Dave Pitzer wrote:

>The progression: Listen to music --> See a mental picture, just doesn't
>hold for me.  Never has.  Nor do I ever look at a photograph or painting
>and automatically "hear" music.  Never have, thank goodness.

My experience is like yours, but it is in fact the case that not everyone
is the same.  There are some people whose response to music, program or
not, is some sort of picture, some memory or some other association.  There
are others who see colours.  This is why as a teacher of classroom music
I make opportunities for different types of response to a piece of music.
If I only ever make space for responses like mine, I am denying the value
and/or validity and/or reality of responses which are different from mine,
and perhaps undervaluing those who have those responses.  I choose not to
do that.

It seems to me that views about the nature of musical meaning reveal quite
a bit about the people who hold them ....  brain dominance, preferred
thinking style, personality, level of education, social and cultural
background, etc, etc, etc........  (It just so happens one of my subjects
this semester at university is aesthetics!)

Helen Duggan