The Routledge Companion to Aural Skills Pedagogy: Before, In, and Beyond Higher Education 9780367226893, 9780367715892, 9780429276392

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THE ROUTLEDGE COMPANION TO AURAL SKILLS PEDAGOGY

The Routledge Companion to Aural Skills Pedagogy offers a comprehensive survey of issues, practice, and current developments in the teaching of aural skills. The volume regards aural training as a lifelong skill that is engaged with before, during, and after university or conservatoire studies in music, central to the holistic training of the contemporary musician. With an international array of contributors, the volume captures diverse perspectives on aural skills pedagogy, and enables conversation between different regions. It addresses key new developments such as the use of technology for aural training and the use of popular music. This book will be an essential resource and reference for all university and conservatoire instructors in aural skills, as well as students preparing for teaching careers in music. Kent D. Cleland is Professor of Music Theory at the Baldwin Wallace University Conservatory of Music in Berea, Ohio (US). Paul Fleet is Senior Lecturer at Newcastle University (UK) with research expertise in music theory, analysis, and practice.

ROUTLEDGE MUSIC COMPANIONS

Routledge Music Companions offer thorough, high-quality surveys and assessments of major topics in the study of music. All entries in each companion are specially commissioned and written by leading scholars in the field. Clear, accessible, and cutting-edge, these companions are the ideal resource for advanced undergraduates, postgraduate students, and researchers alike. THE ROUTLEDGE COMPANION TO POPULAR MUSIC ANALYSIS Expanding Approaches Edited by Ciro Scotto, Kenneth Smith, and John Brackett THE ROUTLEDGE COMPANION TO THE STUDY OF LOCAL MUSICKING Edited by Suzel A. Reily and Katherine Brucher THE ROUTLEDGE COMPANION TO MUSIC COGNITION Edited by Richard Ashley and Renee Timmers THE ROUTLEDGE COMPANION TO SCREEN MUSIC AND SOUND Edited by Miguel Mera, Ronald Sadoff, and Ben Winters THE ROUTLEDGE COMPANION TO EMBODIED MUSIC INTERACTION Edited by Micheline Lesaffre, Pieter-Jan Maes, and Marc Leman THE ROUTLEDGE COMPANION TO MUSIC, TECHNOLOGY, AND EDUCATION Edited by Andrew King, Evangelos Himonides, and S. Alex Ruthmann THE ROUTLEDGE COMPANION TO SOUNDING ART Edited by Marcel Cobussen, Vincent Meelberg, and Barry Truax THE ROUTLEDGE COMPANION TO MUSIC AND VISUAL CULTURE Edited by Tim Shephard and Anne Leonard For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/Routledge-MusicCompanions/book-series/MUSCOMP

THE ROUTLEDGE COMPANION TO AURAL SKILLS PEDAGOGY Before, In, and Beyond Higher Education

Edited by Kent D. Cleland and Paul Fleet

First published 2021 by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2021 selection and editorial matter, Kent D. Cleland and Paul Fleet; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Kent D. Cleland and Paul Fleet to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-0-367-22689-3 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-367-71589-2 (pbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-27639-2 (ebk) Typeset in Bembo by Apex CoVantage, LLC

CONTENTS

Notes on Contributors Acknowledgments

ix xx

Overture Paul Fleet and Kent D. Cleland

1

INTERMEZZO 1

Terrain

7

1 The Terrain of Ear Training Across the Globe Paul Fleet 2 Aural Training Within an Integrated Approach to Musicianship Training Simon Parkin

9

26

INTERMEZZO 2

Theory and Curriculum: Methodologies for the Learning Space

33

Development of Listening Skills

35

3 The Seeing Ear: Toward a Rationale for Dictation Gary S. Karpinski

37

4 Attentional Control: A Perceptual Fundamental Timothy Chenette

47

5 Teaching Musical Analysis as an Aural Skill Martin Scheuregger

58

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Contents

Development of Reading Skills

77

6 Rethinking Integration in the Music Theory Curriculum Jeffrey Lovell

79

7 The Sing-and-Play Samantha M. Inman

99

8 Performing With Meaning: A Case Study in Aural Skills Curriculum Design Aimed at Improving Undergraduate-Performer Understanding of Pitch Function in Tonal Music Christopher Atkinson

113

INTERMEZZO 3

Teaching: Activities within the Learning Space 9 The Keyboard, a Constant Companion Justin Mariner and Peter Schubert

127 129

10 Pitch-Matching Issues in the Aural Skills Classroom Jennifer Beavers and Susan Olson

144

11 Teaching Aural Awareness in Hong Kong Primary Schools: Use of Drama Exercises Chi Ying Lam

165

12 A Good Pair of Ears: Conceiving of and Developing Aural Skills in Popular Music Education Bryden Stillie and Zack Moir

179

13 The Tortoise and the Magic Tree: Strategies to Develop Comprehensive and Holistic Music Analytical Listening Skills Through the Use of ‘Ghost Scores’ Anri Herbst 14 New Aural Pedagogy for the Twenty-First Century: Introducing a Course for Undergraduate Students at the Royal College of Music, London Miranda Francis

190

210

15 The Watchmaker’s Screwdriver: Aural Competence Christopher Price

222

16 The Nature of Aural Ability and Issues Relating to Its Assessment Colin Wright

270

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Contents INTERMEZZO 4

Transferring: Application outside of the Learning Space

285

17 The Kodály Philosophy: Contemporary Interpretations and Practices James Cuskelley

287

18 An Introduction to the Kodály Method: Credited by UNESCO as an Intangible Cultural Heritage Robin Harrison

298

19 The Solfège of Émile Jaques-Dalcroze John Robert Stevenson

306

20 Harmonic Schemas in Aural Skills Classes Crystal Peebles

320

21 Bending to Real Music: Harmonic Hearing in the Aural Skills Classroom Daniel B. Stevens, Philip Duker, and Jennifer Shafer

334

22 Musical Analysis and the (Re)Construction of a Habitus of Listening Jorge Alexandre Costa

351

INTERMEZZO 5

Techniques

385

Tonal

387

23 Finding Common Ground in the Do-/La-Minor Solfège Debate Nathan L. Lam

389

24 Teaching Improvisation: Starting Points Jena Root

402

25 Understanding Melodic Dictation via Experimental Methods David John Baker

414

Post-Tonal

425

26 Toward a New Pedagogy for Teaching the Reading of Atonal Melodies Kent D. Cleland

427

27 Your Teacher Cares if You Listen! Helping Students Analyze 12-Tone Compositions Without a Score Jenine Brown

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439

Contents INTERMEZZO 6

Technology

451

28 Technology Inside, Outside, and as the University Aural Skills Classroom Nathan Fleshner and Trevor de Clercq

453

29 Audit: The Development of a Web-Based Practice Tool for Individual Note Recognition in Consonant and Dissonant Piano Chords Jonathan Pitkin

462

The Future of Aural Training

473

Coda The Future of Aural Training: Clausula Vera (True Cadence) Paul Fleet and Kent D. Cleland

475

Index

483

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CONTRIBUTORS

Paul Fleet – Chapter 1: The Terrain of Ear Training Across the Globe Paul Fleet is Senior Lecturer at Newcastle University (UK) with research expertise in music theory, analysis, and practice. He has scholarship interests and publications in these areas as well as in popular music pedagogy and turn-of-the-twentieth-century composers such as Ferruccio Busoni, Amy Beach, and Rebecca Clarke. He has most recently been the Deputy Head of the School of Arts and Cultures, where he put into practice a set of email principles to enable a better work/life balance, led the project for a new media-rich academic website, and created a well-being structure that linked all members of staff and students with central and off-campus support. He has also been the Acting Deputy Director of Newcastle’s Business School, where he provided guidance and direction on Educational Quality Assurance, authored policies on marking and feedback, and implemented consistency principles for Boards of Examiners. Paul has led significant curriculum design and redesign as a director of excellence in learning and teaching, as a degree program director, and as a chair of board of studies. He has looked after and advised several educational partnerships, is an academic advisor to exam bodies, a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and is a QAA subject expert (music) and reviewer.

Simon Parkin – Chapter 2: Aural Training Within an Integrated Approach to Musicianship Training Simon Parkin is Deputy Head of Academic Studies at the Royal Northern College of Music (UK). He went to the Yehudi Menuhin School at the age of ten, where he trained as a pianist. At 17, he entered Manchester University and the RNCM as a composition student. Upon graduation he was invited onto the staff at RNCM, where he has taught a range of practically based subjects, including aural skills, improvisation, composition, and arranging. He is now overall coordinator for theory and musicianship at the RNCM and has also taught improvisation and composition at both the Menuhin and the Purcell music schools. He has developed his career as a duo pianist, has worked regularly with artists such as Ralph Kirshbaum, and has performed with a range of international artists at festivals and in recital. He is arranger-in-residence for the Manchester Camerata, and his work has featured in the commercial recordings of a number of international artists and ensembles, including Sheku Kanneh-Mason and Jess Gillam. His arrangements are published by Faber Music. He is currently Director of Concerts for the Manchester Midday Concerts Society.

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Gary S. Karpinski – Chapter 3: The Seeing Ear: Toward a Rationale for Dictation Gary S. Karpinski is Professor of Music at the University of Massachusetts Amherst (US). He has published articles on aural skills, music theory pedagogy, early twentieth-century music, and computer-assisted instruction in Music Theory Spectrum, Music Theory Online, The International Journal of Musicology, and The Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy. His book Aural Skills Acquisition is published by Oxford University Press. His textbooks are published by W. W. Norton: Manual for Ear Training and Sight Singing and Anthology for Sight Singing, which also include an extensive Instructor’s Dictation Manual, online student recordings, and an Instructor’s Anthology Search website. He was editor of the Festschrift for George Perle, published by Peter Lang. Karpinski is the founding director of the triennial Workshops in Music Theory Pedagogy and has served as President of the New England Conference of Music Theorists, as President of the Association for Technology in Music Instruction, and as Board Member for Music Theory in the College Music Society. He was Chair of the Society for Music Theory Pedagogy Interest Group and Chair of the SMT Mentoring Program. He also served on the editorial board for Music Theory Online and as reviews editor for the Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy.

