Description: The Mind's Ear offers a unique approach to stimulating the musical imagination and inspiring creativity, as well as providing detailed exercises aimed at improving the ability to read and imagine music in silence, in the "mind's ear." Modelling his exercises on those used in theatre games and acting classes and drawing upon years of experience with improvisation and composition, Bruce Adolphe has written a compelling, valuable, and practical guide to musical creativity that can benefit music students at all levels and help music teachers be more effective and inspiring. This expanded edition offers 34 new exercises inspired by improv comedy, hip-hop sampling and loops, robots, and AI as well as a new section based on Mr. Adolphe's Piano Puzzlers segment on public radio's Performance Today. The book provides provocative ideas and useful tools for professional performers and composers, as well as offering games and exercises to serious listeners that can increase their musical understanding and level of engagement with music in a variety of ways.
Review Quotes: "I direct a seminar on the Beethoven string quartets at the Department of Medical Humanities at Columbia University, and I find The Mind's Ear to be an invaluable wellspring of ideas to engage these medical students in a way that is fresh, challenging, and fun. These students come from a wide variety of musical backgrounds, and the group exercises prescribed by The Mind's Ear allow them to focus on skills--hearing multiple lines, listening while vocalizing, and following cues from the peers--that they enjoy honing. These activities break the ice, expand the mind, and broaden the perspective. They make the students better listeners, and perhaps better doctors!" -- Benjamin Lebwohl, MD, MS, Louis and Gloria Flanzer Scholar, Columbia University Medical Center; Director of Clinical Research, The Celiac Disease Center at Columbia University; Director of Quality Improvement, Division of Digestive and Liver Diseases