Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
2013
by
Katharine Jane Wohlman
An abstract
Of a thesis submitted in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the
Doctor of Musical Arts degree
in the Graduate College of
The University of Iowa
May 2013
ABSTRACT
Traditionally, collegiate ear training classes in the United States are comprised largely of
notation-based exercises and assignments, administered to small groups by a single
teacher. Aside from the piano, instruments generally are not used during ear training
classes, de-emphasizing the perceived correlation between students aural skills
development and their progress as instrumentalists.
By studying the history of music education, and examining current aural skills pedagogy,
the author has found that common practice often relies on notation-based tasks as a
measurement of success, despite the fact that research supports the effectiveness of auralbased learning.
In order to encourage a better understanding of pitches and rhythms, the author composed
fifteen original etudes (Ear-tudes) for tuba with accompanying drills. Before revealing
each Ear-tude, the instructor leads the student through related drills. Each of the Eartudes focuses on a particular interval, scale-type, rhythmic, or tonal challenge, within a
variety of meters, tempi, and styles, all of which are suitable for the typical first year tuba
student. This method provides an innovative way for tuba teachers to integrate ear
training into their instruction, alongside a new collection of etudes designed specifically
for freshman students.
Abstract Approved:
__________________________________________
Thesis Supervisor
__________________________________________
Title and Department
____________________________________
Date
by
Katharine Jane Wohlman
May 2013
Copyright by
KATHARINE JANE WOHLMAN
2013
All Rights Reserved
Graduate College
The University of Iowa
Iowa City, Iowa
CERTIFICATE OF APPROVAL
_________________________
D.M.A. THESIS
_____________
Thesis Committee:
__________________________________________
John Manning, Thesis Supervisor
__________________________________________
David Gier
__________________________________________
Jeffrey Agrell
__________________________________________
Jennifer Iverson
__________________________________________
David Gompper
TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF TABLES
iii
LIST OF FIGURES
iv
PREFACE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
1
1
4
7
9
11
14
17
22
22
25
27
29
36
42
43
45
48
52
54
56
A NEW APPROACH
60
ABRSM Influence
Real World Application
Modeling
Explanation of Method
The Ear-tudes
Delivery of the Method - The Drills
Supplemental Activities
61
62
63
66
72
74
107
CHAPTER 4
ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
112
115
ii
LIST OF TABLES
Table 1.
iii
76
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1.
77
Figure 2.
79
Figure 3.
81
Figure 4.
83
Figure 5.
85
Figure 6.
87
Figure 7.
89
Figure 8.
91
Figure 9.
93
Figure 10.
95
Figure 11.
97
Figure 12.
99
Figure 13.
101
Figure 14.
103
Figure 15.
105
iv
PREFACE
CHAPTER ONE
EAR TRAINING: DEFINITIONS AND PURPOSE
The musician must learn to hear with the eye, and see with the ear
Melville Smith, Solfge: An Essential In Musicianship
Paula Telesco, Contextual Ear Training, Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy, 5/2 (1991), 179.
Leo Horacek and Gerald Lefkoff, Programmed Ear Training (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1992),
1.
3
Mary Louise Serafine, Music as Cognition: The Development of Thought in Sound (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1998), 69.
and visual languages as proxies for this primary responsibility. Thinking in music should
thus precede and direct whatever else I do musically.4 A similar distinction is made by
Charles Elliott in 1996 who reasons that it is possible to think about music, discuss
music, and express ideas about music without understanding music.5 Understanding
music is not the same as simply using ones own musical memory. Understanding music
accounts for the comprehension of relationships of material rhythmic material,
expression, melodic lines, and tonal function. It is the awareness of similarities and
differences. A most important part of ear training is the inculcation of patterns,6 and
training in this area enables a listener to recognize with increased ease the presence of
sequences and imitation, which can be useful in analyzing both function and structure. In
order to recognize the more expansive features of musical form and key relationships, a
musician must be able to recall important musical components within a piece and
recognize them when they return.7 Repetition and imitation are basic compositional
features, and as such, one that performers should be able to aurally identify.8
Gary Karpinski affirms that aural skills are usually divided into two broad
categories, ear training and sight-singing. But in writing his seminal text, Aural Skills
Acquisition, Karpinski chose to focus on a slightly different approach, dividing the tasks
4
Harold Best, Music Curricula in the Future, Arts Education Policy Review, 94/2 (1992), 4. Thinking up
music would refer to composing or improvising original music, while thinking about music describes the
analytical, historical or aesthetical study of a work.
5
Charles Elliott, Music as intelligence: Some implications for the public schools, In Ithaca conference
96: Music as intelligence, (Ithaca, NY: Ithaca College, 1996), 71.
6
Gary Karpinski, Aural Skills Acquisition: The Development of Listening, Reading and Performing Skills in
College-Level Musicians (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 78-79.
7
Ibid., 135-140.
Ibid., 139.
into listening skills, and reading and performing skills. Karpinski states that music
exists fundamentally in the aural domain and therefore listening skills are absolutely
essential to the performing musician. This taxonomy reflects his stance that reading and
performing are two intertwined sets of skills that involve code interpretation, decoding
signs and symbols towards a musical result.9 William Marvin agrees, defining musical
literacy as the ability to translate symbol into sound.10 True musical literacy suggests
that the performer is able to function independently of notation in the three major artistic
processes: creating, performing and responding to music.11 If ear training / aural skills
classes aim to encompass this then the act of aural training might be defined as such:
... a general term given to that part of formal musical training which aims to
increase the listening skills of trained musicians. These skills are multidimensional, encompassing various musical elements such as pitch, rhythm, and
timbre.12
Whatever the wording of a definition, the overriding principal is that the aural recognition
of distinct elements will not detract from aesthetic enjoyment, but rather enhance it
considerably.13
Ibid., 6.
10
William Marvin, A Comparison of Four Sight-Singing and Aural-Skills Textbooks: Two New Approaches
and Two Classic Texts in New Editions, Journal for Music Theory Pedagogy 22 (2008), 131.
11
Scott Schuler, Music Education for Life: Five Guiding Principles for Music Education, Music Educators
Journal 97/3 (2011), 7-8.
12
Gerard Fogarty, Louise Buttsworth, and Phillip Gearing, Assessing intonation skills in a tertiary music
training programme, Psychology of Music 24 (1996) 157.
13
Bruce Benward, Advanced Ear Training, (Dubuque, Iowa: Wm. C. Brown, 1985), xi.
Aural perception
A key concept associated with ear training is the idea of aural perception. Aural
perception is, George Pratt suggests, self-evidently indispensable in musical activity.14
Simply, to take any active part in music, we have to perceive it.15 This statement
simply means hearing. The human ear is constantly receiving information; it is what the
brain is able to do with that aural data that determines musical aptitude.16 According to
Joyce Eastland Gromko:
Perception of musical sound should be a primary purpose of music teaching...
without the ability to perceive musics melodies, rhythms and harmonies and to
note their development through time, the listener is necessarily left with highs and
lows, louds and softs, and the general character of the sound. With training,
listeners can evaluate the musics artistic shape based on the structure of its
musical sounds.17
The suggestion is that ear training may enable a student to move from a basic
understanding of sound to a higher level of musical comprehension of artistic shape
(character) and an understanding of structure. Basic skills involve fundamental elements
of music scales, intervals and chords.18 But there are many more essential parts of
music performance that deserve acknowledgement in the development of aural skills
aural recognition of texture, timbre, tempo, dynamics, and articulation are all musical
elements that should be included in the pedagogy of ear training. They are all aspects of
14
George Pratt, Aural Awareness: Principles and Practice, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990) 1.
15
Ibid., 9.
16
Inger Elise Reitan, Students Attitudes to Aural Training in an Academy of Music, Nordic Research in
Music Education 11 (2009), 215.
17
Joyce Eastlund Gromko, Perceptual Differences Between Expert and Novice Music Listeners: a
Multidimensional Scaling Analysis, Psychology of Music 18 (1993), 46.
18
performance and composition that an educated musician should be able to identify and
discriminate amongst aurally.19
Modern definitions of ear training frequently emphasize the training of specific,
concrete skills. The Harvard Dictionary of Music defines ear training as an important
field of elementary instruction to teach the student to recognize and write down musical
intervals and rhythms.20 Other definitions feature more abstract descriptions, referring
to overall musicianship, musical perception and musical awareness. It is important to
note that there are differences between musicality and musicianship. Although no sharp
line can be drawn since no definitive definition exists, musicality is usually evidenced
when a performance can draw an aesthetic response, frequently but not exclusively, one
of pleasure.21 A musical musician is one who, through their musicality, is able to convey
the intentions of the composer to the audience.
Many definitions of ear training are found in the prefaces of the very manuals
from which ear training classes are delivered. For example, in their 1986 text
Musicianship, Henry and Mobberly refer to the development of aural perception through
the study of intervals, triads, and scales, and their combination into motives, chord
progressions, and complete melodies.22 A later description, similar but somewhat
expanded, by Norwegian music educationalist Frede Nielsen describes ear training as
such:
19
Ibid., 18.
20
Willy Apel (ed.), Ear Training, Harvard Dictionary of Music, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1970), 250.
21
Melville Smith, Solfge: An Essential in Musicianship, Music Supervisors Journal 20/5 (1934), 16.
22
Earl Henry and James Mobberly, Musicianship (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1987), 1.
... an old discipline in music training. Its aim is the training of aural awareness,
especially concerning musical structures first and foremost those connected
to melody, rhythm, harmony perhaps also to musical form. According to the
development of aural awareness the aim is to establish verbal categories, a
fundamental music language of musical terminology. This means that the aural
training discipline becomes an integrated part of the musical craftsmanship.23
Prominent in this definition are the keywords awareness, structures, musical
language all of which help emphasize the connectedness of specific skills and their
practical application.
Some definitions go further, and refer to the long-range goals of aural skills
training. One description that seems to verbalize these aims most suitably comes from
the curriculum of an aural skills course in Norway, which suggests that the students goal
in taking the class is to develop and strengthen the aptitude for inner conceptualization
of sound and further to be able to use ones inner imagination actively in all kinds of
musical work.24 What is most pertinent about that statement is the obvious desire to
instill internal skills that may enable a students overall musical ability to expand, thus
freeing them to more actively engage their imagination and external musical voice,
vocally or with an instrument. One author writes that the purpose of aural training is to
contribute to a variety of aspects of the musicians craftsmanship: to instrumental
practice, to general skills as a musician, and to theoretical and analytical skills, in order to
achieve better understanding of the musical elements of structures.25 The inclusion of
23
24
Norges musikkhgskole Studieplan: Kandidatstudiet I utving klassick, 2009. From Reitan, Students
Attitudes to Aural Skills Training.
25
Inger Elise Reitan, Stress and Well-Being in the Aural Training Cass the Psychological Aspect of
Training for Enhanced Musicians Skills, Proceedings of the 17th International Seminar of the Commission
for the Education of the Professional Musician, 85.
26
Robert Woody, Playing by Ear: Foundation or Frill? Music Educators Journal , 99/2 (2012), 84.
27
Gromko, Perceptual differences between expert and novice music listeners, 46.
28
(individual notes) within larger structures; we do not read single letters, but conceive
meaning through the words as an entity.29 As Louis Chosky implies, to be a literate
musician one must have the ability to look at a musical score, and think the sounds on
the page.30 For after all, in language, a literate person is one that can not only read and
write, but is able to understand.31 Another useful analogy between music and language
focuses on musical understanding, and applies a comparison of singers performing in
foreign languages. As a necessity, the singer must be able to correctly pronounce the
phonemes of the text, in order to convey the text precisely to the listener. But also
critical is their ability to understand the meaning of the texts. They must know the literal
translation of each word, along with its grammatical and syntactical functions. As
Karpinski eloquently puts it, the singer must comprehend the text for the information it
carries, not just for its sounds.32 Instrumental performance is similar. Once at a high
level, it is not enough to play the notes without being able to carry or convey their
meaning. Musical aptitude is recognizable from ones facility for reading music, but
musicality is perceived as the players ability to inflect understanding upon their
performance:
Musical aptitude is a complex set of independent variables, including, for
example, response to pulse, perception and recall of rhythmic figures and of
melody, perception of pitch differences, a musical imagination, aesthetic
sensitivity, interpretative capacity, pleasure in musical experience, general
intelligence, and so on.33
29
30
Louis Chosky and others. Teaching Music in the Twentieth Century (New York, NY: Pearson, 2000), 89.
31
32
33
34
Gary Karpinski, A Model for Music Perception and its Implications in Melodic Dictation, Journal of
Music Theory Pedagogy 6 (1990) 207.
35
36
37
Kate Covington, An Alternate Approach to Aural Training, Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy 6 (1992)
8.