Timothy Chenette – Chapter 4: Attentional Control: A Perceptual Fundamental Timothy Chenette is an assistant professor of music theory at Utah State University (US) where he teaches aural skills and music theory. His aural skills pedagogy research explores cognitive foundations and innovative methods, particularly how to teach the elusive skill of identifying chords within a progression. In addition to simply improving instruction, this research is inspired in part by a desire to make music teaching more inclusive, accessible, and creative. His pedagogy and early music research have been published in Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy, Music Theory Online, Early Music, College Music Symposium, and Engaging Students: Essays in Music Pedagogy.

Martin Scheuregger – Chapter 5: Teaching Musical Analysis as an Aural Skill Martin Scheuregger is a senior lecturer in music in the School of Fine and Performing Arts at the University of Lincoln (UK) where he leads the BA (Hons) Music program. He takes an interdisciplinary approach to research, combining musical analysis and composition as he explores notions of time and brevity in music. His current research is expanding on areas of his PhD thesis with an extensive study of the music of George Benjamin. His research into issues of temporality continue to develop, with current work focusing on approaches to musical stasis in analysis and composition. He completed a PhD at the University of York in 2015, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and supervised by Professor Tim Howell and Professor Thomas Simaku. In addition to work in music analysis, he is currently researching the role of composers in academia, focusing on methodologies of composition-based practice research and the role of verbal texts. In this he is investigating the interplay between autoethnographic, analytical, and other approaches, and more broadly examining the impact of neoliberal research cultures on research involving creative practice. He works in areas of public engagement, bringing together his expertise as a scholar and ensemble director to investigate new ways of effectively presenting contemporary music, in concerts, events, online, and in recordings. The AHRC-funded ‘Score to Sound’ project introduced audiences to contemporary British music through presentations, performances, and interviews, and with

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written and recorded material. His music has been performed in the UK, Australia, Hong Kong, Germany, and Holland, and in 2015 a new work was premiered at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, supported by Sound and Music. His music has been recorded by Dark Inventions and Percussing, and published by University of York Music Press.

Jeffrey Lovell – Chapter 6: Rethinking Integration in the Music Theory Curriculum Jeffrey Lovell is an associate professor of music at Lebanon Valley College (US), where he teaches courses in music theory and aural skills and is co-director of the college’s jazz ensembles. He holds degrees in music from Brigham Young University, Rutgers University, and the University of Oregon. His areas of specialization include music theory pedagogy and jazz analysis, and his research has been published in the Journal of Jazz Studies, Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy, and The New Grove Dictionary of American Music. From 2016 to 2019, he was the chair of the Pedagogy Interest Group, affiliated with the Society of Music Theory. Since 2018, he has served on the editorial board for the Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy. He is also active as a jazz pianist, saxophonist, and composer. His first album as a leader, Artifactual, was released by Vale Records in 2020 and can be heard on all major streaming services.

Samantha M. Inman – Chapter 7: The Sing-and-Play Samantha M. Inman is an assistant professor and the Coordinator of Music Theory at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas (US). She formerly taught at the University of North Texas, and she holds a PhD in music theory from the Eastman School of Music. Her research interests include form, Schenkerian analysis, and music theory pedagogy. She is particularly interested in eighteenth-century music, literature for wind ensemble, and contemporary worship music. She has presented at national and regional conferences, including the Society for Music Theory, Pedagogy into Practice, the Society for Christian Scholarship in Music, and the Texas Society for Music Theory. Her publications appear in Theory and Practice, the Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy, BACH: Journal of the Riemenschneider Bach Institute, and Haydn: The Online Journal of the Haydn Society of North America.

Christopher Atkinson – Chapter 8: Performing With Meaning: A Case Study in Aural Skills Curriculum Design Aimed at Improving Undergraduate-Performer Understanding of Pitch Function in Tonal Music Christopher Atkinson is a lecturer and serves as the Aural Skills Coordinator at the Royal Academy of Music, London (UK). He graduated in music from King’s College, Cambridge, in 1988 and then progressed to postgraduate clarinet performance studies at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester and the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hannover, with scholarships from the Countess of Munster Musical Trust and the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst. In Hannover, he studied for two years with renowned clarinet pedagogue Hans Deinzer. He then embarked on an international career as a freelance clarinetist, performing, recording, and broadcasting with ensembles such as the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and the London Festival Opera as a chamber musician and soloist, and also taught clarinet at Trinity College of Music Junior Department. He joined the Royal Academy of Music in 2006 as a lecturer in academic studies and gained his PhD in Musical Composition at Royal Holloway University of London in 2008. He took over the role of Aural Skills Coordinator at the Royal Academy in 2011 and co-hosted the Aural Skills Symposium

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there in 2017, which provided the inspiration for the present volume. He also teaches musical analysis and compositional techniques of the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European classical tradition, including fugue.

Justin Mariner and Peter Schubert – Chapter 9: The Keyboard, a Constant Companion Justin Mariner is an associate professor at McGill University’s Schulich School of Music (Canada), where he teaches undergraduate aural skills, theory, and keyboard. His work with Peter Schubert on the use of technology and improvisation in aural skills instruction is described in their article ‘New Frontiers in SmartMusicianship’ (Engaging Students 5, 2017) and their chapter ‘Speaking Music’ in The Routledge Companion to Music Theory Pedagogy (ed. Leigh VanHandel, 2020). His compositions have been performed in Canada, the United States, and Europe, and have been included in the Gaudeamus International Music Week, the Winnipeg New Music Festival, Cluster Festival, the Victoria Symphony Orchestra’s Reel Music project, and the Toronto International Film Festival. He has been commissioned to write pieces for the Via Salzburg Chamber Orchestra, the Ensemble contemporain de Montréal, the Société de musique contemporaine du Québec, Quatuor Bozzini, and Brigitte Poulin. Peter Schubert is a professor of music theory at McGill University’s Schulich School of Music (Canada). He studied with Nadia Boulanger and received his degrees from Columbia University. He taught at Barnard College for 20 years before moving to McGill’s Schulich School of Music in 1990. He has published two textbooks on counterpoint, Modal Counterpoint, Renaissance Style and Baroque Counterpoint (the latter with colleague Christoph Neidhöfer), and many articles on Renaissance music. He has also published several articles on music pedagogy (most recently a chapter called ‘Teaching Historical Counterpoint’ in the Norton Guide to Teaching Music Theory), and in 2019 he received The Gail Boyd de Stwolinski Prize for Lifetime Achievement in Music Theory Teaching and Scholarship. He conducts the Orpheus Singers of Montreal and recorded six CDs with VivaVoce, a professional vocal ensemble that he founded in 1998. He has recently posted instructional videos to YouTube: three on ‘contrapuntal thinking’ and 14 on Renaissance improvisation. In 2015 the Fourth Leipziger Improvisation Festival said ‘Peter Schubert gilt als großer Improvisations-Guru Nordamerikas.’

Jennifer Beavers and Susan Olson – Chapter 10: Pitch Matching Issues in the Aural Skills Classroom Jennifer Beavers is an associate professor of music theory at the University of Texas at San Antonio (US). Her primary research centers on the music of Maurice Ravel, in which she brings together modes of formal and harmonic analysis with timbre analysis, orchestration theory, neurology, and disability studies. Her secondary research is in music theory pedagogy, which combines her passion for teaching and research. She conducts empirical and qualitative research that has a direct impact on classroom experiences and how students create relevance between music theory and their professional musical lives. Her research appears in Music Theory Online, Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy, Journal of Music Teacher Education, Indiana Theory Review, and The Oxford Handbook of Public Music Theory. Susan Olson is an associate professor of voice at the University of Texas at San Antonio (US). She received her bachelor of music in vocal performance from Capital University Conservatory of Music and her master of arts in vocal pedagogy and doctor of musical arts in vocal performance from the Ohio State University. She has performed as soloist with the Passion of Italy Festival Choir, San Antonio Symphony Orchestra, Symphony of the Hills, Starlight Symphony, Monroe Symphony Orchestra, the Westerville Symphony Orchestra, and with many professional choral ensembles in her home state of Ohio.

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Chi Ying Lam – Chapter 11: Teaching Aural Awareness in Hong Kong Primary Schools: Use of Drama Exercises Chi Ying Lam is a musician-educator whose professional portfolio includes performance, composition, teaching, organizational development, event management, and research. She has performed across London, Rotterdam, and Hong Kong as a theatre musician and songwriter. She is the cofounder of The Listeners, an acoustic improvising contemporary music ensemble. The group explores the interaction between real-time collective improvisational artifacts and the sonic environment. She was an arts administrator and primary school music teacher before she started her doctoral study at Royal College of Music. Her primary research interest is community music practice development in school music education and the transferability of the practice to other professional domains, especially in NCS (non-Chinese speaking) language learning contexts.

Bryden Stillie and Zack Moir – Chapter 12: A Good Pair of Ears: Conceiving of and Developing Aural Skills in Popular Music Education Bryden Stillie is an associate professor in music and is the Head of Learning and Teaching in the School of Arts and Creative Industries at Edinburgh Napier University, Scotland. He graduated from the prestigious BA Applied Music program at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, in 1999, and has subsequently completed two PGCert qualifications – in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (2008) and Blended and Online Education (2017). He has worked as an external advisor and as an external examiner for a range of further, and higher, education providers and institutions in the UK, and as the Higher Education Specialist on the Scottish Qualifications Authority’s Qualification Design Team for Advanced Higher Music Technology. His teaching specialisms are in drum kit performance, music technology, music education, and musicianship skills. His research fields include developing new pedagogic approaches to teaching electronic and hybrid drum kit performance, exploring music student transitions from school, college, and industry into Higher Education, Popular Music Education, and using learning technologies to enhance the student learning experience. Zack Moir is an associate professor of music and the Director of the Applied Music Research Centre at Edinburgh Napier University, UK. His research interests are in popular music in higher education, popular music composition pedagogy, the links between music education and social justice, and real-time interactive networked music performance. Zack has published on the topics of popular music pedagogy, music in higher education, popular music making and leisure, popular music songwriting/composition, and long-distance real-time music performance. Zack is the lead editor of the Bloomsbury Handbook of Popular Music Education: Perspectives and Practices, and a co-editor of the Routledge Research Companion to Popular Music Education. Zack is also an active composer and musician performing as a soloist and in ensembles internationally. Recent composition works include pieces for saxophone and tape, solo cello, and a reactive generative sound art installation at the Edinburgh International Science Festival.

