audiolyze
(verb)
/?ô-d?-?-?l?z/
To actively search for a musical sound in the mind before you play it.
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Not passive recall. Not vague memory. Audiolyzing is the internal hunt for the right pitch or chord, using a blend of auditory memory, spatial mapping, instinct, and correction. You don’t just hear the note. You reach for it.
It’s what happens when you know the sound is close but not locked in yet. It’s that moment when your brain triangulates tone, shape, and feel before your fingers commit.
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How to Use The Verb Audiolyze
“I couldn’t tell if the next note was D5 or E5, so I stopped to audiolyze it.” “She can’t play the passage clean yet, but she can audiolyze the melody.” “Before I try the left-hand jumps, I need to audiolyze where they land.”
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What It Isn’t
This is not audiation.
Audiation is passive. A mental replay.
Audiolyzing is active.
It’s searching. Choosing. Navigating sonic space before your hands move.
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Origin Story: How the Word Took Shape
The idea for audiolyze didn’t come during a perfect practice session or some polished musical breakthrough. It showed up on a night stretched thin with family responsibility, worry, and the quiet effort of trying to keep everything from falling apart.
My dad had finally come home after a rough round in skilled nursing care, shaken by Parkinson’s. My mom, still recovering from her own injury and relying on oxygen, had barely been able to visit him while he was away. Helping them through everything had become a second full-time job, the kind of emotional weight you don’t feel until the house goes silent.
That night, the three of us watched Hachi: A Dog’s Tale. A film about loyalty and time slipping away. It hit me harder than I expected. It’s not just the story, but the reality of watching my parents age, knowing I couldn’t freeze any of it in place. There was love and exhaustion in equal measure.
After they went to bed, I opened my piano app and pulled up Silent Night. I was still early in my practice journey, missing more notes than I hit. But something unusual happened: I kept arriving at pitches I hadn’t played yet, sensing the correct note just outside of reach. Not memory. Not visualization. A feeling. A search.
It was like trying to locate a sound by touch.
Reaching for the shape of a tone that wasn’t fully formed yet. Guided by instinct, fatigue, and determination.
In that quiet, heavy moment, the word came together. One verb for the mental process I was living through. It was not just in music, but in caregiving, uncertainty, and trying to find the next right step in the dark with this word.
Audiolyze.
-Aaron Linsdau