10
ability to recognize and interpret music on a daily basis.38 All three of these types have
obvious needs for employing aural skills in their activities.
Ear training should enable a musician to process sound at a higher level, towards
expert perception and away from novice perception. Novice perceptions focus on loudersofter, slower-faster, higher-lower distinctions. Expert perception moves towards George
Pratts definitions of aural awareness.39 Bruce Benward, author Advanced Ear Training
states:
Intelligent listening is the most important thing that a musician does. No matter
what high level of dexterity and accuracy is achieved with an instrument or voice,
success is inevitably limited and regulated by the ability of the ear to discriminate
and guide the musical performance.40
As Robert Woody suggests, In music, it is the ear that defines great musicianship.
Sound is the material of music and what the ear is designed for. For understanding,
creating, and expressively organizing sound as music, the ear is the musicians ultimate
asset.41 To have a good ear is one of the most indispensable musical skills a
performer can possess. And a good ear, according to Richard Byrd, can be defined as
the ability to internalize and produce the sounds that are desired.42 While this assertion
that the trained ear is crucial for a musicians progress is strongly held, there is surprising
ambiguity in defining the educational objectives of aural training courses.43 The broadly
38
Richard Byrd, Applications of Aural skills to Practicing, Auditioning, and Performance, International
Trumpet Guild Journal (2009) 71.
39
40
41
42
11
stated primary goal is to develop the inner ear, obtaining good relative pitch and a solid
sense of tonality usually attempted through sight-singing and dictation exercises. The
secondary goal is typically an amalgam of aural mastery and performance skill.44 It is
the secondary goal that this author seeks to elevate to greater importance, by utilizing the
skills and expertise of the applied lesson instructor, and the regular opportunity for oneto-one interaction with their student.
The oral tradition
Around the world, the majority of musical traditions are passed from generation
to generation through oral/aural transmission; they are performed (played or sung), and
heard and stored in individuals memories until the cycle repeats.45 Universally the most
common approach to learning music is by ear, rather than through notation. But the
mostly-Western music tradition of classical music is an anomaly to that commonality.
With the development of printed music in the mid-fifteenth century (followed by
widespread publishing improvements in the eighteenth century) opportunities arose for
the spread of repertoire without the need for both a performer and a listener.46 New
pieces were disseminated relatively quickly across Europe and later, across the world.
Amateur musicians gained access to the works of great masters, without necessarily
possessing the immediate technical and musical facility required for their understanding
43
David Butler, Why the Gulf Between Music Perception Research and Aural Training, Bulletin of the
Council of Research in Music Education, 132 (1997), 40.
44
Butler, Why the Gulf?, 40.
45
46
Boorman, et al. "Printing and publishing of music." Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford
University Press. Web. 10 Mar. 2013.
<http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com.proxy.lib.uiowa.edu/subscriber/article/grove/music/40101pg1>.
12
and performance. Within a relatively short time printed music, perhaps with the
exception of the nineteenth-century Suzuki method, became the primary way in which
classical music was both taught and presented.47 Today, classical works are almost never
taught or learned aurally.48 In this authors opinion, this has resulted in an over-reliance
on the visual comprehension of music as opposed to the aural comprehension of music.
In 2010 Robert Woody and Andreas Lehmann published the results of a study that
explored musicians abilities to perform ear-playing (playing-by-ear) tasks, and
compared their results against participants previous experiences of learning music in
vernacular settings - garage bands, worship bands, jazz groups etc.49 Vernacular
musicians typically rely heavily on listening and imitation to reproduce songs and/or
styles. For their research study Woody and Lehmann asked participants to listen to
melodies and sing or play them back, and then tracked the number of repetitions required
for each participant to complete an accurate performance. What they discovered was that
musicians with more vernacular musical experiences were able to produce accurate
responses in fewer attempts than their counterparts.50 Both groups took significantly less
attempts to correctly sing back the melody (versus play), but again the vernacular
musicians outperformed the formally-trained musicians in this task. Woody and
47
Spencer, Piers. "Suzuki method." The Oxford Companion to Music. Ed. Alison Latham. Oxford Music
Online. Oxford University Press. Web. 10 Mar. 2013.
<http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com.proxy.lib.uiowa.edu/subscriber/article/opr/t114/e6570>.
48
The author acknowledges that there exceptions to this statement, by-in-large in less formal
performance settings the learning of songs and nursery rhymes by young children, the singing of hymns
at church by largely notation-illiterate congregations, the singing of chants by sports fans.
49
Robert Woody and Andreas Lehmann. Student musicians ear-playing ability as a function of vernacular
music experiences. Journal of Research in Music Education 58, 101-115.
50
13
Lehmann suggest that this increased competency (for both groups) when responding by
voice is due to the fact singing seems more closely related to our goal image ideal,
while transferring the goal image to an instrument increases the opportunity for error.
When Woody and Lehmann delved further into exactly what processes the musicians
thought they were applying to the task, the vernacular performers descriptions leaned
heavily towards thinking about chords/harmonic structure and the
predictability/typical nature of the melody. In contrast, formally-trained musicians
reported thinking about fingers/instrument action and hearing
problematic/unpredictable elements of the melody.51 To recognize the presence of
patterns one must be able to separate the stimulus material into smaller parts, succinctly
evaluating similarities and differences. The remembering process (sometimes referred to
as encoding) and its reproduction internally or externally, are equal aptitudes required to
complete a playback task. The ability to accurately playback melodies by ear is
important to the classical musician, despite the fact that much music will be studied and
performed from sheet music. When performing with any other instrumentalist, be it in a
small chamber group, large ensemble, or simply with piano accompaniment, a musician
must be able to respond to the aural stimulus provided by the other player. This refers
not only to the pitches and rhythms (which are no doubt provided on the page) but to the
subtle inflections and nuances demonstrated by the fellow performer. By becoming less
reliant on written notation, a player is able to absorb all the attributes of phrasing
concurrently: tone, intonation, slight dynamic contrast, emphasis, etc. The more
consistently players are able to interact by aural collaboration, rather than strict visual
accuracy to the part, the more musical cohesiveness their performance will portray.
51
14
Music is, after all, a communicative art form. Communication relies on the interchange
of thoughts and ideas, the comprehension of another voices statement. This is a primary
example of the employment of aural skills in a performance setting. It should be a goal
of the aural skills class to foster a students ability to transfer aural skills techniques into
all areas of their musical activity. One of the most sought-after skills of students in the
undergraduate music curriculum is the ability to sort, relate and evaluate musical
structures and processes, both aurally and visually.52 When a player is able to
demonstrate their understanding of form and structure by making musically authentic
performance decisions, the audience will enjoy a more comprehensible representation of
the music.
The synergy of ear training and sight reading
The ability to imagine sound is the most crucial principle of the musical ear.53
According to Edwin Gordon, Well trained musicians can hear music mentally in the
total absence of audible sound54 and aural training can and should help develop this
ability. The concept of auralization is primary to the pedagogy of ear training. Reitan
says that what we should be aiming at in teaching ear training is contributing to the
development of the literary musician through the strengthening of the ability to audiate,
to think in music in a way that is relevant to the musical practice.55 Nielsen also has a
52
John Buccheri, Musicianship at Northwestern, Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy 4/2 (1990) 136-138.
53
54
Auralization is referred to as audiation by Edwin Gordon in Learning Sequences in Music: Skill, Content,
and Patterns, 7-18.
55
15
strongly worded opinion on the matter, saying If the written music is not sounding in
your ear, you will not be able to sing it. If there is no inner conceptualization of what
you hear, you will not be able to write it down or verbalize it in any terminology.56
Internalization is an essential kind of musical thinking, agrees Karpinski.57 Levin and
Martin in Sight Singing and Ear Training Through Literature also state:
Your ability to play, sing, and enjoy music will be improved immeasurably as
you learn to hear music internally, before it is played. Just as you can read a
newspaper without having to pronounce the words, you will learn to read a
musical score and hear the sounds come alive inside your head.58
Sight-reading is best defined as the ability to read and perform music at first
sight, i.e., without preparatory study of the piece.59 But it is also, according to Telesco,
how one begins to hear music analytically.60 The goal of sightsinging within an ear
training class is not, or should not, be just accuracy. As well as improving ones ability
to audiate, sight-singing teaches us about context sensitivity, and the enculturation of
tonal bearings.61 In their text Musicianship, Henry and Mobberly argue that:
Sight singing is one of the most important skills any professional musician can
possess. No matter what instrument they play, performers can improve their
reading ability by studying sight singing. For composers, performers, teachers,
and researchers, sight-singing proficiency is crucial; the ability to read a musical
56
Nielsen, Almen musikdidatik, trans. in Reitan, Students Attitude to Aural Training, 217.
57
58
Robert Levin and Louis Martin, Sight Singing and Ear Training Through Literature, (Englewood Cliffs,
N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1998) xvii.
59
60
61
Michael Rogers, The Jersild Approach: a Sightsinging Method from Denmark, College Music
Symposium, 36 (1996), 149.
16
62
63
Lehmann and Ericsson, Sight-reading ability of expert pianists in the context of piano accompanying.
Psychomusicology, 192.
64
Byrd, Applications of aural theory skills to practicing, auditioning and performance, 71.
65
James Mursell, Music Education Principles and Problems, (New York, NY: Silver Burdett, 1956) 183.
66
see Luce Sight-Reading and Ear Playing Abilities as Related to Instrumental Music Students,
McPherson Five Aspects of Musical Performance and Their Correlates, and Bernhard The Effects of
Tonal Training on the Melodic Ear Playing.
67
17
auralization) before producing their sound.68 This ability is a tremendous asset both in
sight-reading and in all performance.69 In a study of students in 2006, Reitan learned that
only 55% felt they had used elements of aural training in the learning of new repertoire,
while 42% said they seldom did.70 These figures are alarming considering how relevant
aural skills are to the sight-reading process.71
Types of aural skills
Most of what we learn about the justification for aural-skills training comes from
the prefaces of textbooks designed specifically for the purpose of teaching the classes.72
Much of this, Karpinski says, is based on comparatively vague aphorisms about mental
relationships and intelligent listening.73 Historically, many of the most commonly used
texts for sightsinging classes (for example by Sol Berkowitz or Robert Ottman) were
anthologies of music with little or no instructional commentary.74 Without a definitive
pedagogy emerging, aural training curricula in the United States has effectively been
formed by a patchwork of ideals.75
68
69
70
71
Some students did comment verbally that they used the skill unconsciously in every thing that they do.
72
73
Ibid., 192.
74
75
18
An ear training course is typically split into two main elements ear training
and sight-singing. There are many ways in which the skills implicated under the heading
of ear training are categorized. An instinctive response is to name elements that are
perceived to make up the fabric of music. Bruce Benward states that the most basic
elements of music are intervals, simple melodies, simple triads, scales, and simple
rhythms.76 But perhaps an even more straightforward classification comes from Gary
Karpinski in his text, Aural Skills Acquisition. He advises that classes should be geared
towards a kind of fine, detailed listening with attention to the smallest items of pitch and
rhythm.77 He summarily provides six subdivisions of the key components of ear
training, which are as follows:
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
6)
Pulse / Meter
Rhythm
Inference of Tonic
Tonal Function
Interval Identification
Harmonic Implication
This categorization is important because it demonstrates the six key aptitudes
Karpinski suggests are to be developed in the aural skills class. These become the
primary proficiencies explored in the authors method, laid out in Chapter Three. A brief
summary of Karpinskis taxonomy, alongside input from other sources, is provided
below.
Pulse and Meter: One of the most basic perceptual skills in music is the ability to infer
pulse.78 Karpinski is adamant that providing the student with both pulse and meter prior
76
77
19
78
79
80
81
Gary Karpinski, Ear training and integrated aural skills: three recent texts, Journal of Music Theory
Pedagogy 3 (1989), 130.
82
20
Tonal function: Tonal function refers to the musical meaning inferred by a pitchs
position within the tonal system.83 Most typically, listeners will remember and
understand tonal music in terms of scale degree function,84 mapping heard pitches onto
an internalized musical scale.85 It is highly preferable for a student to understand the
tonal function of pitches in a tonal melody prior to notating them.86
Interval Identification: Various studies have been critical of noncontextual interval
training.87 Intervals change their function and consequently their effect, affect, and
meaning in different contexts.88 Yet noncontextual drills often form a significant portion
of the start of ear training texts and is largely how intervals are approached in ear training
classes.89 Michael Rogers observes that many schools and ear training manuals spend
enormous amounts of time on interval identification,90 even though a preponderance
of experimental evidence shows little connection between noncontextual interval
identification and the ability to perform the same task in musical context.91 One reason
83
Jay Dowling, Context effects on melody recognition: scale-step versus interval representations, Music
Perception 3 (1986), 294.