Anri Herbst – Chapter 13: The Tortoise and the Magic Tree: Strategies to Develop Comprehensive and Holistic Music Analytical Listening Skills Through the Use of ‘Ghost Scores’ Anri Herbst is an associate professor at the South African College of Music, University of Cape Town, and head of music education. As a DAAD scholarship holder, she researched aural perception for her PhD (1993). She has not only led several projects sponsored by the National Research Foundation in South Africa and the Harry Oppenheimer Memorial Trust but also founded the ISIaccredited Journal of the Musical Arts in Africa as Editor-in-Chief.

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Miranda Francis – Chapter 14: New Aural Pedagogy for the Twenty-First Century: Introducing a Course for Undergraduate Students at the Royal College of Music, London Miranda Francis is Head of Junior Programs and Area Leader for Aural Training at the Royal College of Music in London, where she teaches many undergraduate and postgraduate aural classes. She studied the double bass with Robin McGee and Organ with John Scott at the Royal Academy of Music, winning several academic prizes, including the May Turtle Prize for Outstanding Aural Perception. An experienced and enthusiastic music educator, Miranda has led music departments in several specialist music schools, including the Purcell School, where she founded the Jazz Department. She was also Principal Examiner of Music Performance at Advanced level for over 15 years, training examiners and leading teacher training courses. Miranda’s current research interests include performance assessment methods and comparative pedagogical approaches to aural training. A passionate advocate for music education for all, Miranda was awarded an ARAM in 2014 and an HonRCM in 2015 in recognition of her contribution to music education.

Chris Price – Chapter 15: The Watchmaker’s Screwdriver: Aural Competence Chris Price is Director of Music at Canterbury Christ Church University (UK) and a Tenor Lay Clerk in the Cathedral Choir at Canterbury. His specialist teaching areas include history and analysis of music of the tonal period; aural skills; conducting; the history, practice, and principles of church music; and the critical and analytical study of contemporary performing arts practitioners. Work with the cathedral choir has included recordings, BBC radio and TV broadcasts, and international tours, notably to the US, Holland, Italy, and Norway. He completed his PhD at Durham University on the Canterbury Catch Club, a musical society which met throughout the long nineteenth century in the city, which was published as a book by Cambridge Scholars Publishing, The Canterbury Catch Club: Music in the Frame, in 2019. He and some fellow Lay Clerks from the Cathedral Choir have given several performances of some of the repertoire at various venues, including local hostelries under authentic conditions and the more refined surroundings of the Cathedral Archives Reading Room. He is co-Director of the Snowdown Colliery Welfare Male Voice Choir.

Colin Wright – Chapter 16: The Nature of Aural Ability and Issues Related to Its Assessment Colin Wright is a freelance musician with a well-established reputation in the East Yorkshire (UK) area as an active practicing musician, particularly as organ recitalist. He was Assistant Organist at Beverley Minster from 1996 until 2010, where he recorded two CDs. He is currently Musical Director of the East Riding County Choir, and his book Aural Skills and the University Music Undergraduate was published in 2016.

James Cuskelly – Chapter 17: The Kodály Philosophy: Contemporary Interpretations and Practices James Cuskelly, OAM, is Music Teacher at St Joseph’s School, Stanthorpe, Queensland. He is Immediate Past President of the International Kodály Society, Director of the Summer School Music Program, and Director of the Cuskelly College of Music. James completed undergraduate studies and a Diploma of Education at the University of Queensland. The Kodály Certificate from Holy Names College (California) was awarded in 1991 and the master’s of music studies (The University

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of Queensland) in 1997. He gained PhD (The University of Queensland) in Music Education in 2007. He has taught in music education contexts: pre-school, primary, and secondary classrooms as well as in tertiary institutions. He was Head of Music Education and the Aural Musicianship Program at the University of Queensland from 2000 to 2010 and during that time received two awards for Excellence in Teaching. He is committed to teacher training in music education, and consequently, is frequently asked to lead workshops and in-service teacher training programs, including the Summer School Music Program (Brisbane) and programs in Malaysia, Hungary, Scotland, England, the USA, New Zealand, Indonesia, Thailand, and South Africa. James is well known as a global leader in terms of the Kodály philosophy of music education. He is also a highly regarded choral conductor and clinician: he is founding Director of the Queensland Kodály Choir and conductor of Valency Ensemble. He embodies Zoltan Kodály’s vision of allowing people of all abilities, ages, and backgrounds to access the best quality music. He has been involved in the Australian Kodály Summer Training Programs since their inception. He was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for service to music education in The Queen’s Birthday 2018 Honors List.

Robin Harrison – Chapter 18: An Introduction to the Kodály Method: Credited by UNESCO as an Intangible Cultural Heritage Dr. Robin Harrison currently works as a director of music at an independent school in the North East of the United Kingdom and teaches for the Royal College of Organists Academy and privately. He initially developed as an organist in the UK, studying at the Royal Northern College of Music, later gaining diplomas in organ, piano, composition, and singing. He then studied to become a teacher for children aged 11–18 as well as completing a PhD at the University of Wales Bangor in ‘The Late Style of Frank Bridge.’ He discovered the Kodály concept of teaching on returning to the UK after teaching for four years at the New Cairo British International School in Egypt. He immediately pursued courses via the British Kodály Academy and the National Youth Choir of Scotland. Robin used Kodály’s influence to create a structured, progressive approach to aural and musicianship training and developed a strong belief that there is no such thing as ‘can’ or ‘cannot’ when it comes to aural, but merely that different people are at different stages of their journey and that all can continuously further evolve their skills with a carefully crafted scheme of work. Robin teaches pupils from the age of four through to post-graduate with these principles in mind. His musical experience is broad, having been classically trained at a conservatoire, lived with tribes in Gambia and South Africa, performed as a jazz improviser and achieved highly in a global chart ranking, directed a highachieving Gospel-Rock-Pop choir, performed and coached in theatres for shows such as We Will Rock You and been a church musician all of his life. His composition commissions have taken him from the UK to the US.

John Robert Stevenson – Chapter 19: The Solfège of Émile Jaques-Dalcroze John R. Stevenson ( Jack) holds the Diplôme Superior and License Jaques-Dalcroze from the Institut Jaques-Dalcroze in Geneva, Switzerland, and a BM in piano performance from Duquesne University (US). He has taught and certified teachers in the Jaques-Dalcroze Method for over 45 years. He founded and for 12 years directed the Dalcroze Studies Institute at Ithaca College, School of Music, where he founded and directed the ensemble Plastique Animé, which toured throughout Europe and the Americas. He has also taught on Jaques-Dalcroze at the Laval University in Quebec and St. Laurence College in Montreal, and chaired the Department of Performing Arts at The Spence School in New York City. In addition, he has served and continues to serve as guest faculty in eurhythmics, music education, piano improvisation, solfége, and choreography at colleges and universities, including the Institut Jaques-Dalcroze, Geneva, Switzerland; Oberlin Conservatory of Music; The

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Royal Conservatory of Toronto; Carnegie-Mellon University; and Bien Music Conservatory, Bien, Switzerland. He is the founder and now retired director of The Bethlehem Music Settlement in Bethlehem, PA, offering private and group piano, voice, theory, Dalcroze Eurhythmics, Solfége, and Improvisation programs. Jack is currently co-directing the Institute for Jaques-Dalcroze Education, LLC in Bethlehem, PA, where he trains Jaques-Dalcroze teachers. He has authored several articles and co-authored the text Rhythm and Pitch: An Integrated Approach to Sightsinging, published by Prentice-Hall. His most recent publication is the ebook Pursuing A Jaques-Dalcroze Education – Solfège, Volume I, available on iBooks in the iTunes store. His awards include the Premiere Prix en Pedagogy from the Institut Jaques-Dalcroze; the Zuckerman Foundation Award for teaching excellence at the Spence School; and the Dana Teaching Fellowship from Ithaca College for his ‘outstanding contribution to higher education’.

Crystal Peebles – Chapter 20: Harmonic Schemas in Aural Skills Classes Crystal Peebles is an associate professor of music theory at Ithaca College (US). Her teaching interests include music courses for non-majors, service-learning experiences in the Music Theory classroom, and introductory courses in Aural Skills and Music Theory. She has published her work in Music Theory Online, Engaging Students, and The Proceedings of Bridges, a conference that explores the intersection of mathematics and the arts.

Daniel B. Stevens, Philip Duker, and Jennifer Shafer – Chapter 21: Bending to Real Music: Harmonic Hearing in the Aural Skills Classroom Daniel B. Stevens is Associate Professor of Music at the University of Delaware (US). He has published numerous articles and resources on music pedagogy and assessment in the Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy, Engaging Students: Essays in Music Pedagogy, and the Journal of Performing Arts Leadership in Higher Education. These publications provide new approaches to aural skills and analysis that fuse student-centered pedagogy and assessment with creative thinking and listening. Stevens performs regularly as a pianist and chamber musician. His essay, ‘Rhythm and the Performer’s Body,’ appears in The Oxford Handbook of Music and the Body. Philip Duker is Associate Professor of Music at the University of Delaware (US). His current research focuses on pedagogy, aesthetics, and repetition in twentieth-century music. He has published articles in Perspectives of New Music, Music Theory Online, and GAMUT. In addition to being one of the coordinating editors for Engaging Students: Essays in Music Pedagogy, he is the director of the Institute for Transforming University Education at the University of Delaware. Jennifer Shafer is Assistant Professor of Music at the University of Delaware (US). Her two main research interests are mathematics and computation in music and music theory pedagogy. She has presented her work at regional and national music theory conferences, national music theory pedagogy conferences, and a national computer science education conference. Jennifer has also published in and served on the editorial board of Engaging Students and has a co-authored publication in the proceedings of the 2020 Technical Symposium of the Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education.

