I can just barely read standard musical notation but it’s far from fluent. I’m wondering if, with enough practice you can look at sheet music that you have never heard or seen before and sound it out in your head before ever touching your instrument?
No, not really. I can’t speak for everyone but I have some background in sight singing and ear training from studying music in university and for me it’s mostly logical.
I’m mainly thinking about the key that I’m in and the intervals at play.
It really is the only way I could read sheet music by sight; hearing DO-RE-MI, etc, in my head as I look at it. I wonder if that would have been actual instrument sounds if I had learned to read music from playing an instrument instead of choir, tho.
I originally studied music in uni and have aphantasia and no inner monologue. I never heard anything in my head.
i’ve always been envious of people with good aural skills. i can sight read on a few instruments but ask me to sing it- even just in my head- and i’ll be lucky to get a quarter of it right. rhythms are no problem but tones, there’s just no way, even after years of attempts at ear training
it’s funny how in some folk and rock communities, being able to read is seen as this advanced (and unnessicery) skill. meanwhile without the dots in front of me or muscle memory, i can’t play shit!
A skilled musician can convert sheet music notes to “do rey mi” type sounds almost second hand. It just takes me awhile and doesn’t come naturally to me.
Musicians well trained in music theory can correctly sing intervals given a first reference note (relative pitch). Then a small portion of them also have the ability to not need a reference note to find the correct pitch, it’s called absolute pitch (there’s a debate if it’s an innate ability, and it is a superpower with downsides).
So the answer is yes, at least with a first reference note. But it may take years of practice. I think all professional classical musicians have this ability.I can read tabs or my own preferred similar notation system. I can’t “sight read”.
I get an understanding of the mood emphasis of the notes. I can also corrolate which part goes with what the music sounds like…
I don’t do music often (except for messing around with some MIDI software things), but reading sheet music is something they taught in school, so I can read it and figure out the rhythm and notes of a song quite easily, and theoretically play it on piano as they also taught that… but I haven’t used one in years now
I’m REALLY BAD at sight reading but no when I do it, I don’t hear the notes in my head. It’s more like touch typing, transferring the sheet music to keystrokes on the piano. People I know who are better at it and know more theory than I do can read a score and audeate (= like “visualize” but for sound) the music. I think the key to that is ear training rather than sight reading per se. I have a reasonably good ear for single pitches but no ear training. Maybe someday.
Same for me for strings. Shapes on the page mean finger positions, only a vague idea what it would sound like until I play it.
Back when I sight read, I was more of an up and down sound kind of reader. Like, I wouldn’t think of the exact sound of a middle C, but I would have a sound that I called the C and go up and down from there as the piece went up and down the scale. Somewhere in there I’d also think about where the note that I’m seeing on the page would be played on the instrument.