84
Karpinski, Aural Skills Acquisition, 53.
85
Roger Shepard and Daniel Jordan, Auditory Illusions Demonstrating That Tones are Assimilated to an
Internalized Music Scale, Science 226 (1984), 1333.
86
87
88
89
Gary Karpinski, Reviews of Recent Textbooks in Theory and Musicianship. 3. Aural skills, Music Theory
Spectrum 15 (1993),243.
90
21
92
93
Charles Elliott, Effect of vocalization on the sense of pitch of beginning band class students, Journal of
Research in Music Education 22/2 (1974), 122.
22
Long-term benefits
The irrelevancy with which some students view aural training in relation to their
overall musical needs, rather than seeing the connectivity to everything musically that
they do, is frustrating to the experienced musicians that teach them.94 But a problem with
over-emphasizing relevance is the fear that it will alienate those students experiencing a
lack of confidence. There are very few students that feel an abundance of confidence in
aural skills. In fact, most of us are far less capable of thinking in music than we care to
admit.95 But students should be dissuaded from viewing their ear training progress in a
class-by-class agenda. Kate Covington argues that no two-year program, or even a fouryear degree, can accurately accomplish a complete ear training agenda.96 The higher
education instructor should seek to inspire students to view the development of skills as
part of a lifelong endeavor, alongside the development of instrumental technique.
Theoretical vs. Practical
There is general agreement that aural training needs to be more active, musically
satisfying and supportive of related skills (such as performance and rehearsal
technique).97 Aural training has been considered a theoretical discipline, in spite of its
obvious practical characteristics.98 There are several problems caused by this
94
95
96
97
98
Reitan, Students Attitudes to Aural Training, 207-212. Reitan actually polled students in her study
and asked them if they view the class as theoretical or practical. 57% said it was mostly practical, and 31%
it was equal.
23
100
101
102
Jones and Bergee suggest that it may be advantageous to begin the ear-training sequence one
semester after the first-semester written course, giving students time to familiarize themselves with the
written concepts of notation. (Elements associated with success in the first-year music theory and auralskills curriculum, 93.)
103
Bruce Campbell, review of Guidelines for College Teaching, by John D White, 356.
24
same concepts to which they are just being introduced. To expand an analogy that Gary
Karpinski presents, this approach pushes students to decipher and disseminate
information prior to giving them the tools with which they can build the necessary
decoding device.104 For the disproportionate number of students who seem to struggle
with early tasks in either discipline, there is a true risk of them abandoning music studies
for fear they will never find their own Enigma machine.105 To put it another way,
traditional approaches to ear training tend to treat knowledge as an end, rather than as a
means to an end.106 Concepts learned in a out-of-context manner are less likely to be a
serviceable in a more complex, real-world environment.107
There are also cognitive reasons why an individuals deficiencies occur. Prior to
beginning a music degree program, students typically have been enjoying right-brain
experiences performing, listening and responding to music. In the theory classroom we
ask them to use more left-brain approaches analysis, logic, and the determining of
sequences. For students who struggle to make this switch, there is a distinct risk they will
become disenchanted and disengaged from the art form they have previously cherished.
Without a strong emphasis on the importance of aural comprehension of rudiments, these
students fail to see the connection with all their ensuing performance skills, and thus view
104
Karpinski states that music-reading skills are those involved in code interpretation. Performing skills
are those necessary to produce the sounds indicated by that code. Aural Skills Acquisition, 6.
105
Rusty Jones and M. Burgee, Elements Associated with Success in the First-Year Music Theory and
Aural-Skills Curriculum, Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy 22 (2008), 94.
106
107
Ibid..
25
their musicianship training as a fearsome and irrelevant task they must simply endure for
four full semesters.108
It could also be argued that those fundamental skills (scales, intervals, and chords)
are not the most suitable musical proficiencies to begin with, particularly in the aural
realm. Karpinski lays out different priorities in his separation of aural skills into
Listening, and Reading and Performing. In this division perception of the pulse
becomes the focus of temporal aspects, and inference of tonic is the priority in relation to
pitch. From these starting points pulse and meter can be easily explored, as can pitch
collections and tonal function.109 Most importantly, nothing that is learned in either
written theory or ear training should exist in a vacuum, independent of anything else.110
To train students as musical experts during performances demands that we should train
them as aural skills experts in the aural skill classroom; the cognitive demands of both
environments need to be consistent.111
Ear Training Research
Although a growing amount of research exists regarding aural training, there is
little to demonstrate success or failure of new techniques. The majority of research can
be categorized quite succinctly into one of five categories:
a) studies of teaching methods or specific skills
b) the use of technology in the classroom
108
109
110
111
26
112
Harald Jrgensen, Research into Higher Music Education: An Overview from a Quality Improvement
Perspective, (Oslo: Novus Press, 2009), 118-120.
113
27
CHAPTER TWO
A BRIEF HISTORY, AND EVALUATION
OF CURRENT PRACTICES
Happy are the individuals who have so painlessly acquired their musicianship,
and skillful the teacher who has been able to present a subject which is ordinarily
expected to be so formidable as the subject of solfge, without the pupils aware of
the fact.
Melville Smith, Solfge: An Essential in Musicianship
A brief survey of recent journal articles suggests that the pedagogy of ear training
is fraught with frustrations, for students and teachers alike.114 Pratt states that most
conventional aural training is quite inadequate115 while Covington and Lord suggest that
the time has come for considering a significant paradigm shift as regards aural
training.116 Covington also asserts that for centuries, music teachers and conductors
have bemoaned the inadequate listening skills of performing musicians.117 In the
preface to Ear Training: A Technique for Listening, Bruce Benward writes
Intelligent listening is the most important thing a musician does. No matter
what high level of dexterity and accuracy is achieved with an instrument or
voice, success is inevitably limited and regulated by the ability of the ear to
discriminate and guide the musical performance.118
114
Although direct empirical evidence does not exist, the body of anecdotal experience finds a general
dissatisfaction with the level of ear training competence of incoming freshman at the college level. The
closest statistical survey would be that of Randall Pembrook and H. Lee Riggins in 1990, entitled Send
Help!: Aural Skills Instruction in U.S. Colleges and Universities, Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy 4
(1990).
115
116
Kate Covington and Charles Lord, Epistemology and Procedure in Aural Training, Music Theory
Spectrum 16/2 (1994), 169.
117
28
A significant issue, and one that is commonly lamented, is that ear-training skills
develop more slowly than other kinds of musical knowledge.119 Despite this, they are
not usually addressed in any great detail in the pre-college music curriculum. Gary
Karpinski echoes these sentiments saying most aural skills instructors report that many
of their students are ill-prepared and that this level of preparedness has been falling in
recent decades.120 The National Standards for Music Education, published by the
National Association of Music Education, ask students to sing, perform, improvise,
compose, arrange, read, notate, listen to, analyze, describe, evaluate and understand
music.121 The accompanying Achievement Standards state that performing, creating,
and responding to music are fundamental music processes in which humans engage,
stating that listening to, analyzing, and evaluating music are important building blocks
of musical learning. In the fine print, one can find evidence of important ear training
activities in the standards. At the grades K-4 these include: students will:
-
118
Bruce Benward, Ear Training: A Technique for Listening, (Dubuque, Iowa: W. C. Brown, 1978), xiii.
119
Deborah Rifkin and Philip Stoecker, A Revised Taxonomy for Music Learning, Journal for Music Theory
Pedagogy 25 (2011) 155.
120
121
Karpinski, Reviews of Recent Textbooks in Theory and Musicianship. 3. Aural Skills., 241.
29
It is this authors opinion that many of these suggested achievements are not routinely
met.122 College freshmen simply have not been trained, or required on a regular basis, to
perform such tasks. In their 2010 study Woody and Lehmann found that, of twenty-four
collegiate musicians asked about their learning experiences prior to college, only eight
had experimented with playing familiar melodies by ear, only three had improvised a
melody, and only three had improvised harmony to a heard melody. Several musicians
even commented that they had not been made to use their ears until college. Although
all the musicians were now music majors and performance colleagues at college, their
unique performance backgrounds had led them to have had extremely different
competencies.123
Pre-college Preparation
Due to the way in which music is approached in the U.S. K-12 education system
there has for many years been a heavy emphasis on producing musically literate
performers, perhaps devoid of many of the skills required to make and understand music
without notation.124 As a result, music departments in tertiary education institutions
122
based on the abilities and anecdotes of students the author encountered while teaching
freshman/theory musicianship classes at a Big Ten university.
123
124
These assumptions refer primarily with regard to practices of instrumental music, as presented during
the band curriculum. General education music is a separate matter, where the author acknowledges that
30
frequently welcome a student whose aural and musicianship development fails to match
their performing abilities and musicological knowledge.125 Indeed Karpinski, writing in
2001, states that many universities, colleges, and conservatories report that entering
students often suffer from deficiencies in aural skills.126 Since, unlike in the United
Kingdom, Australia and various other countries around the world, there are no definitive
standardized tests for entrance to a music program, professors in the United States must
often adopt an inclusive approach to freshman ear training.127 It was as early as the 1830s
that Lowell Mason strongly advocated the attainment of aural fluency prior to introducing
music notation to students. Masons approach was based largely on the teachings of
Swiss pedagogue Johann Pestalozzi, who in turn recommended the experience of active
concepts such as creating and performing sounds before introducing passive
knowledge, e.g. symbols representing the said sounds.128 These principles were further
developed in the mid-twentieth century by British music educator James Mainwaring
who studied the cognition behind music learning. He explicitly stated that students
should proceed from sound to symbol, not from symbol to sound.129 Around the same
time sound to symbol ordering was also emphasized by Frenchman Lavignac who said
a larger emphasis is placed on learning by ear, using techniques such as those influenced by Carl Orff and
Shinichi Suzuki.
125
Nicholas Bannan, Embodied Music Theory: New Pedagogy for Creative and Aural Development,
Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy,24 (2010), 197.
126
127
In the UK all music conservatories and many universities request a Grade 8 ABRSM examination
standard on the instrument, and universities require an A2 level in music, prior to acceptance to music
programs. ABRSM examinations will be discussed in further detail in the next chapter. A2-levels are
national exams taken by students during their final year of high school.
128
129
31
To teach music to a very young child by means of principles, no matter how simple they
may be, is about as judicious as trying to teach him to talk by grammar.130 Melville
Smith goes as far as to say that an attempt to teach theory in a solely theoretical way
would be a discouraging and almost useless procedure.131 All of these opinions were
echoed by Gary Karpinski sixty years later, who states teach students first to hear
functionally and contextually, and then the process of applying labels to what they
already can hear will be nearly trivial.132 It would seem that, despite the forewarnings of
Pestalozzi, Mainwaring, Karpinski et al, it is the sight-then-sound approach that still
occurs in many K-12 classrooms today. Young instrumentalists are frequently given
elementary band method books in hand with their new instrument and taught to play
straight from the pages, beginning both fingerings and notation together.133 The problem
is, when students are taught music reading as a symbol-action skill, emphasizing visual
learning and neglecting aural learning, they fail to realize the importance of aural
perception on music making.134 Requiring students to read musical notation when first
learning to play an instrument places a visual emphasis on performance and response,
instead of the aural emphasis that is required for a truer understanding.135 And while
130
131
Melville Smith, Solfge: An Essential in Musicianship, Music Supervisors Journal 20/5 (1934), 58.
132
133
Woody, Playing by Ear, 84. One easy suggestion for addressing some form of aural training within
this text is to have students sight-sing each melody in the book either before playing a new exercise, or
between playing the exercise for the first or second time, (an idea suggested by Charles Elliott in 1974).
Woody goes on to state the most important thing is simply to do something. There are almost no ear
training activities that will harm musicianship.
134
Ann Marie Musco, Effects of Learning Melodies by Ear on Performance Skills and Students Attitudes,
Contributions to Music Education 36/2 (2006), 92.
32
music-reading skills are continually reinforced by the fingering of valves and pressing of
keys, these visual and kinesthetic associations are further strengthened in relation to
notation, away from the aural implications behind the very same tasks.136 In the best of
cases, we can hope that a pre-existing aural fluency will allow musicians to understand
the symbols of music notation just like the reading of written language, but in this
scenario the aural acquisition takes place as a by-product rather than the goal.137
Just as with language acquisition, many of the skills a child needs to begin to
develop their musical ear are engrained from birth.138 There was some discussion in the
earlier portion of this text about the connections between musical fluency and linguistic
development. A failure to exercise the innate aural skills possessed by elementary and
secondary school students results in the culpable atrophication of these skills.139
Expressed in another way, Mainwaring reminds us that we are all born with innate skills
that can become complicated by the introduction of terminology to those instinctive
practices:
A simple pulse could be reproduced by an infant, but an adult musician would
have to know its nature in order to write a notation which would express it. A
melody could be reproduced vocally and even, instrumentally by ear by a child
who knew nothing whatever of its rhythmic structure or the pitch relations which
make up the tune; but to write it, mental analysis would be necessary.140
135
136
Kyle Brown, An Alternative Approach to Developing Music Literacy Skills in a Transient Society, Music
Educators Journal 90/2, 47.