Jorge Alexandre Costa – Chapter 22: Musical Analysis and the (Re)Construction of a Habitus of Listening Jorge Alexandre Costa is a professor of music at the School of Higher Education of the Polytechnic Institute of Porto (Portugal). He completed his music studies in the Music Conservatory of Porto (1988), in the College of Music and Performing Arts of the Polytechnic Institute of Porto (1990),

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and in the Communication and Art Department of University of Aveiro (1995). In 2000 he earned a master’s in educational sciences at the Institute of Psychology and Educational Sciences of University of Minho (Portugal) and, in 2009, a doctorate in sociology of education at the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences of University of Porto (Portugal). Currently, he coordinates the master’s degree program in Music Teaching and is a lecturer of Aural Training and Music Theory in the Music and Drama Department of the School of Education of the Polytechnic Institute in Porto. He is a founding member of CIPEM (Research Centre for Psychology of Music and Music Education) and part of the investigation team of several research projects sponsored by FCT (Foundation for Science and Technology from the Portuguese Ministry of Education). He is author and coauthor of several projects aiming for the promotion of the work of Portuguese composers. He has collaborated with the Culture Department of the municipality of Matosinhos in music programming since 2010.

Nathan L. Lam – Chapter 23: Finding Common Ground in the Do-/La-Minor Solfège Debate Nathan L. Lam is a music theorist from Brisbane, Australia, and currently holds the position of Lecturer in Composition and Theory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (US). His research examines the compositional use and perception of diatonic modes through different lenses, including mathematical music theory, historical music theory, and solfège. His PhD dissertation (2019 Indiana University) explores the reemergence of diatonic modes in Western art music ca. 1800–1950, and he has presented at regional, national, and international conferences, including Society of Music Theory meetings. Nathan’s 2017 paper ‘Relative diatonic modality’ on la-minor solfège and English pastoral music won the Dorothy Payne Award. Other research interests of his include pentatonicism, canons, and musical symmetry. Putting theory into practice, Nathan also composes in his spare time. An upcoming CD album will include his solo and chamber works informed by his theoretical research.

Jena Root – Chapter 24: Teaching Improvisation: Starting Points Jena Root is Professor of Music and Music Theory Coordinator for the Dana School of Music at Youngstown State University in Ohio (US). Her service in higher education has spanned more than 25 years in the music theory and aural skills classroom, including positions at Shenandoah Conservatory, Syracuse University, Yong Siew Toh Conservatory at the National University of Singapore, and St. Olaf College. Her teaching interests include improvisation, technology for theory and ear training practice, and the integration of popular music and music by women into the undergraduate theory core. She is the author of Applied Music Fundamentals: Writing, Singing, and Listening (Oxford University Press) and Applied Music Theory: A Practical Guide for Writing, Listening, and Understanding (OUP, forthcoming). Her work has also appeared in the Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy and The Routledge Companion to Music Theory Pedagogy. She has presented papers at the Advanced Placement (AP) National Conference, College Music Society National Conference, Society for Music Theory (SMT) National Conference, Association for Technology in Music Instruction (ATMI), and the Ann Arbor Symposium. Jena has served as Resources Editor for the Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy, and is also an active composer.

David John Baker – Chapter 25: Understanding Melodic Dictation via Experimental Methods David John Baker is a music researcher and educator who is passionate about questions at the intersection of music and science. His research seeks to understand how computational musicology and cognitive psychology can explore how music can be used to learn about how people think. He

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Contributors

formerly worked as a Lecturer at Louisiana State University, and as Lead Instructor of Data Science at Flatiron School in London, England. Prior to working at Flatiron, he worked on music industry projects as a data scientist and volunteered in the charity sector.

Kent D. Cleland – Chapter 26: Toward a New Pedagogy for Teaching the Reading of Atonal Melodies Kent D. Cleland is Professor of Music Theory at the Baldwin Wallace University Conservatory of Music in Berea, Ohio, (US). His research interests include aural skills pedagogy and the application of Bergsonian Temporalism to musical transformation. He is the co-author of an aural skills textbook, Developing Musicianship through Aural Skills, published by Routledge and currently in its second edition. He is also the creator of a dictation drill application for iOS devices called Dr. C’s Music Theory Suite, and he maintains a YouTube channel, Dr. C’s Music Theory Land, which provides instructional video lectures on basic topics in music theory. Kent is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (UK).

Jenine Brown – Chapter 27: Your Teacher Cares if You Listen! Helping Students Analyze 12-Tone Compositions Without a Score Jenine Brown (PhD in Music Theory, Eastman School of Music) is Assistant Professor of Music Theory at the Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University (US), where she teaches core ear-training courses. Her research on hearing post-tonal music has been published in Music Theory Spectrum, Music Perception, and the Journal of New Music Research. She has presented related experimental findings at conferences, including the biennial meeting of the Society for Music Perception and Cognition, the International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition, the annual meeting of the Association for Psychological Science, and the annual meeting of Music Theory Midwest. Brown’s writings on aural skills pedagogy can be read in the Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy and Engaging Students: Essays in Music Pedagogy. Other research projects include collaborations with colleagues at her institution; these are published in Frontiers in Psychology and Research Studies in Music Education. She has served on the Society for Music Theory’s program committee for the 2020 annual conference. She is also secretary for the Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic (2018–2022) and previously served as SMT statistician (2017–2019).

Nathan Fleshner and Trevor de Clercq – Chapter 28: Technology Inside, Outside, and as the University Aural Skills Classroom Nathan Fleshner (PhD Eastman) is Assistant Professor of Music Theory at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (US). His research focuses on the portrayal of mental illness, trauma, and the psychoanalytic process in music as well as popular music and the use of iPad apps for theory pedagogy and music cognition. He has presented papers at national and international music analysis conferences and in other disciplines, including the Second International Conference on Music and Consciousness in Oxford, England, and the Trauma and the Medical Humanities Conference in Durham, England. His research has been published in multiple journals and the edited volumes, Music Video Games: Performance, Politics, and Play, The Oxford Handbook of Hip Hop Studies, and For the Sake of the Song: Essays on Townes Van Zandt (forthcoming). He authors the column, ‘Do You Hear That Too? Music and the Medical Humanities’ for the website, The Polyphony, associated with the Institute for the Medical Humanities at Durham University, UK. The column explores musicians and their music through the lens of mental health and the broader field of medicine, including analyses of specific works,

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Contributors

interviews with musicians and health professionals, and other columns on connections between fields of music and medicine. Trevor de Clercq is Associate Professor in the Department of Recording Industry at Middle Tennessee State University (US), where he coordinates the musicianship curriculum and teaches coursework in audio theory and music technology. His research focuses on the ways in which contemporary popular music departs from traditional theoretical frameworks developed primarily within the context of common-practice-era music, especially as shown through empirical methods. His Nashville Number System Fake Book, which includes charts for 200 acclaimed country songs, was published in 2015 by Hal Leonard. He holds a PhD in music theory from the Eastman School of Music.

Jonathan Pitkin – Chapter 29: Audit: The Development of a Web-Based Practice Tool for Individual Note Recognition in Consonant and Dissonant Piano Chords Jonathan Pitkin is a composer and a member of the professorial staff of the Royal College of Music, London, where his teaching responsibilities encompass composition, orchestration and academic studies at various levels. His creative research interests revolve predominantly around areas of overlap between composition and music psychology, particularly where these concern the workings of listener expectations, or the creation of illusions of one kind or another. His compositions include works that have been broadcast by BBC Radio 3 and published by Oxford University Press; his published writings include contributions to the SAGE Encyclopedia of Music in the Social and Behavioral Sciences (2014).

xix

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Kent and Paul would like to thank all the educators around the globe who contribute to the lifelong learning of ear training, and this thank you is inclusive of all people, places, musics, and levels of education. Throughout the writing and editing of this book we have kept in mind the reason we teach aural skills: it is to continue the joy of inclusivity through music. From an early age, when as children we sang with our parents, peers, or stereos (giving away our age here!) with full hearts and such innocence, we were part of the practice and not the product of music. We would ask that anyone reading this book take a moment to think about those who have instilled in them the love of repeating a simple musical melody or rhythm that enabled them to ‘join in.’ And if we should ever forget the importance of inclusivity regardless of ability, we should remember possibly the largest aural training event in history that took place on 13 July 1985 with one of the world’s greatest showman educators (see https://bit.ly/2ORPc71). We would also like to particularly thank Christopher Atkinson, who started the conversation by organizing an aural skills symposium at the Royal Academy of Music in April 2017, and who has supported this book as an outgrowth of that symposium. Kent would like to thank our contributors: I went from casually knowing a few of you, to having a network of colleagues and friends around the world who share a passion for good teaching and for making music. I would especially like to thank Paul for being an amazing collaborator on this book: for his keen sense of humor and good spirit (especially during the ‘hiccups’ a project of this scope always entails), for his amazing vision of the big picture and the possibilities, and for his friendship. Of course, a project like this doesn’t happen without the assistance of the kind people at Routledge, many of whom remain behind the curtain even for us. Our contacts, Genevieve Aoki and Shannon Neill, have been essential guides who have helped us shepherd this book through the entire process, from idea to publication and through unimaginable upheavals. To my teachers – the formal ones like Allyn Reilly, David Baker, and Larry Hartzell, who taught me how to teach music, and the informal ones, my students, who continually teach me how and why to teach music – I am forever grateful. Finally, to my family – Karen, Chloe, Larkin, and Puma – who provide never-ending support, perspective, and love, I couldn’t have done this without any of you. Paul would like to thank Kent; now this would seem to be an obvious thank you for an acknowledgment page in a co-edited book, but I would like to underscore the support and collegiality that Kent has enabled throughout this process. I am delighted to say that Kent has gone from being someone I met at a conference to someone I thoroughly enjoy working with – to a friend who never forgets to send me a Christmas card. I would also like to thank each and every contributor for

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Acknowledgments

their patience in our editorial process; you have made this book the statement piece we had hoped it would become during our planning process. To David Murray, Paul Templeman, and David Gledhill, as my early musical educators who never made me feel stupid when I was beginning my ear-training journey, and to the peer with perfect pitch who sat next to me in an aural class and was simply bored by the process while I failed at transcribing the tone-row from scratch, I thank you for one of my ‘educational eurekas’ as I experienced first hand the importance of pedagogical differentiation in an ear-training session. Finally, and by no means least, I thank my family for supporting me in my grumpy moments where work spilled over into life and it took a while to get my ‘head out of the shed’ – Nathalie, Belle, and Evan, you are my world.

