Deafness

       Deafness

  I  practice  this sometimes in music composition . It is nothing new: I'm fairly sure WA Mozart played or accurately imagined the first violin part in  movements of mid to late period symphonies ; then fleshed in the harmonies from what  he knew of theory. It helped that he was conducting , playing in ensembles day  and night , that the rooms had mostly good acoustics . Timbres he heard mentally were very much indeed like what was going on outside his head . He also owned wind instruments , stringed instruments, guitar and probably  clavichord and fortepiano . There likely was an amalgamation  of textures he  had  heard separately now sounding together in harmonies .

   Berlioz lived a life surrounded by more turmoil; although he did own a piano once established , and could sound chords, he mostly composed outdoors , or with the aid of a  guitar, flute , whistle and drum. Many of his musical lines were straight from his imagination, or singing at least.

   By the time of Stravinsky, I picture him in a manhattan loft; drawing carefully  on a large score pad, things had become very def indeed. He'd sometimes arrange  notes on the page by geometrical shape ,or so  it  was rumored. His scores usually looked legible and impressive. 

 Who knows what they're doing nowadays , I know what I'm doing.