137
138
139
Ibid., 87.
140
33
When, at college, the students are called upon to repeat these once innate tasks many
students become overwhelmed by the apparent difficulty.
Woody states that while music educators generally endorse the importance of the
ear in music-making most would appreciate if their students had stronger aural skills.
If this is the case, the question should therefore be asked, why are the aforementioned
theories (of sound-before-sight) not better reflected in mainstream practices?141
According to a variety of sources, sound-before-sight methodologies are largely
dependent upon the modeling abilities of the teacher.142 It seems that putting this
approach into circulation in the classroom is no easy task. Curricular problems and
temporal limitations can make it extremely difficult for the average music instructor to
achieve more than limited goals, which inevitably become goal orientated, performancebased scenarios.143 For example, most elementary wind instrument instruction takes
place in classes, usually quite large, forcing the teacher to concentrate instruction on the
more procedural aspects of performing - fingerings, embouchures etc.144 It makes sense
that these would become the focal points when we consider the mechanics of playing a
brass instrument. But to facilitate the right pitch (partial/harmonic) the player must set
not only the correct embouchure and valve combination, but also the appropriate speed of
141
142
144
34
air. In order to gauge the correct air speed for each distinct pitch the player must develop
a technique of associating particular muscle memory with the aural or visual cues
presented. Linking the goal (an absolute pitch) to the motor production (embouchure
position and air speed) is key, and the aspiration is to build these as automatic
connections rather than those which have to be carefully considered prior to each pitch.
Unfortunately there can actually be a varying degree of accuracy between the pitch the
player audiates and buzzes, and the tone the instrument produces. The physical design of
brass instruments features peak-points at which the instrument resonates, in accordance
with the harmonic series. If the player is inaccurate the instrument will, by-and-large,
compensate for the mistake and sound the closest partial (albeit with poor accuracy and
an imprecise attack). These discrepancies in mechanics are in contrast with say, a
stringed instrument, where only exact positioning on the fingerboard guarantees the right
pitch will sound. Typically once initial pitch accuracy is addressed the next priority
becomes the accurate movement from one pitch to the next in accordance with the
notation presented. Missed or chipped notes are a common inaccuracy in brass
playing. It is a misnomer to think that all such mistakes are caused simply by physical
inaccuracies (incorrect embouchure placement, or incorrectly paced air speed).
Frequently the error comes from inaccurate interval recognition, or its execution.145 If
the right arrival pitch cannot be audiated correctly, it is unlikely the players physical
positioning will be exact, resulting in a missed or chipped note.
While ensemble directors may be constantly imploring students to listen (to
recordings, during rehearsals, and during individual practice) it is not apparent that many
145
35
of the ear training skills discussed in the first chapter have been well enough established
to make that listening a truly worthwhile endeavor.146 Used in repetition the word
listen can quickly become synonymous with focus, and pay attention here, but is
ambiguous as to the specifics of where and how this act of listening should be employed.
It could apply to pitch, rhythm, timbre, dynamic, articulation, etc. but unless the action is
guided in some way, it is unlikely that the multiple opportunities for aural awareness will
be exploited. Aural awareness can in fact be addressed anytime, anywhere since aural
opportunity exists around us at all times.147
A particularly troubling scenario that ear training teachers face are students that
exhibit all the keenness of one with ambitions of a professional playing career, but with a
naivety towards the whole realm of aural skills. Once in college, there is no quick-fix
remedy for such students aural skills must be developed thoughtfully and methodically,
until they match a performers technical abilities. Although ear training is an essential
part of every musicians undergraduate experience it takes a determined individual effort
for weaker students (those with less prior experience or less natural affinity for aural
skills) to catch up with their peers.148
Despite many assertions that everything taught in ear training should be related
immediately to real musical experience and thus be applicable by students to their
everyday musical life, over and over theorists and pedagogues have argued about best
practices for course delivery. There are two key problems. One, it is probable that no
146
147
148
36
agreement will ever be reached to establish the best way of developing hearing faculty
so that students are quickly able to perceive, as an example, the structural organization of
melodic and harmonic progression.149 Two, and perhaps most unfortunately, it is
possible and not unusual to be able play an instrument quite well without understanding
the said structural nature of the music. And yet, almost all performers would agree that
there is a direct relationship between the understanding of musical structure and degree of
personal involvement experienced by the performer.150 This disparity in ideals and
practicalities has resulted in a kind of pedagogical hodge-podge151 wherein students are
on the one hand strongly encouraged to develop their ear training skills to a certain
degree but, on the other, find that they are realistically able to survive without doing so.
As demonstrated in Chapter One, there are many varying definitions and concepts of the
aural training / ear training / sight-singing / musicianship disciplines. It is imperative that
within each institution clear decisions are made as to the particular goals they are seeking
to pursue, and that these are clearly communicated to the students.152
A Concise History of Music Education
in the United States
Through research into the early music education systems it becomes apparent that
current practices have developed at odds with the early intentions of educationalists. By
149
Bobbitt, The Development of Music Reading Skills, Journal of Research in Music Education, 18/2
(1970), 143. James Mainwaring noted a similar dilemma, stating It is unfortunate that a very great
proportion of theoretical knowledge, elementary and advanced, can be acquired without any correlated
auditory experience whatever, Teaching Music in Schools, 46.
150
151
152
37
looking at the development of music education, and the position of ear training within
various music education pedagogies, one can determine the changes in perceived
relevance of ear training, and then seek to address its position in todays educational
system. As early as ancient Greece, music was included in education to enhance
community participation in both cultural and spiritual events. 153 Alongside instrumental
music played on the lyre and the aulos, singing was strongly emphasized as an important
component of the development of a musician. Singing was expected at most societal
events, from formal ceremonies to intertribal singing competitions. As competitive
attitudes towards these competitions grew so too did the standard of the singers, and by
the fifth century performed music at such events had become an elitist field. Populist
music education in Greece entered a decline. In ancient Rome, music was regarded as a
mathematical science (of the seven liberal arts, it was one of the upper level quadrivium)
and was largely taught from Boethiuss De institutione musica treatise.154 Boethius
followed principles of musica mundana (music as an all-pervading universal force),
musica humana (the harmony of the human body), and musica instrumentalis (music
found in instruments). He used mathematical principles to define intervals as
consonant or dissonant, and discussed basic elements of earlier Greek modal theory.155
During the Middle Ages music education also largely focused on singing, particularly
153
Michael Mark, A Concise History of American Music Education, (Lantham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield
Education, 2008), 1-3.
154
155
Ibid.
Calvin Bower. "Boethius." Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press. Web. 11
Mar. 2013.
<http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com.proxy.lib.uiowa.edu/subscriber/article/grove/music/03386>.
Boethiuss treatise fell out of favor for several centuries but was revived in the ninth century during a
revival of interest in liberal arts.
38
until the invention of music notation. As notation developed a shift in music education
began, heading towards a greater emphasis on music reading, particularly following the
introduction of letter names around the turn of the ninth century. Written notation, along
with the introduction of a solfge system by Guido dArezzo in the eleventh century,
revolutionized the study of music. Music could be written as it was expected to be
performed, and alongside the existing tradition of rote learning, sight-singing became
both possible and practical. Notation quickly aided major enhancements in music
education, enabling the study of polyphony and composition, and was a major factor in
the intellectual developments of the Renaissance.156
The history of music education in the United States demonstrates influences of
English and mainland European groups that came to America in the early Colonial
period.157 The early settlers brought with them a wide collection of both sacred and
secular musical traditions for example, congregational singing was found to be
important to the Amish, the Mennonites, and the Moravians. It was two groups of
English colonists, the Pilgrims and the Puritans, who had the biggest influence on
American music education as we know it today, largely through their use of music in
worship.158 Both groups employed no professional musicians in their churches, using
instead congregational psalmody as musical material for worship. Initially their Calvinist
texts included no printed music, but by the ninth edition (1698) The Bay Psalm Book
contained thirteen tunes. The untraditional diamond-shaped notes and solmization letters
156
157
Ibid., 9.
158
Ibid.
39
later became a widespread teaching device in the form of shape note singing.159 The
varied note heads indicate where half steps occur in the scale. Shape note notation,
although originating in New England, also became popular in church music of the
American South.160
Nineteenth-century music educator and church musician Lowell Mason was an
early advocate for establishing curricular music in American public schools. Mason was
instrumental in re-envisioning practices of the popular evening singing schools,
incorporating cultivated European traditions of music education.161 Along with his
extensive musical work in the Presbyterian Church, Mason and colleague George James
Webb established a music academy (arguably the first of its kind) in Boston,
Massachusetts, in 1833. 162 Centered largely on the principles of vocal instruction the
school quickly enrolled several thousand students and in 1834 the Manual of the Boston
Academy of Music, for instruction in the elements of vocal music, on the system of
Pestalozzi was first published. Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi was a Swiss educator who
believed that education was the only means to elevate the lower classes, and sought to
improve aspects of national morality and citizenship through an effort of education
159
Ibid., 10.
160
Pryer, Anthony. "shape note." The Oxford Companion to Music. Ed. Alison Latham. Oxford Music
Online. Oxford University Press. 11 Mar. 2013.
<http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com.proxy.lib.uiowa.edu/subscriber/article/opr/t114/e6138>.
161
His choices of repertoire later came under criticism for replacing too much of the indigenous music
with less prominent European composers. Michael Mark, A Concise History of American Music Education,
25, 52.
162
Harry Eskew, et al. "Mason." Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press. Web.
11 Mar. 2013.
<http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com.proxy.lib.uiowa.edu/subscriber/article/grove/music/17984pg1>.
40
163
Pestalozzi himself did not teach music, but his pedagogical principles were quickly absorbed by
colleague Hans Georg Ngeli, who adopted his practices into his pedagogy at the Zrich Singinstitut. It was
American William Channing Woodbridge that observed Ngeli in Europe, and passed on his observations
to one Elam Ives Jr., the first American to apply Pestalozzian principles to music teaching in the United
States. Mark, A Concise History of American Music Education, 31-34.
164
Lowell Mason, Manual of the Boston Academy of Music: for instruction in the vocal music, on the
system of Pestalozzi. Boston, MA: Carter, Hendee, 1834.
165
Warren Haston, Teacher modeling as an effective teaching strategy, Music Educators Journal 93/4
(2007) 29.
41
themselves further knowledge. Lowell Masons text was quickly adopted by many
singing school masters across the country.166 It was a goal of the treatise, stated in the
preface, to give music the same stature in education as arithmetics and geographies.167
The preface also states that examples of training the ear and the voice, if duly attended
to, can hardly fail to bring those organs to a good state of improvement. Mason fully
believed that the formation and cultivation of a musical ear would enable a child to
distinguish, appreciate, and imitate musical sounds. He also considered that, just as with
the spoken voice, the musical ear could be refined by experience, enabling improved
discriminatory ability, and achieving musical excellence.168 It was through Masons
work that the initial introduction of music education in schools occurred in Boston, and
gained interest from across the country.169
In terms of rapid developments in music education, James Mainwaring was the
British mid-twentieth century equivalent of Lowell Mason. He offered tremendous
insight into the cognition behind music learning.170 Like Mason, Mainwaring argued that
the musical progression of learning should run from sound to sight, rather than from sight
to sound. Mainwaring stated that beginning with notation is like beginning with
definitions, and is contrary to the natural process of learning. Mainwaring believed that
166
167
168
169
Mason actually had to teach music for a year for no salary in order to convince the Boston Common
Council that funds were indeed necessary and appropriate in order to fund a music teacher. Although
previously taught, music was approved as a subject for the public school curriculum, equal to others, for
the first time in 1838. Mark, A Concise History of American Music Education, 45.
170
42
verbal descriptions and definitions are suitable only once there is a fund of recallable
experiences to give meaning to the content of the words.171 On both sides of the Atlantic
these two men were promoting the same ideals of sound-before-sight, and yet the notion
appears to have struggled to take hold.
Notation
Today, formal music education is largely centered on the production of
musically literate performers, capable of transforming sight to sound.172 Notationbased ear training activities appear on the surface to be a good way to combine elements
of both aural perception and symbol-based competency, be it through dictation, sightsinging or other disciplines. Although notation-guided activities do provide opportunities
for aural skill development, there are limitations to their potential if only addressed as a
by-product and not as the original focus. Examples of ear-based activities fall more
frequently in jazz, popular and world idioms than that of the Western classical tradition,
because these genres generally have less reliance on printed music. And yet it is still the
classical canon in which most young performers are schooled from the moment begin
instrumental music. Our reliance on notation-based ear training is in direct contrast with
previous discussions about the necessity to think in musical language, the comparison
between the development of musical fluency and linguistics, and the idea of aural acuity.
