can be interpreted psychoanalytically, in a similar style to dream interpretation. He gives examples of such psychoanalytic interpretations through the experiences of himself and his patients. Of one such experience, he says, "The emergence of that sad theme in the thoughts of the patient just when he felt cheerful is, thus, a musical expression of the breakthrough of an unconscious emotion." (Reik, 1983, 211) He also mentions the repetitive aspects of audiation, which he thinks may be an indication of an inner turmoil or problem.

Audiation is referred to in passages about musical memory, and mentioned with regard to musical thinking (Karma, 1994). Film music theorists briefly speculate about the existence of audiation in films, but do not explore how this is possible nor apply a critical analysis of metadiegetic music (audiation). (Frith, 1987; Gorbman, 1986). Russell Lack's quote about '…our passage through everyday life not as a rule [being] serenaded by alien melodies' seems at odds with the notion of audiation. In order to comprehend how audiation functions in film, we must consider musical imagery, and an individual's sonic capacity for hearing, musical memory, music emotion and meaning.