xxi

OVERTURE

It has been over 20 years since the publication of Gary S. Karpinski’s landmark Aural Skills Acquisition (Karpinski, 2000). That work remains a seminal work in the field of aural-skills pedagogy, as evidenced by its ongoing number of citations, including in the chapters of this book. What made that book stand out among the many publications concerning ear training was that it focused on the pedagogy; it was not a manual nor a curriculum rich with musical examples. The field of Aural-Skills Pedagogy, however, has grown significantly in those 20 years. Lines of research suggested in Karpinski’s book have been further developed, and new lines of research have arisen. It seems like it is time for another overview of where the field stands in relation to the practice of ear training before, in, and beyond higher education. That was the situation in April 2017, when Christopher Atkinson of the Royal Academy of Music, London (RAM), organized a one-day symposium dedicated to the latest research and pedagogical innovations in aural-skills pedagogy. Entitled ‘Aural Skills Pedagogy: What is to be done?’, the symposium featured eight presentations on a variety of topics followed by a round-table discussion on the current state of aural-skills teaching in the United Kingdom and the United States. It sought to advance cooperation, collaboration, and the sharing of ideas in the field (see the program in Figure 0.1). Many participants expressed a strong desire to continue the discussion and to preserve the presentations delivered that day. That desire was the genesis for this work. Atkinson graciously gave us his blessing to build on the spirit of the symposium and organize the forces to produce the present volume. We started with five of the presentations from the RAM symposium,1 asking the authors to adapt (and, in some cases, expand) their presentations for inclusion in this book. We then put out a global call for proposals, which was enthusiastically answered. We soon found ourselves reading abstracts from all over the world on a variety of topics in aural-skills pedagogy. Once the selection process was completed, we were delighted that these contributors represented five continents and a wide variety of approaches and topics in aural-skills pedagogy (see Figure 0.2). We have tried to select a mixture of topics that address the theoretical, the pedagogical, and the practical, so that you might finish this book not only with a list of new techniques to try in your classroom but also with the germ of an idea or two to turn into a research project. And this is an important point: the book you are reading is not an ear-training manual. It is a companion to ear training, so while a chapter may provide case studies of good practice, these are not the sole contents of the chapters. Where case studies and ideas are presented, they are all underpinned by and framed alongside research-driven methodologies.

1

Overture

Figure 0.1 Program from the Aural Skills Pedagogy: What is to be done? Symposium. Source: The Royal Academy of Music, 7 April 2017.

As the final drafts of the individual chapters were coming in, two significant events began to have a dramatic effect on the work for this volume. First, Philip Ewell gave a plenary address at the Society for Music Theory National Conference in Columbus, Ohio, in which he asked practitioners of music theory to become aware of and expand beyond the field’s traditional white racial frame. This was followed soon after by social unrest, sparked by the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota, which led to worldwide demonstrations aimed toward recognizing and correcting socially ingrained inequities with how non-white people are treated and educated in Western societies.

2

3

Geographic distribution of contributors to this volume.

Source: From the authors.

Figure 0.2

Overture

Overture

Second, the world began to shut down due to the emergence of the COVID-19 virus, with many of our contributors coming from places that were identified as ‘hot spots,’ and virtually all of us having to quickly adjust our teaching from traditional, in-classroom teaching to remote instruction and in some cases a mixture of both. As a result of both of these events, many of us were suddenly finding ourselves rethinking and reworking the way that we deliver instruction to our students. As editors, the question of relevance became all the more important: would this book, as it was conceived, still be relevant across decolonized curricula and in a post-COVID world where musical performance, singing, and in-person musical activities were being reconsidered? Would the field still look the same? Would the techniques we use to teach, and the philosophies that inform them, still apply? Although a few of the authors address these issues in their chapters, these forces really began to take hold after much of the research work had already been done. While we went into this project with a conscious desire to be inclusive and expansive with the selection of contributors – we had sought out authors who wrote on using literatures beyond the traditional European Classical tradition and who described techniques and perspectives that are applicable to a wide variety of musics, and we consciously pursued participation by authors from as wide a geographic distribution as we could – this book still finds its genesis in the belief structures and status quo of a pre-George Floyd/pre-COVID-19 world. However, it is also because of this book’s broad focus – a mixture of philosophies of pedagogy, best practices, and calls for expanding into new techniques and pedagogies – that we feel that this book, and the excellent scholarship that it contains, remains relevant. Many of the chapters express ideas and pedagogies that, with a little imagination, are expandable into wider literatures, while others approach the teaching of aural skills as a humanity: a common language that unites because of music’s ubiquity in human culture. A quick reading of the table of contents shows a tremendous breadth of topics to be found within. For example, modern interpretations of long-established methodologies are described in Jack Stevenson’s and Robin Harrison’s chapters on Dalcroze and Kodály techniques, respectively. The use of state-of-the-art technological tools are described in the chapter by Nathan Fleshner and Trevor de Clerq and the chapter by Jonathan Pitkin. Justifications, dispositions, and methodologies for approaching hearing skills (dictation) are addressed by Gary S. Karpinski, Martin Scheuregger, and Timothy Chenette. Harmonic hearing through literature-based approaches are addressed by Crystal Peebles and Daniel Stevens, Philip Duker, and Jennifer Shafer. The use of the keyboard in the aural-skills classroom is covered in a chapter by Samantha Inman and a chapter by Peter Schubert and Justin Mariner. Tonal function is addressed by Chris Atkinson. Issues of relevance and integration permeate the chapters, with special emphasis to be found in chapters by Jeffrey Lovell, Simon Parkin, Miranda Francis, Christopher Price, Jorge Costa, and Colin Wright. While there is an emphasis on the traditional art music literature, Bryden Stillie and Zack Moir make the case for how aural skills in popular music education differs, and Anri Herbst uses local folk music to discuss pedagogies for teaching listening skills. Post-tonal techniques are covered in chapters from Kent D. Cleland and Jenine Brown. Vocal production is covered by Jennifer Beavers and Susan Olson. Teaching improvisation is addressed in the chapter from Jena Root. While most of the chapters focus on aural training at the postsecondary or higher education level, the book’s scope is broadened by Chi Ying Lam’s chapter on using dramatic play to raise aural awareness in early education in Hong Kong. Techniques for listening analytically are covered in chapters by Martin Scheuregger and Jorge Costa. Finally, it wouldn’t be an aural-skills book without addressing the ongoing discussion of syllable systems, found in the chapter written by Nathan L. Lam. Certain themes run through and between this breadth of topics. For example, curriculum development runs through several chapters, as do the topics of harmonic hearing, improvisation, embodiment, assessment, and linking hearing with understanding. Several chapters take the long view of the development of aural skills, pointing out how things have changed over the course of the authors’

4

Overture

careers. Throughout the book, one finds an almost constant concern with the relevance of what we, as aural skills teachers, do, and whether the skills we teach our students will be relevant in their careers as professional musicians. Ultimately, our aim with this project is to broaden the question of the original symposium: ‘What is to be done?’ and to begin to seek answers. We can only do this if we know the field as it stands upon asking the questions, and Paul Fleet begins the journey by investigating the terrain of ear training across the globe. This helps us with such questions as ‘What is being done?,’ ‘How do we know that it’s working?,’ and even ‘Why do we do what we do?’ With one such book end (or book start, if you will) in place, we have taken the liberty of proposing a course of action at the end of the book. The true cadence, the clausaula vera, is where we do not just summarize the findings of our chapters but also create a common practice (to be understood in both a discipline- and non-discipline-specific manner) stopping point for us all to consider where we were and are with our respective ideas and concerns for the field of aural skills. To help us then move toward this, we have written a kind of ‘manifesto’ or ‘call to action’ that makes suggestions for how we, as practitioners of a common field, can collectively improve the discipline for the next 20 years (or longer) by using research and promoting collaboration on a broad scale. We hope, therefore, that you enjoy this volume in the spirit in which it was created: for the promotion of the theory, methodologies, research, and critical thinking alongside aural case studies – and that you regard it as a valuable companion on your academic journey as an educator and/or vested educatee through the lifelong skill of ear training.

Note 1. The other three presenters, who were unable to participate in this project because of prior commitments, gave excellent presentations that we recommend you look up once they reach publication.

5

INTERMEZZO 1

Terrain

The word ‘terrain’ refers literally to the defining characteristics of a stretch of land. Metaphorically, it refers to the defining characteristics of something being described. In the case of aural skills, it can have multiple meanings: (1) the mechanical characteristics of curricula and practice; or (2) the psychological space of how aural skills are conceived in the mechanical arena. The opening section of this book is devoted to looking at the terrain of aural skills pedagogy from both perspectives. Paul Fleet begins with a meta-examination of the typical place of auralskills instruction in curricula throughout the English-speaking world. He examines when aural-skills instruction typically starts and how long it typically continues in various types of institutions as well as how often aural-skills instruction is combined or integrated with other theoretical and musical instruction. These elements will inform, as will the following chapters, the coda to this book, where a design for the future of aural training will be proposed. Simon Parkin follows with an examination of the psychological space of aural skills in the curriculum, providing an engaging look at how current practices have evolved over a career that has spanned several decades. Ultimately, his chapter is a story of a search for relevance, and a description of how his institution, and many others, have similarly sought to increase the relevance of aural skills instruction and what concrete steps these institutions took (and are taking) to pursue this goal. In many ways, the remainder of this book continues an examination of these foundational themes, as relevance is an ideal that most of the authors in this collection seek. They have been successfully finding creative and innovative ways to do so within the mechanical constraints of the higher education curriculum and the amount of ‘space’ that it allots to aural skills instruction.