The journey to a finished performance product could be dramatically shortened when
students have the ear skills to more rapidly decode notation into precise (goal) images of
171
172
43
sound.173 It has been proven that playing-by-ear development can be a critical ingredient
in facilitating the development of other musical skills (such as composing, arranging,
group collaboration, individual artistic expression) not to mention increased fluency of
reading notation. While reading music, internal aural processes must still be emphasized
- the necessity to hear the sounds come alive inside your head and not simply respond
with physical representations of pitch (positions and fingerings).174
Dictation
The typical aural training course includes both linear activities (such as
rhythmic dictation, melodic dictation, and sight-singing, and vertical activities (sonority
identification and chord progressions), however often there is little to connect the two
elements. Based on the amount of experience gained from traditional ear training
courses, musicians are often ill-equipped to perceive chord quality by ear, due to the habit
of focusing on the left-to-right understanding of Western music. It is imperative for a
musician to be able to perceive vertical structures as quickly as he or she reads linear
lines.175 Harmonic dictation frequently involves the notation of outer voices with little
focus on the contrapuntal aspects of each line, but rather the analytical implications of
each pitch. This methodology fosters a separatist approach to the students musical
knowledge.176 An emphasis on notation-based learning can lead to an over-dependence
of attention only to pitch and rhythm, at the detriment of other aspects of performance,
173
Ibid., 85.
174
175
Wayne Bailey, Aural skills for conductors, (Mountain View, CA: Mayfield, 1992), 32-34.
176
Kate Covington, Improvisation in the Aural Curriculum: an imperative, College Music Symposium 37
(1997), 43.
44
such as intonation, articulation, nuance, dynamic contrast and intensity. Indeed some ear
training courses focus entirely on the fine, detailed listening of pitch and rhythm, leaving
matters of form, texture, style and compositional devices to the more generalized written
theory courses.177 Notation-based dictation allows the crucial step of scale degree
function to be disregarded from the students understanding of aural material. For
example, students with a poor sense of tonic who are given a starting pitch to begin a
melodic dictation exercise are able to essentially follow their noses from one pitch to the
next, making educated guesses about interval size until their selected final pitch fits with
their perceived melodic resolution (most commonly a return to tonic). This requires no
true internalization of pitches and their relation to tonic.178 More beneficial would be to
aurally recreate the melody, convert it to solfge or a number-based system, and move to
notation only as the final step. An over-dependence on dictation within the ear training
curriculum is perhaps a disservice to the students receiving the education. Karpinski
suggests that if all a student learns is to write down what he hears, there are few
applications for this skill in the musical world. He continues, We shouldnt train a
world of dictation-takers; we should educate a world of musicians who can think with
their ears.179 While the practice of dictation is well-ensconced in higher education
music programs, there are few written examples of the justification for this focus.180
177
178
Ibid., 205. Karpinski is adamant in most of his writing that there this is an overreliance in most texts on
providing too much information to the student, resulting in the prevention of students learning certain
skills such as inference of tonic (since the key signature is provided) and inference of meter. An
internalized inference of tonic is the biggest aid to understanding the tonal function of every other pitch
presented.
179
Karpinski, Ear training and integrated aural skills: three recent texts, 136.
45
181
Ibid., 217.
182
Ibid., 220.
183
Deborah Rifkin and Diane Urista, Developing Aural Skills: Its Not Just a Game Journal of Music Theory
Pedagogy, 20 (2006), 57-78.
184
46
obstacle.185 It should be acknowledged that for some, exposing ones voice will be a
deeply personal experience and one which, coupled with the excessive demands of
achievement (attainment goals) in the classroom can cause significant stress.186 But
approached in the right way, the voice becomes a powerful force in a students aural
skills arsenal, a vital assistant in (what Edwin Gordon terms as) aural/oral perception.
Gordons premise was that the development of a students sense of tonality using
improved aural/oral discrimination techniques, will transfer into enhanced pitch
discrimination and pitch accuracy (both intonation and literal pitch accuracy) in the
performance of instrumentalists. He believed that audiation is to music what thought is
to language.187 The ability to hear it before one can sing it188 continues into brass
pedagogy in the popular sing, buzz, play approach to playing.189 Several studies took
place in the 1970s and 1980s that corroborate this technique.190 A more recent
experiment by Woody and Lehmann suggested extremely similar findings. Their
particular intention was to discover the differences in abilities between formally-trained
musicians, and those well-versed in vernacular music, in relation to the accuracy of
185
186
187
Gordon, Rhythm: Contrasting the Implications of Audiation and Notation, (Chicago: G.I.A. Publications,
2000), 4.
188
189
Believed to have been championed by Arnold Jacobs and Charles Herseth (former Chicago Symphony
Orchestra brass players) this technique has brass players sing a melody, buzz it at pitch on their
mouthpiece, and then perform it on the instrument.
190
For more, see Elliott: Effect of Vocalization on the sense of pitch of beginning band class students;
Davis: The effect of structured singing activities and self-evaluation practice on elementary band
students instrumental music performance, melodic tonal imagery, self-evaluation and attitude; Schlaks:
The effect of vocalization through an interval training program upon the pitch accuracy of high school
band students.; and MacKnight, Music reading ability of beginning wind instrumentalists after melodic
instruction.
47
performing melodies by ear. Woody and Lehmanns results showed that singing by ear
required far fewer incorrect trials than playing on ones instrument, regardless of the
performers musical background. This suggests that use of the voice connects more
closely to a musicians goal image (the internal representation of what the music
should sound like) than when attempting to use motor production representation.191 The
use of internal representation, the process of internal imaging, is often referred to as the
inner ear and using the voice is the easiest way to connect the inner ear to the external
creation of the sound.192 This externalization doesnt have to be taught; children use it
instinctively to learn nursery rhymes and simple songs, prior to developing a fear of using
their singing voices in public.193 Although some ear training texts (such as Benward and
Carrs Sightsinging Complete) invite students to bring their instruments to ear training
classes for certain activities, the infrequent inclusion of such requests does little to move
the overall concepts of the course from theoretical to practical. Instead those classes are
sometimes seen as novelty days, breaking up the monotony of the sight-singing/dictation
exercises. Ear training that largely focuses on rhythm and pitch can appear to be
separated by a wide abyss from the actualities of musical performance. Without the
integration of tempo, dynamics, articulation, and phrasing, it can be challenging to
convince students of the musical properties of these individualized tasks. The best type
of ear training instructors will never let a musically flat performance go by without
191
Woody and Lehmann, Student musicians ear-playing ability, 112. The study went on to prove that
the difference between singing accuracy and instrumental playback accuracy was far less in vernacular
musicians than it was in those with more formal training, indicating that the goal-image to motor
production was more immediate for vernacular musicians.
192
ABRSM, Aural Tests: included in the practical exams for all students, 20. Even silent singing, to some
degree, brings this internal imaging to reality.
193
48
195
196
This has historically been the case but it is not apparent why it should remain this way. In fact, three of
music educations all-star practitioners (Dalcroze, Orff, and Kodly) started out as
composer/teacher/frustrated aural training instructors. (Butler, Gulf between music perception research
and aural training, 42).
197
It is a contentious issue of some critics that ear training is a musical catechism handed down virtually
intact from generation to generation (Butler, Gulf between music perception and aural training, 42).
198
The author refers anecdotally to her own experiences as an aural skills instructor, and to insights
shared by participants of the Graduate Student Workshop at the Society of Music Theory International
Conference, Montreal 2009.
49
curriculum, and that is, the propensity to choose material that is most comfortable with
the instructor, easiest to teach and easiest to assess.199 But as teachers we should
always aspire to bring a fully comprehensive musical world to our students, rather than
simply the segments that are most easy to deliver.200
In the Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy article relating to their 1990 study of
aural skills programs in U.S. colleges and universities, Randall Pembrook and Lee
Riggins start by stating the two most critical issues in teaching aural skills are methods
and materials.201 They sought to determine which were the most frequent texts
referenced and specific methods in use (e.g., duration of classes and focus of subject
matter). While this study provided valid statistical data (e.g. the average class time spent
in freshman aural skills each week was 177 minutes) there was no attempt to correlate
their findings with the actual attainment standards of the students. From her experience
as a researcher of aural skills pedagogy, Inger Elise Reitan found that aural skills teachers
do not normally involve themselves in the research of perceptual and cognitive-based
studies related to aural training an argument supported by David Butler, who states that
many leaders in the aural training field dont have the training or the experience to be
able to wade through an article in Psychomusicology or the Journal of Music
Education.202 Despite the work of Gary Karpinski and Steve Larson, college-level ear
training programs have been slow to pick up on new information as it is presented. The
199
200
201
Pembrook and Riggins, 'Send help!': Aural skills instruction in U.S. colleges and universities, 231.
202
Butler is adamant that the number of music educators leading ear training instruction must increase.
Why the Gulf, 42-43.
50
more research that is done to explain the way in which we perceive musical information,
the further this needs to be applied to ear training pedagogy and delivery.203
The implications for music education based on ear training research are abundant.
While theory faculty are, on the surface at least, concerned in the development and
execution of ear training classes, methods, and textbooks, these teachers are not
commonly the same people concerned in the psychology behind the practice. Similarly,
music psychologists rarely focus on the pedagogical implications behind their studies.204
The discipline of aural skills training has therefore found itself trapped between two
fields of research, that of music theory and the psychology of music. However, there is
evidence that change is beginning to emerge, with the emphasis on research and
development that many faculty are required to demonstrate as part of the tenure process.
The uniting personnel that may well bring these disciplines together, and begin its
application earlier in the developmental process, are music education specialists.
In her 2008 study of well-being in the aural skills classroom Reitan found that the
qualities recognized in a good aural skills teacher are: the ability to be sympathetic, to be
a good pedagogue, and to present well-organized lessons.205 These are all applicable
attributes of the studio teacher also. In order to be viewed this way by students, the
teacher must find a manner of communicating which garners value and trust from the
students. In a group of mixed-ability students this involves great skill in evaluating the
correct pacing of the course. Somehow the more competent students must be kept
203
204
205
51
engaged while the less competent are helped. Several lab studies have demonstrated that
the interpersonal style a person uses to administer events greatly influences the events
effects.206
A major problem to have developed in ear training programs is a culture where
the symptoms to ear training problems become treated as causes. For example, if a
student struggles to sing an ascending major sixth (Re Ti) in a simple sight-singing
melody we might assume the issue is an inability to sing ascending major sixths, rather
than examining the fact that the student has failed to recognize the significance of Ti in
relation to its resolution to the upcoming Do. Endless drilling of intervals in isolation
will fail to correct this problem. A skill that can separate a good ear training teacher from
their counterparts is the ability to diagnose a problem in class and instantly improvise an
exercise to address it.207 This is a talent that instrumental teachers utilize frequently in
their teaching, habitually diagnosing technical and musical issues and suggesting
solutions to be implemented at the moment, and also in the practice room. This is most
suitable for one-on-one interaction, and can be more challenging in the open classroom
than in the private lesson. The risk of further exacerbating a problem and failing to
making obvious progress, causing embarrassment for an individual student, or simply
getting away from the lesson plan, are reasons enough for the aural skills teacher to shy
away from the improvisation of new material and problem-solving techniques.
206
Deci, Vallerand, Pelletier and Ryan, Motivation and education: the self-determination perspective,
educational psychologist, The Educational Psychologist 26 (1991), 336.
207
52
209
210
53
out of interest, but because they believe there is a separable consequence e.g. a good
grade in this class results in a better overall grade point average.211 Extrinsically
motivated students learn material because they know they will be tested, rather than for
the benefit of self-improvement and a greater sense of understanding.212 For a musician,
intrinsic motivation is demonstrable by the internal joy gained from performing music
with peers, to an audience, or alone in the bath tub; while extrinsic motivation is seen in
the desire to pass a jury, win an audition, or impress a teacher. College music students
are typically intrinsically motivated; they have already spent years of their lives devoting
their time to the pursuit of music excellence.213 But collegiate music study is different to
the performance based activities they have previously enjoyed. When evaluations and
assessments are emphasized, intrinsic motivation is undermined, along with the
opportunity for conceptual learning and creativity. It is a challenge to create intrinsic
motivation in the theory classroom, since assignments, grades and tests are frequently
utilized. Conceptual learning and creativity are key elements of ear training pedagogy
that have been discussed earlier in this work for their significance. Intrinsically
motivated behaviors emanate from the self and are fully endorsed, supporting the
prototype for self-determination.214 In self-determination theory support for competence
(gained from performance feedback) and relatedness (such as peer acceptance) facilitate
intrinsic motivation.
