TUNE is a one-minute audiation routine I teach in The Composing Hour. Each letter tells you exactly what to do: Turn on the Triangle, Update the texture, Normalize the mix, Elevate the foreground.
The Triangle is three layers you hold in your mind at the same time: a melody, a drone, and a pulse.
In the course, the melody layer is the identity line, a melody you learn in earlier weeks. The drone is a stable C, and the pulse is a subtle quarter-note thud, like a bass drum, something soft and low.
TUNE assumes you can already hold all three layers. If you can't yet, start with the Triangle on its own.
T means turn on the Triangle. Bring in all three layers: the melody, the anchor drone, and the pulse. Don't adjust anything yet. Just get all three going and go through one cycle, one time through the melody.
U means update the texture. On the next cycle, pick one texture and apply it to the whole Triangle: light, dense, focused, or wide. Updating the texture trains your ability to change the overall feel without losing stability.
Light means less weight, and dense means more weight and more internal activity. Focused means narrow and centered, and wide means expanded, with more spatial spread.
N means normalize the mix. For one cycle, adjust the balance between the three layers. Make one slightly stronger and another slightly softer. You're not changing the notes, just the relative levels, and adjusting the levels builds your internal mixing control.
E means elevate the foreground. For one cycle, choose one layer and bring it forward. Then switch to a different layer and bring that one forward.
Two flips is enough, and when you flip is up to you, halfway through the cycle or even after the first four beats. But complete the entire cycle, because the whole cycle reinforces your ability to shift your attention quickly and deliberately.
Turn on, update, normalize, elevate.
One full TUNE cycle takes about a minute, and it's enough to maintain and strengthen the skill between sessions.
In Week 43, where TUNE comes from, I don't make the Triangle harder. I give you more direct influence over how each layer behaves.
The layers start responding to your decisions instead of running on their own. You're controlling the Triangle, not just holding it.
Do TUNE about seven times a day, but don't do it for seven minutes straight. Do it seven times throughout the day, randomly, whenever you have a moment, every hour or two.
I'd love it if you did TUNE first thing in the morning and again right before you go to sleep.
Stay consistent, and the control becomes more automatic over the next few days.
In the course there's a short guided session, about two minutes long, that takes you straight through TUNE until you know it. Once you know TUNE, you don't need the recording, and you go at your own pace.
When you have ten minutes, sit with your eyes shut and rotate through TUNE over and over, changing what you focus on for each letter each time. Maybe one time the background is the drum. Maybe another time it's the melody.
Get creative with the rotation. I want TUNE to feel almost like a meditation.
If you want me to guide you through TUNE, the full session is in Year 1 of The Composing Hour, my 52-week audiation course.