1 THE TERRAIN OF EAR TRAINING ACROSS THE GLOBE Paul Fleet

Introduction The title of this chapter is a remarkably lofty one, and one that I acknowledge suggests more than it can deliver. However, such a bold statement is needed – and particularly within this volume. At the close of the Royal Academy of Music Aural Skills Pedagogy Symposium (2017) the vested parties sat in a circle and shared ideas of what to do next after hearing, discussing, and questioning the informative papers that had been presented (to note, one of those ideas was this volume). Those speaking in this circle-of-trust included educators from North America, Canada, Europe, Australia, and the United Kingdom from middle-school, high school, college, university, and conservatoire institutions. We found much in common from our respective global and educational areas, and while one would expect such collegiality from a group of invested people who had all made the effort to gather together to discuss the value of ear training, what surprised us most of all was the level of detail in our commonalities. We agreed that ear training was an essential part of musicianship – of course, we would, wouldn’t we? But we also agreed that it was not equally represented either in music education or when compared to other essential skills of musicianship. To quote Christopher Small – which no self-respecting book on the understanding of music can nor should avoid: ‘[I]t is possible to do too much study of scores and not enough listening; a symphony is, after all, primarily an aural experience.’ (1998, 171). An anecdote was told during this final session of the symposium of the student who is practicing for their performance grade. Two weeks before the exam, the educator reminds the student that ear training will be part of the test and suggests that they should run through some examples together. On hearing this story, we shook our heads in communal frustration at its familiarity, and agreed that two weeks is not enough time to build in the ability nor the competency for many students to do more than just pass the test and instead be able to demonstrate the skill. In this moment, we were not pointing fingers at any particular exam body (as all learning bodies that we have been involved with as educators recognize the value of ear training); neither were we pointing any fingers at instrumental tutors (as many of us owe our passion for music education from these educators). What we were doing is reminding ourselves that the value of ear training can be regarded as something adjunct to the learning experience, and shouldn’t we as those vested in ear-training pedagogy critically challenge this and provide some solutions? We agreed that not only was ear training not given enough space in educational curricula, but it was also not recognized proportionally in the academic journey toward professional musicianship.

9

Paul Fleet

No one present in that room in London, nor would we suggest anyone involved in music education, believes that aural skills are something that can be learned in a semester or even on completion of a program of study. Ear training is a lifelong skill. Just as the acquisition and use of language is a lifelong skill, so is the ability to listen to sounds being produced and recognize and understand them. First as sounds; then as forming some type of hegemonic or self-organizing collections of tones; to becoming identifiable as individual elements within a recognizable structure; moving toward the ability to retain and then recollect elements that share properties and codes across and between musical experiences; to the point of correct identification of elements; before reaching the skill of reproduction of those elements inside or outside of a musical context and either sung or notated. While this is an unashamedly structuralist reading of the process of ear training, the relationship between the musical signifier and the signified (Agawu, 1991; Nattiez, 1990; Tagg, 2012) is a useful way of thinking about the lifelong journey of developing aural skills. We might even relate this to the stages of pedagogical standard in Bloom’s taxonomy (Biggs & Tang, 2011, 124), where the musician undertaking ear training encounters learning objectives that enable her or him to move from remembering sounds, to understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, to finally critically creating them. Perhaps this is where the problem lies: how do we co-create a curriculum that speaks to the lifelong journey of a skill that is taught at various stages of education, across varying institutions across the globe, and undertaken by students with varying abilities upon joining each stage of the designed learning journey at that particular institution? This does seem like an impossible task, and are the disconnections in the mapping of the educational journey to the institution to the individual musician something that we cannot ever address?1 But none of us in that room felt that way. We all believed that co-creation and sharing of ideas could tackle some of these issues and prevent the time-worn position of blaming the prior institution for not preparing the student to the appropriate standard required by the current institution. Such an excuse is not good enough, nor even correct to voice. I am minded to compare it, for dramatic effect if nothing else, to the plumber who looks at your central heating system before saying “tut-tut” and asking who was the person that installed such a badly functioning device. It is a dislocation of blame and does not address what, in a solution-finding approach, could be done to better the situation for the benefit of the student. So how do we test these two positions – that ear training does not get the space it requires in a curriculum, and it is unhelpfully compartmentalized by educational qualification levels that do not match the differing entry points of the students – and discover whether what we unpacked during that conference is more than a collective consciousness during a moment in time and instead nearer the truth about the field of ear training? If we can do that, then we would have a surer footing on which to address and offer solutions to these concerns. One way of investigating is to adopt a particular mode of enquiry: the scientific model. This is something that many of us grew up with at school and is almost as old the practice of research itself. While there are many versions on what constitutes a ‘scientific method,’ we would hope that the majority of our readership would recognize and feel comfortable with the following pattern as it progresses through the various subheadings in this chapter. But before we begin, I might need to defend the position of adopting an overly scientific method in a humanities discipline. I would counter this potential claim by suggesting that what we are trying to uncover does need some assistance from a more quantitative field, given that we are testing a hypothesis. Further, the field of scientific methodology is not as rigid to qualitative inquiry as the unhelpful binarism between science and humanities may be understood, even within a populist readings of the terms. One of my favorite recruitment campaigns by a university expressed the need for a balanced academic inquiry. The University of Utah in 2012 produced a poster: ‘Science can tell you how to clone a Tyrannosaurus Rex, Humanities can tell you why this might be a bad idea.’2 Such humor aside, it is worth reminding ourselves that ‘despite its rigid structure, the scientific method still depends on the most human capabilities: creativity, imagination, and intelligence; and without these, it cannot exist.’ Castillo (2013, 1669).

10

Ear Training Across the Globe

With this now all said, let us begin with the first part of the inquiry into the terrain of ear training across the globe.

Define Purpose As was discussed in that symposium of 2017 during and between the sessions, aural/ear training is often considered to be the ‘poor cousin’ of music theory. To be clear we are not talking about the objectivist problem of ear training that Covington and Lord (1994) discuss, where a distinct set of facts and skills are tested in the classroom (e.g., identify the interval of a major seventh) without reference to the ‘real music’ of the professional musician [see in this book the chapters by Atkinson, Parkin, and Francis, who address this very issue]. Instead, we are talking about its place in the curricula of music education. The purpose of this investigation is to test whether there are commonalities in the delivery of ear-training curricula across the levels of education at a global level. These terms will of course need to be further defined, but for the moment the purpose is to understand if those connections shared at the symposium can be regarded as being representative of ear training in education in general, and if so, how we might understand those shared elements for the benefit of its Theory and Curriculum: Methodologies for the Learning Space, Teaching: Activities within the Learning Space, Transferring: Applications outside the Learning Space, Techniques both tonal and post-tonal, and in its Technology, all of which are the chapter sections that are integral parts of this companion.

Construct Hypothesis Any testing of a hypothesis, let alone the two we are about to formalize, is remarkably problematic when considering a global landscape and the various stages of an educational journey. But we do need to try, so let us put these elements on separate axes. What should we understand by global in terms of ear training for the first axis? While it would be interesting, it would be beyond the realm of useful through variance to consider each country on the planet. So instead, if we move up a stage to continent, and then cross-reference with locations that were not only represented by their citizens at the symposium but also those that are commonly understood as having long-standing related educational systems from middle school to Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), then we find ourselves with the following list: United States of America, Canada, United Kingdom, Western and Central Europe, and Australia. With this regional axis now defined, we can consider what should be understood by levels of education for its complementary axis. There is a remarkable difference in educational systems and structures within each of the global locations. For example, given its size, in the United States of America each state has its own educational framework; and each of the four countries that make up the United Kingdom have different educational curricula depending upon the average common age of the student (HMC, unknown). So what do we use? We must define the use for the data in reference to its own boundaries and in this sense for ear training before, in, and beyond higher education. For that, we can usefully employ the European Qualifications Framework (EQF) as a common model. The EQF divides the stages of learning into eight levels under the guidance that they are ‘a set of descriptors indicating the learning outcomes relevant to qualifications at that level in any qualification system’ (European_Union, unknown). By unpacking these descriptors with their learning outcomes, we can then map them against the various educational levels that are represented in our understanding of the previously defined global locations. The EQF is therefore an adaptable model that speaks to the various qualifications across our identified regions because of the commonality to be found in the definitions of the descriptors. The descriptors of knowledge, skills, responsibility, and autonomy that are allocated to an EQF level are allocated to the levels of education across all of our surveyed institutions in Table 1.1.

11

Comprehensive, specialized, factual and theoretical knowledge within a field of work or study and an awareness of the boundaries of that knowledge.

Knowledge of facts, principles, processes, and general concepts, in a field of work or study.

3

5

Basic factual knowledge of a field of work or study.

2

Factual and theoretical knowledge in broad contexts within a field of work or study.

Basic general knowledge.

1

4

Knowledge

EQF Level

12 A comprehensive range of cognitive and practical skills required to develop creative solutions to abstract problems.

Exercise self-management within the guidelines of work or study contexts that are usually predictable but are subject to change; supervise the routine work of others, taking some responsibility for the evaluation and improvement of work or study activities. Exercise management and supervision in contexts of work or study activities where there is unpredictable change; review and develop performance of self and others.

Take responsibility for completion of tasks in work or study; adapt own behavior to circumstances in solving problems.

Not appropriate.

Work or study under direct supervision in a structured context. Work or study under supervision with some autonomy.

Basic skills required to carry out simple tasks. Basic cognitive and practical skills required to use relevant information in order to carry out tasks and to solve routine problems using simple rules and tools. A range of cognitive and practical skills required to accomplish tasks and solve problems by selecting and applying basic methods, tools, materials, and information. A range of cognitive and practical skills required to generate solutions to specific problems in a field of work or study.

For example, First Year of Foundation Degree, First year of Undergraduate Degree, Certificate of Higher Education, Certificate of Upper Secondary Education, Higher National Certificate, Freshman and Sophomores. For example, Final Year of Foundation Degree, Second year of Undergraduate Degree, Diploma of Higher Education, Higher National Diploma and Juniors.

For example, BTEC Higher National Certificate, ‘A’ Level and High School Diploma.

Not appropriate.

HEI-Related Qualifications

Responsibility and Autonomy

Skills

Table 1.1 Mapping of EQF descriptors to commonly recognized higher education institution (HEI)-related qualifications

Paul Fleet

Highly specialized knowledge, some of which is at the forefront of knowledge in a field of work or study, as the basis for original thinking and/or research Critical awareness of knowledge issues in a field and at the interface between different fields. Knowledge at the most advanced frontier of a field of work or study and at the interface between fields.