211
Edward Deci and Richard Ryan, Intrinsic motivation and self-determination in human behaviour. (New
York: Plenum, 1985).
212
213
Marvin, Intrinsic Motivation: the Relation of Analysis to Performance in Undergraduate Music Theory
Instruction, Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy 8 (1994), 48.
214
54
Primarily the goal is to promote a genuine enthusiasm in the student for learning
and accomplishment, and to help instill a sense of volitional involvement in the process
of education.215
Stress
Since ear training classes are almost exclusively presented as a compulsory course
of study within the music curriculum it may well, from some quarters, immediately
receive the negative categorization as a necessary, but unpleasant subject.216
Occupying a similar place in the curriculum as underclassmen music theory and music
history classes, these classes are frequently mistakenly approached by students as a
necessary but separate entity to their development as a performing musician. There are
aspects of these courses that can challenge a students self-esteem.217 As with other
strands of theoretical music theory, inconsistencies and inexperience with certain
concepts can cause anxiety in a student in what Buccheri calls the All of a sudden, it
seems like I know nothing about music condition.218 When this occurs there is a
significant risk that stress and a poorer sense of well-being will impede a students ability
to learn and succeed. In a 2008 study completed at the Norwegian Academy of Music
Reitan discovered that 27% of students evaluated their stress to be high in the ear training
classroom.219 This stress manifested itself as nervousness, anxiety, feelings of
215
Ibid., 325.
216
217
218
Ibid., 86.
Buccheri, Musicianship at Northwestern, 131.
55
For the purpose of the study, stress is defined as a state of tension in a person, and causes unwieldy
pressure or conflicts which might lead to reactions like anxiety, anger, depression, continuous frustration
and or/psychosomatic sufferance. (Reitan, Stress and well-being in the aural training class: The
psychological aspect of training for enhanced musicians skills, 86-87).
220
Reitan, Stress and well-being in the aural training class: The psychological aspect of training for
enhanced musicians skills, 87. Rifkin and Urista refer to the debilitating anxiety that impedes learning
(Developing aural skills: its not just a game, 57) while Karpinski states that he has witnessed the
correlation between nervousness in the aural-skills classroom and other musical activities, such as
performance (Aural Skills Acquisition, 209).
221
222
223
224
225
56
environment that promotes success, the ear training classroom must be seen to
demonstrate a low degree of threat.226 A classroom of new friends and colleagues of
mixed ability is not necessarily conducive to this said low threat level. In order to be
motivated to learn, a student must sense the nature of the challenge and feel the
expectation that mastery is attainable. Previous attainment and academic experience has
consequences on the expectation of future learning and mastery. In this way having
previous experience of mastering a task, having an expectation of mastering a future task,
and actually mastering a current task form a cyclical process, one that can prove to be
either positive or negative to a student.227 In order for a positive pattern to develop, longterm relevance of the activities should be emphasized, so that any progress can be
evaluated in the context of overall musicianship, rather than simply attainment in a selfcontained class. Students must be actively dissuaded from compartmentalizing ear
training.228
Group Learning
The ear training classes offered in higher education tend to exist in a one-size-fitsall format regardless of the diversity of previous experience, or the future career
aspirations, of individual students. Classes usually range in size from a dozen to twenty
students, with limited opportunity for individual teaching. And yet, it has been
recognized that aural skills acquisition develops at different rates in different
226
227
A concept developed by Einar and Sidsel Skaalviks in Selvoppfatning, motivasjon og lringsmilj (Self
perception, motivation and learning) - referenced by Reitan, in Stress and well-being in the aural training
class: The psychological aspect of training for enhanced musicians skills, 88.
228
57
individuals.229 In addition to their individual ear training history, each student presents a
unique combination of personality traits, intellectual aptitude, and cognitive
tendencies.230 With a small class it is even more important to attempt to understand
students cognitive abilities. The unique cognitive makeup of each student and their level
of formal training actually lends the delivery of ear training towards one-on-one
instruction, or at least smaller groups (six to ten), in preference over the small classroom
setting (around twenty students).
It has been well documented in educational research that students learn in
different ways, and have individual learning styles.231 In his article for the Journal of
Music Theory Pedagogy, Michael Lively breaks down educational theorist David Kolbs
experiential learning classification system of the four types of learning styles, as the basis
of a discussion about developing new instructional theory materials.232 The four learning
style groups can be summarily defined as follows: 1) Accommodators: learners that learn
best from specific examples and experimentation, using experience to grasp and process
information; 2) Divergers: who also learn best from specific examples but need to
cogitate new information, transforming it through reflective observation. 3) Convergers:
learners that prefer an environment of systematic analysis (abstract conceptualization)
229
230
Michael Lively, D. A. Kolbs Theory of Experiential Learning: Implications for the Development of
Music Theory Instructional Material, Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy 19 (2005), 77.
231
Learning styles refer to a variety of theoretical constructs and cognitive models, essentially a
predisposition to a particular learning strategy regardless of the specific demands of the task. For more
see Foxs Learning Styles and Instructional Preferences in Continuing Education for Health Professionals,
72-85.
232
Lively, D. A. Kolbs Theory of Experiential Learning, 82-83. Lively goes on to demonstrate how to
teach a specific topic, secondary dominant function, in accordance with the various learning styles.
58
and experimentation; and 4) Assimilators: who also use systematic analysis, but
transform it through reflective observation. From this summary of Kolbs learning styles
it is apparent that these four types of students would need information presented in
various ways, and would have different methods for managing this information for future
recall. Learners who prefer abstract conceptualization may be able to audiate a melody
quite successfully, while other students require the process of performance for the
information to sink in.233 With a more homogenized approach to ear training, students
have to determine what is most relevant and most important for them.234
Another type of learning theory that has been explored in the quest for
improvements in the delivery of ear training are the principles of objectivist and
constructivist models for teaching, championed primarily by Kate Covington.235 The
most prevalent learning method, along with teaching strategies, follows the objectivist
model where a distinct set of facts are combined with declarative and procedural
knowledge, best assessed through the process of retrieval. Facts are learned, stored
cognitively in well-organized schematic networks, and recounted in an easily quantifiable
manner.236 The most common way to teach in this model is to isolate elements from their
natural context, such as in the repetitive drilling of intervals. But research has shown that
233
234
235
236
The term schemata refers to the structures that represent concepts, and are the building blocks of
cognition that typically reflect the context in which they were learned. A specific example of schematic
isolation might be the predilection of some methods to regard all major sixths in the context of the NBC
show tune. In this instance there is a strong sense of tonality connected to the sixth, confirmed with its
resolution to do. However, when the major sixth occurs in other tonal settings, such as Re-Ti or Fa-Re
those parameters are shifted and the changed tonal implications can cause uncertainty.
59
such training can actually cause the development of barriers between schema types,
instead of highlighting interconnectedness. An alternative to this is the constructivist
approach, where schematic networks are more loosely defined, allowing elements to be
disconnected from their original locations and reassembled in new contexts. When
teaching with constructivist methods, extended exercises on a single task are still
beneficial, but should be combined with similar activities in a variety of contexts.237 In
practice, this could be learning an interval: by singing, by playing the interval
melodically, as a basis of improvisation, by sounding the interval harmonically etc..
Covington and Lord argue that the further that a skill can be demonstrated through a
variety of contexts, the better the students will be able to understand the essential role of
the specific concept. When constructionist learning is successfully executed, the focus
becomes learning process rather than production; explanation of rationale rather than the
result of conclusion; schema assembly rather than schema selection. In short, this idea of
cognitive flexibility enables students to learn the theoretical tools that facilitate their
ability to teach themselves towards practical solutions. This is precisely the type of
learning that is most suitable for the study of music, and becomes utilized in the
following proposed method.
237
This technique is referred to by educational psychologist Rand Spiro as criss-crossing the contextual
landscape. It builds the ability to cope with every scenarios of ever increasing complexity, and thus is so
well suited to a discipline which encourages ever-increasing progression towards expert status.
60
CHAPTER THREE
A NEW APPROACH
In his much-quoted text, Aural Skills Acquisition, Karpinski states that a way to
promote the use of skills developed during aural skills classes is to encourage [their]
incorporation into studio instruction and instrumental practice238 By generating a
method that focuses on some of the specific skills championed by Karpinski, and taught
in aural skill classes across the nation, the author hopes to establish a practical method of
integrating ear training into the private lesson. Building on opportunities presented by
enjoying one-on-one contact between tutor and pupil, the method seeks to demonstrate
performance-applicable techniques for training ones musical ear. This methodology
removes some of the limitations brought about by teaching ear training to large classes of
students, and allows for a personalized, instrument-specific pedagogical approach to
some of the most necessary and useful skills of musical performance.
As Lowell Mason stated in 1834 All elements of instruction... will produce no
favorable result, if the teacher is wanting in the necessary ability and disposition.239 The
success of this method depends on the degree to which the instructor values this approach
and its perceived benefits for their students musical development. Ear-driven activities
can facilitate the development of arranging and composing skills, improvisation, musical
collaboration in groups, more fluent notation-reading, accuracy in sight-reading, not to
238
239
61
mention individual artistic expression.240 With that broad a range of potential benefits, it
would seem well worth attempting to find a solution in the private lesson for some of the
gaps left in standard ear training classes.
ABRSM Influence
The main influence behind the authors perceived need for a new approach is
centered on her experiences of the examinations administered by the Associated Board of
the Royal Schools of Music (ABRSM). The ABRSM is the examination board of the
Royal Schools of Music.241 It was founded in 1889 to create an examining body
inspired by disinterested motives for the benefit of music education... which would
genuinely provide a stimulus and an objective for a high standard of achievement.242 To
date, over 650,000 examinations have been delivered, in over ninety countries across the
globe.243 An important facet of these practical assessments, focusing on three contrasting
pieces of repertoire, scales and arpeggios, and sight-reading, is an additional element
during each examination the aural test. These were introduced to the examinations in
1920.244 The ABRSM aural tests aim to establish the link between listening to music
and playing music,245 the same aptitude hoped to be reinforced by the Ear-tudes. The
240
241
The Royal Schools of Music comprise of four British music conservatories: The Royal Academy of Music,
The Royal College of Music, The Royal Northern College of Music, and the Royal Conservatoire of
Scotland.
242
243
244
245
Clara Taylor, These music exams: a guide to ABRSM exams for candidates, teachers and parents.
(London: Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music, 2001) 16.
62
ARBSM aural test syllabus is progressive, developed in conjunction with the students
development of practical instrumental skills, and as such expands from the abilities of a
low level beginner to the competency of a student of pre-conservatory standard.246 Since
the method contained within this document specifically targets the collegiate freshman
tuba player, certain assumptions are made about the technical proficiencies of the
player.247
ABRSM aural tests are administered by the examiner from the piano; however
this method requires the instructor to take that role, instructing the drills from their own
instrument. This connects with the students ability to identify pitch and rhythm on the
very medium on which they themselves perform. The proposed application requires the
drills to take place one lesson prior to the Ear-tude being assigned to the student. The
student should then prepare the full Ear-tude for the following lesson, bearing in mind the
ear training concepts that have been addressed.
In addition to skills assessed in ABRSM aural tests, there are other activities
included in these drills, including intonation work, mouthpiece buzzing call-and-response
exercises, and opportunities for guided improvisations.
Real-world Application
In their ear training manual Sight Singing and Ear Training Through Literature,
Levin and Martin seek to demonstrate their belief that the best way to stimulate the ear
246
Full information, including syllabuses is available from the Aural Test portion of the ABRSM website.
http://us.abrsm.org/en/our-exams/aural-tests/
247
The assumptions are made based on the authors experience as a college student, and studio teaching
assistant at a Big Ten university.
63
is with real music and the actual difficulties encountered in performance and
listening.248 It is most beneficial to involve a students primary instrument in the
process of ear training. Listeners familiarity with the timbre of a sound source has a
direct effect on their ability to determine registral placement.249 Female instrumentalists
that play in the bass/contrabass range have reported difficulty with distinctly hearing
pitches several octaves from their vocal range.250 By increasing the frequency with
which a player alternates between singing in a comfortable range and playing their
instrument in its regular range, one can reduce the level of discomfort and uncertainty
towards this practice.
Modeling
Lehmann and Woody state that a musicians goal image guides performance
regardless of whether this image is based on visual cues (e.g. notation in sight-reading) or
musical memory (e.g. playing by ear). The clearest way for a student to have a high
quality goal image is for them to physically hear a tone or a melody prior to their
attempting its replication. (Another highly effective method is for the student to be able
to internally auralize their projected goal image, but this will not become instinctive until
they are trained to first physically hear the sound). Teacher modeling is a very effective
manner to introduce new musical concepts and performance skills, without the need for
students to see printed music. With modeling, students learn the application before they
248
Levin and Martin, Sight Singing and Ear Training Through Literature, xvii.
