Hearing the Unhearable: The Myth of Score Reading in Composition Teaching

This essay questions the widespread assumption that composers and composition teachers can accurately hear music by reading a score in silence. Drawing on personal experience from elite training environments, professional mentorship, and institutional hiring practices, it argues that this ability does not exist in the form commonly imagined. The persistence of the myth has shaped composition pedagogy, competition practices, and aesthetic values, often privileging what is visually legible over what is sonically subtle. The essay examines how this bias disadvantages music rooted in harmonic nuance, reinforces suspicion towards audio mockups, and sustains an ideal of composition detached from sound. By situating both notation and digital tools as technologies that shape musical thought, it calls for a more honest, sound-centred musical culture grounded in listening rather than symbolic illusion.