7

13

Source: Author.

8

Advanced knowledge of a field of work or study, involving a critical understanding of theories and principles.

6

The most advanced and specialized skills and techniques, including synthesis and evaluation, required to solve critical problems in research and/or innovation and to extend and redefine existing knowledge or professional practice.

Specialized problem-solving skills required in research and/or innovation in order to develop new knowledge and procedures and to integrate knowledge from different fields.

A comprehensive range of cognitive and practical skills required to develop creative solutions to abstract problems.

Manage complex technical or professional activities or projects, taking responsibility for decision making in unpredictable work or study contexts; take responsibility for managing professional development of individuals and groups. Manage and transform work or study contexts that are complex, unpredictable, and require new strategic approaches; take responsibility for contributing to professional knowledge and practice and/or for reviewing the strategic performance of teams. Demonstrate substantial authority, innovation, autonomy, scholarly and professional integrity, and sustained commitment to the development of new ideas or processes at the forefront of work or study contexts, including research. Doctoral Study.

For example, Postgraduate / Masters Degree.

Final Year of Undergraduate Degree and Seniors.

Ear Training Across the Globe

Paul Fleet

We should begin our inquiry with Level 3 for our understanding of how far back one should usefully go in this survey. Ear training teachers in schools that follow the Kodály (KodályHub, 2018) or Suzuki (Americas, 2020) methods would argue that ear training should start from the early years of education (and in an ideal world we would not disagree), but as we locate this volume before, in, and beyond higher education, it would make sense to begin the understanding of the educational journey from the capture point that informs entry into higher education, namely, those education levels that are considered for admission to a degree-level program. Similarly, we should also define the end point of the educational journey for this investigation. Level 7 is a natural stopping point for this investigation, as it is where the student transitions from being educated to being supervised, and by the time they reach level 8 the mode of education is largely self-directed as, to quote the descriptor earlier, they should be at the most advanced frontier of a field of study. With these two axes now defined we can move to the contextual construction of the hypothesis. If we can understand the connections (the coordinated planes) in a learning journey that take into account the representative locations of delivery alongside the representative levels of education, then we can construct a global terrain of ear training before, in, and beyond higher education. This is because we can chart through a random sampling of institutions the delivery of ear-training courses, modules, and programs that will indicate their representative value within and across institutions. It is worth saying before we progress any further that this capture of data took place in 2020 but before the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused the rethinking of educational delivery across the globe. Singing became one of those activities that was under debate as to its being a contributing factor to transmission of the virus (Hamner et al., 2020; Ministry of Housing, 2020; Moss, 2020), and many institutions at the time of writing are considering how to teach aural training in environments that are either online or socially distanced. As such, the appearance of education activities that include ear training are of a landscape pre-COVID-19 but will hopefully be part of an educational landscape post-COVID-19.

Test the Hypothesis and Collect Data In order to test the hypothesis that there is a common understanding of the value of ear training across institutions but there is not enough presence in the respective curricula for ear training, we need to find a way of populating the data between the axes of region (where these education institutions are based) and level (what level of education they offer in alignment with the EQF). To do this, the method employed for capture is the broad understandings of ‘not taught,’ ‘taught within,’ and ‘taught alone.’ While these are fairly self-explanatory, it is worth saying how they are captured, and that is through the information present on the institutions’ web pages. For example, a visit to a home page of an institution will reveal links to learning events (this is an inclusive term for module, course, or program, which can be specific to institutions). The home page is an information point for prospective students: a page where the values of the institution are shown through the modules they elect to publish. It was decided that if an institution had a learning event that specifically mentioned words that represented aural or ear training as the primary activity, that would count as ‘taught alone’; if they mentioned those words alongside others that included theory, musicianship, and so on, it would count as ‘taught within’; and if no mention of those words featured within the learning events for that stage of learning at that institution, it would count as ‘not taught.’ This proved a remarkably and thankfully surprisingly useful sifting tool for gathering the information, given the differentiation in words used across institutions and countries. The other element to consider was the representation of institutions across those defined on page 11 and using the EQF levels as the guide, it was settled upon five colleges (including those high schools that offered that level of provision), five conservatoires, and five universities from each of these regions. Within these 15 institutions per region, the principle of representative sampling was

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Ear Training Across the Globe

employed, and in order to ensure a mix of institutions (for example, and in respect to the university sector, a mix of institutions was needed in order to represent those that are ancient, civic, plate glass, post-92 (UKuni, 2019), research intensive, teaching-focused, and Russell Group/Ivy League), league-table rankings were not used to form the collection list, but a wide trawl of institution types were considered before five were selected as the representative group to be data mined. What this means for both the indication of presence of an ear-training activity and the selection of institutions for the survey is the conscious avoidance of any bias toward types of learning event or particular types of institution. While such a survey is recognized by the author as not being perfect for the data capture needed to undertake a survey of the terrain of ear training across the globe, it is certainly ‘good enough’ (Winnicott, 2000 [1964]) in terms of what is practicable while having enough value to be able to proceed with confidence upon data collection (see Table 1.2) and would also have enough value to be able to slice the data capture to compare the three types of institution (see Table 1.3) and the five geographical regions (see Table 1.4). There are some initial reactions to the tables just presented, most notably the difference in Western and Central European institutions when compared to the other regions (72.5% of these European institutions present evidence of teaching ear-training events alone as part of their curriculum offerings). But mining such data is the task of the next section, so let us move to that part of our scientific model and analyze this data capture with the use of graphs for visual as well as numerical representation. Table 1.2 The presence of ear-training learning events across 75 institutions (percentages rounded to one decimal place)  

Not Taught

Taught Within

Taught Alone

Total*

Level 3 Level 4 Level 5 Level 6 Level 7

11 (34.4%) 12 (17.1%) 18 (26.9%) 45 (69.2%) 52 (82.5%)

10 (31.3%) 18 (25.7%) 10 (14.9%) 8 (12.3%) 7 (11.1%)

11 (34.4%) 40 (57.1%) 39 (58.2%) 12 (18.5%) 4 (6.3%)

32 70 67 65 63

* This is the total number of institutions (college, conservatoire, and university) across the 75 surveyed that offered that level of education. For example, 32 of the 75 institutions surveyed offered Level 3 education, of which 31.3% of them taught ear training within their learning events. Source: Author. Table 1.3 The presence of ear-training learning events across all colleges, conservatoires, and universities (percentages rounded to one decimal place)  

Not Taught

Taught Within

Taught Alone

Total**

College (Levels 3–5) Conservatoire (Levels 3–6) University (Levels 4–7)

41 (27.7%) 82 (39%) 116 (48.1%)

36 (24.3%) 37 (17.6%) 39 (16.2%)

71 (48%) 91 (43.4%) 86 (35.7%)

148 210 241

** This is the total number of institutions (in the United States of America, Canada, United Kingdom, Western and Central Europe and Australia) across the 75 surveyed who offer those levels of education. However, out of the 75 institutions who offer Levels 3, 4, and 5 (theoretically 225 data capture points) in reality not all institutions offer all levels. So, to avoid misrepresentation of the data and skew, the percentages of the total figures column was adjusted on the principle that if one institution did not offer one level then the total would be reduced by one, and so on. Source: Author.

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Paul Fleet Table 1.4 The presence of ear-training learning events across the United States of America, Canada, the United Kingdom, Western and Central Europe, and Australia (percentages rounded to one decimal place)  

Not Taught

Taught Within

Taught Alone

Total***

United States of America Canada United Kingdom Western and Central Europe Australia

36 (54.5%) 41 (60.3%) 22 (46.8%) 1 (2%) 38 (58.5%)

13 (19.7%) 6 (8.8%) 13 (27.7%) 13 (25.5%) 8 (12.3%)

17 (25.8%) 21 (30.9%) 12 (25.5%) 37 (72.5%) 19 (29.2%)

66 68 47 51 65

*** This is the total number of institutions in each region across the 75 surveyed that offer all levels of education. However, out of the 75 institutions (theoretically 75 data capture points) in reality not all institutions offer all levels. So, to avoid misrepresentation of the data and skew, the percentages of the total figures column was adjusted on the principle that if one institution did not offer one level then the total would be reduced by one, and so on. Source: Author.

Analyze Data The title of this chapter does promise much, but with the methodology just explored, we can proceed toward a global understanding of ear-training provision across institutions while noting the definitions of such terms (see Graphs 1.1 and 1.2). Whether the reader’s preference for understanding is by numbers within the institutions surveyed (Graph 1.1) or by percentage of those numbers within the institutions (Graph 1.2),3 the analysis remains the same. At Level 3 there is an equal representation of the three variables, but as the generic global music student progresses to Level 4, the split between ‘taught alone’ and ‘taught within’ widens, and the number of learning events that are labeled as ear training or aural training dramatically increases. We then recognize this as the first element of significant variation (SV) in the data to consider: (SV1): at Level 4 there is a noticeable increase in the number of specific ear-training learning events. From Level 4 onward, this number of ‘taught alone’ declines at Level 5 slightly by a rebalance of increased ‘not taught’ and a decrease of ‘taught within.’ However, from Level 6 to Level 7 the shift is dramatic, and there are far fewer ear-training events present in the curriculum. This we would recognize as our second element of significant variation: (SV2): from Level 5 to 7 there is a decline in ear-training events both ‘taught alone and within.’ At a global level then, we can ask why there is a sudden increase in advertised ear-training modules at Level 4 when we recognize that ear training is a lifelong skill. But before we begin pointing fingers at those involved in education at that level, we must also ask why there is a sudden drop in aural training from Level 5 onward following the same rationale (see Graphs 1.3, 1.4, and 1.5). There are several mitigating factors to this understanding of SV1 and SV2. At Level 3 the eartraining learning events may well take place but are hidden to the published curriculum, but as was said on page 14 a measure of importance by the institution on ear training can be gauged by their use of learning event titles. As such, we can say with relative confidence that ear training in Level 3 is not given the place in the curriculum either in identified modules or within learning events as it is at Level 4. Given that many of the surveyed institutions have Level 3 and Level 4 within their offerings, this is not a simple case of, to give a deliberately dramatic example, a university blaming a college for not preparing students. Not only is that not helpful, as was previously discussed, from the data gathered we can safely say that it is not representative and therefore not a safe enough basis on which to propose an argument. If we are being sympathetic to Level 3 education, then we can suggest that ear-training events are present in two-thirds of the programs offered, and this does not seem an unhealthy position. For example, if we were to do a similar survey on cultural studies learning