249
250
64
learn the theory251 and this is precisely what Mason was seeking to achieve in 1834 with
his Manual based on Pestalozzian principles. In music, just as with speech and physical
motion, people learn naturally by imitating models.252 For music, Bruce Torff describes
the principle as the wordless world of music learning.253 Music learning lends itself to
aural modeling, particularly in the private lesson.254 Researchers have found that
ensemble directors use modeling only between 10 and 25 percent of the time in
rehearsals, presumably because they usually dont have an instrument to hand with which
to demonstrate.255 Instrumentalists, in contrast to singers, are learning to couple
psychomotor tasks to an aurally perceived sound, as opposed to a visual cue.256 Learning
by imitation results in learning about the structure of a fairly complex stimulus
environment, without necessarily intending to do so, and in such a way the resulting
knowledge is difficult to express.257 It is for this reason that some of the best performers
struggle to be the become the best teachers; when complex processes and techniques have
been arrived at so naturally that there is limited knowledge of exactly how a result is
251
252
Suzuki called this the Mother Tongue in Nurtured by Love, 7-17. Kohut referred to it as the Natural
Learning Process in Instrumental Music Pedagogy, 4.
253
Torff, Into the Wordless World: Implicit Learning and Instructor Modeling in Music, 79.
254
255
Tait, Teaching strategies and Styles in Handbook of Research on Music Teaching and Learning, 52534.
256
Woody and Lehmann, Student musicians ear-playing ability as a function of vernacular music
experiences, 103.
257
65
achieved. True competence occurs when the execution of those psychomotor programs
occur automatically.258
Variety of articulation lends itself particularly to imitation. The teacher provides
an aural example, and the student can use that as the basis to make physical adjustments
to their technique. Human beings learn naturally by imitation, and relying on implicit
knowledge to shape the result until it matches that of the model.259 This can be
completed aurally, without the need for verbose definitions. Experienced listeners are
able to discriminate among various types of articulation, and should become well versed
on the most frequent articulations pertaining to their instrument and most performed
genres. For the same reason that conductors vocally demonstrate articulations during
rehearsals, the applied teacher can succinctly demonstrate style in the private lesson,
without the need for interpretation of musical symbology. Notated accents often take on
different meanings in different styles of music; it can be a far quicker process to simply
demonstrate an articulation than to find the appropriate way of interpreting the
composer/arrangers chosen notation.
Modeling differences in style can also be a quick and effective method of
demonstration. Haston states that the most efficient way to teach new concepts and
skills is through call-and-response. It is not always necessary to explain to a student
258
Baily refers to the connection between goal image and motor production representation as
automotor coordination, allowing the immediate production of musical patterns (such as in call and
response activities). See more in Music structure and human movement. In P. Howell, I Cross, & R West
(Eds.), Musical structure and cognition (pp. 237-258). London, England: Academic Press.
259
66
what they are playing, or what it would look like in print.260 By hearing the same
melodic material in various different styles back-to-back a student utilizes their ear
training skills in discerning both what differences occurred and, where suitable, their
personal preference. By asking the student certain questions following playing such as
What did you hear?, How did the two versions compare?, Which style seemed to
you more suitable to the surrounding material? the teacher is requiring the student to
verbalize their aural perceptions, as well as to express their own musical preference. As a
students listening and evaluative skills improve, so too do the opportunities for students
to make independent creative decisions increase.261 Challenging the student to validate
their responses using appropriate musical terminology is also an effective means of
learning about their unique cognitive approaches to listening.262 Some students might be
instantly drawn to noticing differences in note lengths or articulations, others may focus
on dynamic variety, others intonation. Learning a students tendencies and being able to
steer them towards aural areas they would usually not focus on is one aspect of a tailored
one-to-one approach of ear training, advocated by the implementation of this method.
Explanation of Method
The crux of this approach is the students comprehension of the musical features
of the Ear-tude prior to seeing the notation; sound-before-sight. In order to achieve this
260
This refers to exact imitation, where the student replicates exactly what the instructor has played
rather than jazz-orientated call-and-response, where the teacher produces an antecedent phrase and the
student responds with a consequent phrase. Haston, Teacher modelling as an effective teaching
strategy, 27.
261
262
The ABRSM aural tests were designed to encourage examinees to verbalize their aural perceptions,
and in so doing, to build an ever-expanding vocabulary of musical terms in synergy with aural examples.
67
the instructor works with the student on aural exercises based on material of the
following Ear-tude. Almost all the tasks involve the teacher playing for the student
enabling the student to model their sound on their instructor, for both timbre and pitch.
Identifying pulse and meter: The perception of pulse is a fundamental rhythmical skill.
Pulse can be defined as a regularly recurring feeling of musical stress. From it derives
the sensation of meter, the notion of beat, and the measurement of rhythmic durations.263
Asking a student to clap or tap (since they are metrically neutral disciplines) in time with
music is a highly effective method of discerning their perception of pulse. Conducting
and counting tasks are meter-orientated and can be attempted once pulse has been
established. Conducting can be used either concurrently while listening; or
retrospectively, while singing back or remembering.264 Conducting brings with it the
benefits of being able to establish and communicate a sense of pulse, tempo, and meter
within a single activity.265 Poor metric perception can be difficult to remedy, and the
teacher may need to over-emphasize downbeats until the meter has been identified by the
student.266 Changing the meter can also be demonstrated by the teacher or required of by
the student. This will help to show the contrast of correct or incorrect meter, and will
also provide another way to hear or perform a melody.
Perception of Tonic: At its most facile, the process of perceiving tonic should be simply
intuitive. If a student finds identifying tonic pitch from a short passage of music too
263
264
265
266
68
challenging, then the decision must be made to address this skill with some sense of
urgency. A good starting point is to play the first and last pitches of an extract, and
discuss whether one has the sense of tonic about it, based on the other pitches heard in the
melody.267 An approach that Karpinski advocates is one which requires the student to
identify the diatonic collection of pitches present in a melody.268 To do this the student
can pick any pitch they recognize from the melody and play adjacent pitches in a scalar
fashion, determining whether or not they were present in the performed melody. By
creating the scale in this way, most students are able to sense which of the pitches from
the collection is the tonic.
Pitch Matching: The most basic form of pitch memory is the recall of single pitches.
Pitch matching, as it is called, involves producing a sound to match a stimulus while that
stimulus is still sounding.269 Rather than verbally telling a student the starting pitch of an
exercise, the author suggests that it is the student would find it aurally more beneficial to
match the pitch as the instructor plays it. The student may need to be encouraged not to
look at the instructors valves, as that will provide them with a visual aid. While initially
the skill of pitch matching may be challenging to acquire, students will be surprised at
how quickly they will improve as they force themselves to translate the aural image their
own production of a pitch. An additional step of singing the pitch before playing it may
be beneficial to really connect the ear to the instrument. Pitch matching is a fundamental
267
It should be reinforced to students that not all melodies will begin and/or end on tonic pitch, but there
are certain scale degrees that will likely never be the final pitch of a single line melody, and thus by
processes of elimination a student may be able to work towards perceiving the correct tonic pitch.
268
269
69
musical skill, yet one that many young musicians have difficulty with, since they are so
seldom asked to practice it.270
Playing by Ear: Playing by ear involves a complete spectrum of skills in the aural
domain: listening, memory, understanding and performance.271 Some students will have
never experienced playing by ear prior to college if they have learned their instrument
through the standard band method books (e.g. Standards of Excellence, Accent On...,
Essential Elements etc.) with little expansion from the text.272 Even students that have
taken private lessons may never have been asked to respond to an aural-only musical
stimulus. There is a suggestion that perhaps the reason playing by ear is not frequently
advocated by teachers, is because they too were not exposed to the task as they were
learning.273 However, studies show that levels of sight-reading and ear-playing ability
are generally comparable,274 so by working on the needs of one, students are likely to
improve the other. Woody and Lehmann believe that playing by ear has been
historically undervalued in formal education.275
One cant expect to jump straight in to playing extended melodies by ear. It is
suggested that the instructor follow the ABRSM example and begin with small, noncontextual strains of three pitches, gradually increasing in number until a short phrase can
270
Karpinski, A model of music perception and its implications, 209. ABRSM aural tests include this
exercise right from the lowest examination grade.
271
272
There are two exceptions to this statement, Jump Right In (Grunow, Gordon, Azzara and Martin) and
Do it! Play in band (Froseth) are two method book series that do address learning by ear.
273
274
see Luce, Sight-reading and ear-playing abilities as related to instrumental music students.
275
70
be performed. It is also advised to provide small known parameters on which tasks can
be based. Pitches, if restricted in number, need not be neighbors drills can take place
using harmonic collections (triads, sevenths), tetrachords or modes, or truly any
collection of the instructors choosing. Beginning with just three pitches can allow the
student to build confidence in the task, as they find themselves easily able to repeat back
the instructors examples.
By always performing, with immediate playing, the same duration of examples,
the student quickly learns the cognitive skills required to switch from listening to
performing in rapid succession. This is a crucial skill required in any sort of
collaborative performance. Length of examples, number of unique pitches, complexity of
rhythm etc., can all be increased incrementally.
Solfge can become a students advocate in this setting, even if usually regarded
by the student as a tiresome or problematic activity. As pitch memory and tonal function
are emphasized, solfge can be employed as a stepping stone to achieving accurate
playback. A purpose for using solfge in ear training is to help students develop an
automatic sense of syllable for any given pitch, Do sounds like Do, Sol like Sol, Ti like
Ti etc..276 Understanding tonal function is just as pertinent performing on an instrument
as it is with the voice. For some instrumentalists it becomes a matter for discussion early
on, given their harmonic role in large ensembles; middle range instruments are used to
having to adjust their pitch regularly to fulfill their position as the third or fifth of the
chord. By understanding aurally the tonal function of individual pitches harmonically, or
276
71
each pitch within a melodic line, the performer is more able to commit to suitable
inflections and musical sensitivities, producing an overall more musical performance.
Although dictation is not a part of this method, it forms a close relation to solfge.
Students can be asked to sing on letter names melodies that they have already discerned
with solfge. For this skill to develop, reinforcement is needed, particularly in the early
stages, and students should be persuaded not to feel discouraged by early shortcomings,
but to allow the learning process to develop. Eventually a gestalt process will occur;
students will begin to hear patterns such as triads and their inversions, and more quickly
recognize sequences etc. This gestalt process will only occur after a student has
assimilated enough physical experience at completing such tasks.277 This particular skill
is well worth persevering, as students can begin to gain confidence in their ear once they
are able to complete these sorts of tasks. This can be used as a basis for transposition
exercises.
Although this method places an emphasis on playing by ear, this skill, and the
opportunity to practice it in the private lesson, is intended as an extension of the skills
developed in aural skills classroom.
Error Detection: Error detection enables a student to work at the very important skill of
perceptual listening, that is, listening remembering comparing all within a short
amount of time. The importance of error detection (and consequently, correction) skills
are, to musicians, indisputable.278 The conductor and private lesson instructor use these
skills continuously. For monitoring ones own playing, the practice is crucial. Every
277
278
72
time a musician plays there is, or should be, a constant process of self-correction between
the eyes and the ears. The more adept the performer becomes at this task, the more such
errors may be avoided.279 Even though this is the case, Pembrook and Riggins (when
surveying aural skills instruction in the United States) found that error detection was the
least practiced activity in the aural skills classroom. They argued, and this author
agrees, that given its propensity in musical tasks, error detection should be given a greater
focus in the aural skills curriculum. The student should be asked to respond with not
only where the error occurred, but the nature of the error. This provides ample
opportunities to practice using the language with which musicians communicate musical
ideas.
Describing musical features by ear: In line with an idea found in the ABRSM aural test,
the instructor should encourage the student to verbalize the notable musical features of
the work they hear. These can include perception of dynamics, articulation, tempo,
tonality, character, style, structure. The instructor should promote the use of appropriate
terminology, including, where appropriate use of Italian terms.
The Ear-tudes
The term Ear-tude reflects the melding of the two concepts, ear training and
melodic etudes. The Ear-tudes were composed under the principle that the aesthetic
experience of music requires more than simply an objective recognition of its constituent
parts. That is, they should be enjoyable to both performer and listener, despite focusing
on a distinct ear training model. Although each Ear-tude addresses a particular concept,
279
Ibid,.
73
the purpose of the Ear-tude is to reinforce that these are familiar musical features and
should be mastered so that they can be performed with ease and understanding, aiding the
overall musicality of performance. As Pratt puts it, Musical character depends not on
individual elements alone but on the ways in which they interact.280
The Ear-tudes range from sixty seconds to two minutes in length. They are
purposely short, and should be easily learned within a week of practice particularly
since the more challenging aural features will have been addressed by the instructor
during the drills.
