Audiation
//ɔːdɪˈeɪʃən// noun
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 The comprehension and internal realization of music by an individual in the absence of any physical sound. countable, uncountable
"Audiation takes place when one hears music through recall or creation (the sound not being physically present) and infers musical meaning as compared to aural perception where one listens to music actually being performed."
Example
More examples"Audiation takes place when one hears music through recall or creation (the sound not being physically present) and infers musical meaning as compared to aural perception where one listens to music actually being performed."
Etymology
Presumably audio + -ation, coined by American music researcher and educator Edwin E. Gordon (1927–2015), possibly in Learning Sequence and Patterns in Music (1976).
More for "audiation"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.