I have the ability of your composer friend. I can take any instrument I’m familiar with and control it in my head as if I were actually playing it. And it really does seem like I can hear it in a way… except it’s different… While I can visualize things in depth, the experience of hearing something in my head feels far more real than “seeing something” in my minds eye. A facet of this you didn’t mention in your article is that many people can also mentally control “how” the sound is reverberating in their mental space. I can hear a melody from a violin played as if it were next to me, or the same melody echoing across a vast arena. Or, I can even change the direction. Is the sound from the left? Am I hearing it through a doorway?

I can hear music but like playing chess, it's schematic. I can visualize chess moves but if you asked the color of the board I never noticed it was green and yellow, not black and white. And I understand the patterns in music and chord progressions but I am less likely to react emotionally.

I have a question, (It was then I realized that aphantasia impacts all of my senses.) here you point out and realize it impacts all your senses, well does anyone else have no mind taste? because I don't?

Hmm, so I do get 'earworms' but that is basically me singing/humming a song/piece of music I have heard silently in my head - I am not hearing it as if I am listening to the original artist performing it. So does that classify me with auditory aphantasia?

I'm a professional musician - composer, choral arranger and pianist - plus I have perfect pitch - and darned if I don't have auditory aphantasia! I FEEL music in my brain - like I'll get an idea for a melody but I don't hear it. Okay, let me try to explain this... I don't hear a piano or voice or any other instrument actually playing it. I don't actually hear anything. Again - it's a FEELING. And like a fleeting BLIP of a sonic idea - SOOO hard to describe. I've spent my whole life thinking something was wrong with me because other professional musicians I know actually HEAR the songs/instruments/whatever in their brains. Oh well - guess I have aphantasia all around - I've never been able to visualize anything.

I also find it a very  intriguing subject. I for one feel like being on the exact opposite of the Spectrum to Aphantasia. I can imagine anything at anytime very clearly in my head, and can also recall the smallest details of imagines or pictures in my head. I have a ongoing monolog in my head 24/7 and something you could almost describe as a soundtrack off life. It can only be an "earworm" or even composed music pieces from my unconscious. Although when I try to think of a song I first most of the time just sing it in my head. Other times it also can be like listening to the radio. Generally I find it harder with pieces that have lyrics. But the most extreme examples for me are when I dreaming. My dreams are more or less like watching movies. With a soundtrack composed from my unconscious, sometimes even intire orchestral pieces. Often the dreams start with an scenario and I later can decide what happens, a little bit like a video game. The most extreme example by far although was a dream where I was performing on stage on a talent show. For some reason I didn't know my song anymore and so to girls came up the stage and helpt me (apparently we were a trio). It was a song that my brain came up on the spot, with perfect harmonies between our three voices. I remember after the song finished not believing how it happened and saying in my dream: "wow harmonies" Sadly with what happens with most dreams I forget them again as I wake up and so also the music. That means sometimes I know that it happened but I can't recall the actual melodies or the whole pieces, so all of these masterpiece just get lost somewhere in my brain never to be heard again.

I was alone while my husband was traveling. I play piano a bit and was working on a Shubert piece that had many chords and a pronounced rather hymnlike rhythm. It began to play in my head and eventually became quite intrusive. I needed to exorcise this demon tune and I decided to use another piece to drive it out. I used a favorite bass aria at the end of Bach’s St Matthew Passion. I find it immensely moving: mache dich mein herze rein. The singer wants to bury Jesus’ body in his heart—a weird concept. I can’t remember the Shubert piece now but the Bach aria has begun to play now in my head. It worked , by the way on the earlier occasion 

I have the ability of your composer friend. I can take any instrument I’m familiar with and control it in my head as if I were actually playing it. And it really does seem like I can hear it in a way… except it’s different… While I can visualize things in depth, the experience of hearing something in my head feels far more real than “seeing something” in my minds eye. A facet of this you didn’t mention in your article is that many people can also mentally control “how” the sound is reverberating in their mental space. I can hear a melody from a violin played as if it were next to me, or the same melody echoing across a vast arena. Or, I can even change the direction. Is the sound from the left? Am I hearing it through a doorway?

I can hear music but like playing chess, it's schematic. I can visualize chess moves but if you asked the color of the board I never noticed it was green and yellow, not black and white. And I understand the patterns in music and chord progressions but I am less likely to react emotionally.

I have a question, (It was then I realized that aphantasia impacts all of my senses.) here you point out and realize it impacts all your senses, well does anyone else have no mind taste? because I don't?

Hmm, so I do get 'earworms' but that is basically me singing/humming a song/piece of music I have heard silently in my head - I am not hearing it as if I am listening to the original artist performing it. So does that classify me with auditory aphantasia?

I'm a professional musician - composer, choral arranger and pianist - plus I have perfect pitch - and darned if I don't have auditory aphantasia! I FEEL music in my brain - like I'll get an idea for a melody but I don't hear it. Okay, let me try to explain this... I don't hear a piano or voice or any other instrument actually playing it. I don't actually hear anything. Again - it's a FEELING. And like a fleeting BLIP of a sonic idea - SOOO hard to describe. I've spent my whole life thinking something was wrong with me because other professional musicians I know actually HEAR the songs/instruments/whatever in their brains. Oh well - guess I have aphantasia all around - I've never been able to visualize anything.

I also find it a very  intriguing subject. I for one feel like being on the exact opposite of the Spectrum to Aphantasia. I can imagine anything at anytime very clearly in my head, and can also recall the smallest details of imagines or pictures in my head. I have a ongoing monolog in my head 24/7 and something you could almost describe as a soundtrack off life. It can only be an "earworm" or even composed music pieces from my unconscious. Although when I try to think of a song I first most of the time just sing it in my head. Other times it also can be like listening to the radio. Generally I find it harder with pieces that have lyrics. But the most extreme examples for me are when I dreaming. My dreams are more or less like watching movies. With a soundtrack composed from my unconscious, sometimes even intire orchestral pieces. Often the dreams start with an scenario and I later can decide what happens, a little bit like a video game. The most extreme example by far although was a dream where I was performing on stage on a talent show. For some reason I didn't know my song anymore and so to girls came up the stage and helpt me (apparently we were a trio). It was a song that my brain came up on the spot, with perfect harmonies between our three voices. I remember after the song finished not believing how it happened and saying in my dream: "wow harmonies" Sadly with what happens with most dreams I forget them again as I wake up and so also the music. That means sometimes I know that it happened but I can't recall the actual melodies or the whole pieces, so all of these masterpiece just get lost somewhere in my brain never to be heard again.

I was alone while my husband was traveling. I play piano a bit and was working on a Shubert piece that had many chords and a pronounced rather hymnlike rhythm. It began to play in my head and eventually became quite intrusive. I needed to exorcise this demon tune and I decided to use another piece to drive it out. I used a favorite bass aria at the end of Bach’s St Matthew Passion. I find it immensely moving: mache dich mein herze rein. The singer wants to bury Jesus’ body in his heart—a weird concept. I can’t remember the Shubert piece now but the Bach aria has begun to play now in my head. It worked , by the way on the earlier occasion