The Ear-tudes have been arranged in a progressive manner, based on technical
and ear training competency. The current ordering of the Ear-tudes has also been
designed such that the intervals involved grew incrementally wider as the Units
progress. That being said, the Ear-tudes and corresponding drills are defined as Units,
with the encouragement that instructors can choose their own ordering either based on
the students individual needs, or to correspond directly with an institutions written
theory or aural skills syllabus.281 Interspersed in the expanding interval Ear-tudes are a
small handful of non-interval based Ear-tudes (theme and variation, natural minor,
pentatonic etc.). The four diatonic intervals that occur most commonly in both melodic
(horizontal) and harmonic (vertical) forms during music of common practice harmony,
(the major third, the perfect fourth, the perfect fifth and the major sixth)282 are addressed
280
281
The author strongly encourages that the instrumental instructor should be aware of the progression of
skills in both written and aural theory courses. Where possible, attempts should be made to relate skills
across those disciplines and the applied lesson.
282
74
within just two Ear-tudes. Thirds and sixths are introduced concurrently to demonstrate
how together they make up the octave. The interval of the minor seventh is incorporated
into an Ear-tude based on dominants, while the major seventh appears in focus for the
first time in the all-interval Ear-tude.
The composer uses a variety of musical styles in their approach, including
calypso, guitar bass line, folk-song, swing, Classical theme and variation, twelve tone etc.
This is intended to provide diversity to the collection and to demonstrate the applicability
of ear training concepts in an assortment of styles. The student should be encouraged to
commit to the intended style, and where necessary, researching other music of that idiom.
The Ear-tudes were composed with the BBb tuba in mind, since that is the
equipment that most incoming freshmen arrive playing. If the student has already
switched to CC tuba, the instructor may consider giving transposed music to the student
(particularly for the Unit Fifteen, where the marked fingerings will be incorrect). Table 1
shows the design of the Ear-tudes, stating which concepts are focused on and what other
aspects of musicianship will be challenged. The table shows the diversity of keys, meters
and tempos, present in the set. Then follows (Figures 1 through 15) each Ear-tude
comprising the weekly assignment, and the corresponding aural skills drills.
Delivery of the Method The Drills
The drills are to be completed without the student having access to the printed
music. The instructor hands over the Ear-tude only after working through the drills and
performing the Ear-tude once for the student. The student then sightreads the Ear-tude,
with the instructor also playing. The assignment to perform the Ear-tude in the next
75
lesson is then set. The student should be strongly encouraged to begin practicing the Eartude that same day, or as soon after as possible, so they have a chance to remember the
work completed with the instructor.
Initially it was intended that this method should be completed within a single
semester (fifteen weeks) with one Ear-tude being performed, and the drills for the next
being taught, within the same lesson time. It became apparent that this would take too
much time away from other material needing to be covered in a single hour-long lesson.
Instead, it is suggested that the completed assignment and the drills should take place on
alternate weeks. For example, Week 1 would include Unit One drills and the Unit One
Ear-tude would be performed in Week 2. Week 3 would include Unit Two drills etc..
With this approach, the entire fifteen Ear-tudes would take a full year to complete.
Unit Focus:
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Chromatic
Whole Tone
Theme and Variation
Thirds and Sixths
Perfect Fourths and Fifths
Tritones
Octave Intonation
Natural Minor
Pentatonic
Dominant Sevenths
Syncopation
All Intervals
Diminished Patterns
Twelve Tone
Lip Slurs
Also challenges:
Rhythm, articulation
Meter
Articulation
Melodic line
Lip slurs
Range
Slurs, octave pitching
Legato style
Compound rhythms
Mixed meter, style
Rhythm
Slurs, range
Rhythm, style
Melodic line
Range, articulation
Key
Meter
Tempo
Dm
n/a
A
G
Ab and Bb
n/a
F#m
Bm
Gb
Cm
Bb
F
C and C#
n/a
Bb
3/4
5/4
2/4
6/4
3/4
3/4 and 2/2
3/4
4/4
9/8
4/4 and 7/8
2/2
3/4
4/4
3/4
2/2
120
154
66
82
100
116
66
80
72
144
82
96
136
69
42
Length
(in secs)
70
70
75
120
80
90
110
115
105
60
60
80
80
80
110
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
i7
i7
i7
IV7
IV7
i7
i7
V7
IV7
i7
Play the opening until A (with heavy emphasis on the down beats) and ask the students if
they can identify the rhythmic anomaly. If they cant, have them try and count 4/4 time
against you playing. Once they discover a problem see if they can identify what meter
occurs every other measure. They may need to try to conduct and sing the rhythm. Let
them explore the issue. Once they mention 7/8 metre, talk about the division of the beat
into 2+2+3 pattern. Ask them to conduct again and count aloud, alternating 4/4 and 7/8
(as a three with an elongated third beat), as you play the whole Ear-tude. Continuing to
conduct, ask them now to name the chord changes instead of counting the beats. (I-2-3-4,
I-2-123, I-2-3-4, I-2-123, IV-2-3-4, IV-2-123, etc.)
Look at the opening measure, and play the first three pitches. Ask them to match the first
pitch on their instrument and to name the second and third. Do the same with measure 5
and measure 9.
Play the full Ear-tude alone, and with the student sight reading. Assign for the following
lesson.
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
Supplementary activities
In addition to the drills provided, the instructor is welcomed to incorporate other
methods of their choosing to facilitate the learning of the Ear-tudes, provided it comes
from an ear training perspective. This can include the learning of other material by
familiar tunes by ear, further work on intonation, improvisation, transposition,
transcription and performing music from memory. Some empirical evidence and
opinions about these additional techniques are provided below, demonstrating their value
in the wide area of ear training.
Learning by ear: Many musicians become less confident when performing any music
away from a notated part.283 Mason discussed singing by rote in his 1834 Manual,
arguing that it absolutely necessary to bring forward the ear and the voice.284
Mainwaring also summarily describes the practice, of instrumental ear-playing:
The only rational method is to help the child first to reproduce on the instrument
simple known tunes, that is, to learn to play the instrument by ear. This once
derided process is comparable to that of learning to speak. Learning to read and
learning to write are separate processes from learning to talk, and they come later
in the general process of acquiring linguistic efficiency.285
By encouraging the students to work out popular melodies, such as nursery rhymes,
hymn tunes etc., on their instrument you allow them to explore known repertoire in a new
and enlightening manner.
283
284
285
108
287
288
Ibid., 139-143.
109
of movement by memory. And finally, and perhaps the least used technique, is memory
by analysis thinking and learning about the music away from the instrument.
Intonation: Researchers have discovered that intonation is one of the first dimensions of
performance to which listeners respond.289 For that reason, performing in tune is an
essential aspect of musical performance.290 Because of this, audiences tend to make
some immediate assumptions about a students overall proficiency based on any obvious
intonation deficiencies.291 The majority of musicians have an innate sense of what
sounds right, particularly on their own instrument.292 But players sometimes have a
better ability to perceive correct intonation than their skills to produce it. When poor
intonation occurs it is often a sign that something is being lost in the transfer from
perception to performance. In the 1992 study that Mark Ely undertook on collegiate
woodwind players he found that students abilities to play in tune were not necessarily
indicative of their ability to detect poor intonation, or vice versa.293 For a brass player it
is likely that the natural tendencies of certain pitches (as they appear in the harmonic
series) cause this inaccuracy, and the player may be unable to make sufficient
embouchure or tuning slide adjustments in order to correct the failing. Good intonation
289
See Geringer and Madsen Pitch and tempo discrimination in recorded orchestral music among
musicians and nonmusicians, and Madsen and Flowers, The effect of tuning in an attempt to
compensate for pitch/quality errors in the flute/oboe duets.
290
Mark Ely, Effects of timbre on college woodwind players intonational performance and perception,
Journal of Research in Music Education 40/2 (1992), 158-167.
291
292
Ibid., 157.
293
Ely, Effects of timbre on college woodwind players, 164. This supports previous studies by Geringer
that suggest performance and perception of intonation have a limited association.
110
depends on the ability to auralize pitches first; without the specific pitch in mind, the
performer cannot hope for proper intonation. Karpinski pithily terms this, No target, no
bulls eye.294 Elys study indicated that college training did not notably affect subjects
abilities to either play in tune or detect intonation deviations. The results were not
significantly changed between students in different years of study.295 They suggest that
much of the steep part of the learning curve [related to intonation] has already been
covered by the time these students commence the study of music at a university level.296
Karpinski offers a similar opinion, stating that musicians who have reached the
university, college, or conservatory level demonstrate only small improvements in
intonation skill.297 The assumption that intonational inaccuracies will simply improve
over time should be dispelled. A distinct plan should be employed to address the issue.
A study completed by Robert Douglas Greer in 1970 found that subjects performed best
at intonation tasks that involved their own instrument timbres. It indicated that
familiarity with the sound source plays an important role in pitch-matching tasks.298
Using the applied teacher as the sound source from which intonation drills can take place
not only supports Greers findings, but it also provides the student with the opportunity to
attempt to match the timbre of their instructor.
294
295
296
297
298
Robert Douglas Greer, The Effect of Timbre on Brass-Wind Intonation. In Edwin Gordon (Ed.)
Experiential Research in the Psychology of Music, 65-94. Iowa City: University of Iowa, (1970).
111
299
300
301
302
112
CHAPTER FOUR
ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS
Just over a decade ago Kate Covington wrote about finding an alternate approach
for aural skills training in an article for the Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy. In it she
made three assumptions about the purposes of aural training:
1) a sharp sense of aural acuity is necessary for a musician
2) this aural acuity can be developed and refined, increasing aural awareness and
therefore enabling a heightened sense of musical perception
3) a separate course for aural training is necessary.303
In regards to the third statement, Covington noted that while aural training should be
addressed in every component of the music curriculum: applied lessons; small and large
ensembles; conducting; written theory; music history; etc. the limited time often allotted
towards aural training activities in these other settings dictates that an additional separate
course should also be necessary. It is this authors opinion that the additional separate
course (the usual four semesters of classes) has become for many students the sole
experience of ear training pedagogy. Butler supports this, suggesting that many of the
faculty outside the theory/composition areas ... politely avoid getting actively engaged in
aural training.304
The author is aware that the method proposed in this document is really a bandaid affixed to a pre-existing wound. To prevent the injury occurring in the first place, one
would need to look at the way ear training is approached much earlier in a musicians
303
Covington, An alternate approach to aural training, Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy 6 (1992).
304
Butler, Gulf between music perception research and aural training, 42.
113
development, from their innate singing voice to the first time they lay their hands on an
instrument. Within a D.M.A. essay one cannot seek to argue against the public school
system of music education, but one can hope to show that therapies can be utilized to aid
recovery at the college level. Butler suggests that there needs to be a more collective
evaluation of ear training practices, saying If music educators dont take part ownership
of college-level aural training, how is this situation ever going to change?305 This author
strongly advocates the involvement of the private-lesson tutor in the solution. They are
the individual closely responsible for the students mastery of their instrument, and the
presented evidence would suggest that this is improbable, if not impossible, to achieve
without strong aural acuity.
The instrumental teacher must continually evaluate the careers that their students
are following, and the expectations of these trends. What skills must be instilled in a
freshman instrumentalist so that in four or five years time they are the best candidate for a
job? Butler states his expectation that the substratum of any competence will have at its
core an intrinsic and unbreakable link between music performance skill and music
listening skill.306
One of the areas the private lesson teacher spends most time instructing their
student is in providing models of effective practice techniques. Effective practice
depends on the performer having sufficient metacognitive and musical knowledge to
process what they hear.307 As such, appropriate aural schemata must have been
305
Butler, Gulf between music perception research and aural training, 43.
306
Butler, Gulf between music perception research and aural training, 44.
114
established in order to enable effective monitoring.308 Hallam goes as far as to say that it
is a role of teachers to ensure that their students acquire that relevant aural schemata.
One of the definite purposes of this method is to help the students establish life-long
practices with which they can approach new repertoire. By modeling and working
through ear training drills in the private lesson, it is hoped that the student will begin to
make standard the procedures, using them initially in the private practice, and eventually
one-day, to instruct other musicians. Ideally, this method and its approach will make
demonstrable that the reward for extensive training in aural skills is the enhanced control
of technique, and musicianship, during performance.309
307
Susan Hallam, The development of expertise of in young musicians: strategy use, knowledge
acquisition, and individual diversity, Music Education Research 3/1 (2001), 15.
308
Hallam, The development of expertise of in young musicians: strategy use, knowledge acquisition, and
individual diversity, 20.
309
115
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