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Ear Training Across the Globe

Graphs 1.1 and 1.2. Numerical and Percentage representation of ear-training learning events by the variables ‘not taught.’ ‘taught within,’ and ‘taught alone’ from Level 3 to Level 7 across all institutions surveyed. Source: Author.

events, it would be surprising if the number of events was equal to that of ear-training events at that level. If we are being sympathetic to Level 4 education, then the presence of over half the institutions offering “taught alone” ear-training events in their programs would seem to be a reaction to a recognized skill set that is needed by the student to engage with their other modules and so is boosted upon their entry to degree-level study. If we are to consider the two sides of SV1, then looking backward we might argue that the student is underprepared, and looking forward we might argue that there is not enough space in the curriculum to place such emphasis upon ear training. And this is where a solution can be found, by thinking of the position not from a curriculum point of view but the student point of view. If the Level 3 provision is suitably balanced, then perhaps it would make sense to integrate ear training into the learning events across Level 4 rather than having a significant number as ‘taught alone.’ By doing so the integration of skills would become explicit and implicit to the students and it would also remove this spike in learning that goes against the principle of it being a lifelong skill. Further, the integration of skills would speak to the concern of differentiation across a cohort’s aural abilities upon entry to the same education level (as mentioned on page 10). By embedding the skill within practice, the differentiation can be placed not on the skill itself but upon its application, and rather than streaming the groups at the same educational level (which can cause inequalities in the learning experience, and there is evidence of this in pre-HE education [NEU, 2019]), all would be present and developing the skill at the same time but applying the skill to their

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Paul Fleet

Graphs 1.1 and 1.2

(Continued)

own level of practice); this area will also be discussed in the following chapters by Stillie and Moir, Francis, Price, and Stevens, Duker, and Shafer. Similarly, the decline of ear training as a ‘taught alone’ and ‘taught within’ variable in this data capture (SV2) is not an accurate representation of the practice being employed. I firmly believe that many an educator, and the same educators who were part of ear training at Level 3 and Level 4, continue with the teaching of such skills but in an implicit way. In other words, while these skills are continued, they are not externally published to the students as such, and the understanding by the cohort of ear training being a lifelong skill diminishes at a greater rate rather than the training itself. Of course there are nuances to such suggestions, and without the many years to undertake a rigorous desk-based survey (which would itself become redundant given the time it would take to do such a task leading to the data first captured becoming out of date) and interview every educator, we cannot know the conclusion just made for sure. However, I am convinced that many of those responsible for ear training and those that are reading the words in this chapter will find themselves nodding in agreement at the positions described here. By making this explicit, and from the data capture previously presented, we can then make some suggestions for change that will be explored under the next subheading.

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Ear Training Across the Globe

Graphs 1.3, 1.4, and 1.5 Percentage representation of ear-training learning events by the variables ‘not taught.’ ‘taught within,’ and ‘taught alone’ shown as Level 3 (see Graph 1.3), Levels 4–6 (see Graph 1.4), and Level 7 (see Graph 1.5) across all institutions surveyed.

Graphs 1.3, 1.4, and 1.5 (Continued)

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Paul Fleet

Graphs 1.3, 1.4, and 1.5 (Continued)

There are two other ways we can extract information to help us unpack the matter of ear-training provision across the globe before, in, and beyond higher education. The first is to understand the data by types of institution: college (remembering that this includes high school as a similar level of provider in certain regions), conservatoire, and university; and the second is by region: United States of America, Canada, United Kingdom, Western and Central Europe, and Australia. What is interesting to note when we consider the pattern of teaching ear training according to our three variables (‘not taught,’ ‘taught within,’ and ‘taught alone’) is the similarity in profile (see Graph 1.6). If we consider the institutional offering, when the student is undertaking the program that is typically greater than just one year, we find that there is balance between the ear training being and not being taught but there is a significant variation when it comes to ear training being part of a module/course/mode of delivery (SV3). One reading of the data in Graph 1.6 informs us that out of the three variables, the category of ‘taught within’ is the least represented (I am being careful here, as I have throughout, not to take too much heed of the actual numbers, as these are indicative, but I am basing these positions on the trend of these numbers relative to each other, which is more reliable) and runs against the evidence we as a community of ear-training scholars promote and publish. It would seem therefore that we do not, on the whole, find the practice in what we preach. There is strong evidence for the benefit of teaching aural skills within other modules (Fieldman, 2008, 2015; Herdener et al., 2010; Karpinski, 1989; Mayfield, 2002) for the reasons of connection to practical application, deeper understanding of musical materials, and to the improvement of compositional, analytical, and performance activities,

20

Ear Training Across the Globe

Graph 1.6 The pattern of ear-training learning events separated by types of institution. Source: Author.

to quickly summarize these selected publications. Indeed, in the following chapter, Simon Parkin argues for a ‘true synthesis with other aspects of the curriculum,’ and that is a position that many of the contributors to this volume uphold. SV3 is therefore linked to SV1 and SV2, and it is not that it is a particular institution’s fault about the weighting or presence of the skill sets a musician needs to be taught and encouraged to develop. No, it is our collective problem to solve, and we might suggest one solution would be to not have a such a high concentration of ‘taught alone’ study at Level 3 (SV1) and not let the presence of aural training diminish through the academic journey within an institution (SV2). Instead, we could rethink the whole provision of ear training away from the polar positions of ‘taught alone’ and ‘not taught’ (SV3) and move more toward the inclusive position of aural skills being ‘taught within.’ I do not want to sum up this section quite yet, as we should now move to the cutting of the data by region, as the position just mentioned is related (see Graph 1.7). We find similar extremes to the aforementioned binaristic positions of ‘taught alone’ and ‘not taught’ when we consider the eartraining events by region. From a quick reading it may be tempting to single out the learning events that are found in the data representing ear training in Western and Central Europe. Should we exalt their delivery in recognition of the high percentage of learning events that are taught alone and very little that are not taught? If so, should we at the same time disparage the learning events in Canada, Australia, and the United States of America for their high rate of ‘not taught’ ear training? A commonsense check would tell us that this is not a good idea, and in discussions within our ear-training learning community across the globe I am sure not many would recognize this pattern as being indicative of one region having the correct approach and another the incorrect approach. Further, we should be highly skeptical of any suggestion that the results of these approaches could be backed up with the result of excellent ear-trained musicians from Western and Central Europe but not from Canada, Australia, and the United States of America. Then what does this graph usefully tell us?

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Paul Fleet

Graph 1.7 The pattern of ear-training learning events separated by region. Source: Author.

From an inclusive position, the practice is unhelpfully varied across the globe, and none of the regions have the best practice. If we agree with the position outlined on page 9 that ear training is not equally represented across other skills within musicianship, then we can recognize that the development of aural training within institutions has changed organically within each institution, and there has not been centrally agreed curricula beyond subject benchmark statements such as ‘Demonstrate the ability to recognize and respond to aspects of musical organization, whether aurally or by studying a written score.’ (QAA, 2019). Perhaps it is time to formalize this skill, not as the valuable outsider to our music education but as a core competency. Perhaps we can agree to come together to propose a set of useful criteria with which to enrich the general curriculum. But I am getting ahead of myself, and there will be more on this matter in the next part of our adopted scientific enquiry, and more specifically in the ‘coda’ section of this book, ‘The Future of Aural Training: Clausula Vera (True Cadence).’ To return to the information provided by Graph 1.7, we have discussed earlier that ‘taught within’ would be a preferred model of delivery, yet this is the most consistently poor in representation across the regions (SV4), and in four of the five regions (although in that fifth region it is only by 2.2%, which is not statistically significant against the trend) ‘taught within’ is the least represented. We have now seen this position from two different viewing angles, when looked at by the types of institution (SV3) and by the difference by region (SV4). While it is the same underlying data that is driving both views, it is significant that there are no outliers to this position in the sense of a particular institution or region bucking this trend. Therefore, what we can safely say is that it is the same issue that is

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Ear Training Across the Globe

present globally and that the issue is not dependent upon institution or region; no one is to blame for the previously fitted boiler – we are all to blame.

Draw Conclusion Before reaching for the metaphorical birch rod, let us revisit the four significant variations in the data and then move toward a position that takes us forward as a community of educators. The first significant variation we encountered from this data collection was the jump from Level 3 to Level 4 in the number of specific ear-training learning events (SV1). This was then followed by the second significant variation in the gradual and then rapid decline of ear-training learning after Level 4 (SV2). If we plot this information on a simple line graph by percentage by combining ‘taught alone’ and ‘taught within,’ then we can see that this trajectory of provision is not something we can ignore if we are to maintain our value of ear training being a lifelong skill (see Graph 1.8). So what pattern would we hope to see five years after the publication of this book, or realistically in ten years, within music curricula and its practical realization? Certainly not a rising line, as this would then place ear training above the other musical skills. While those of us invested in such training are keen to speak up for its value, we recognize that it is a strength among others and a fundamental skill that underpins our practice as musicians and musicologists. The pattern should be that of a steady line, one that does not dramatically rise or fall as the student progresses on his or her educational journey but remains constant as supported training for a lifelong skill. This is a position that can be further strengthened by reference to the data when we move from a global position to casting the spotlight on the types of institutions that deliver the ear training. Colleges, conservatories, and universities are equal in their delivery model of having ear training least represented ‘within’ modules/courses/modes of delivery (SV3). Finally, when focusing on regions we find significant variation between modes ‘not taught’ and ‘taught alone,’ but we find a common element in our research-driven preferred model of delivery, ‘taught within’ being the most consistently least represented across the regions (SV4). To be blunt, no matter how you look at the data, it is screaming at us to take action. In an acknowledged mix of metaphors, it would not be helpful to shout ‘I am Spartacus’ (Kubrick, 1960) and continue marching toward our collective voices being silenced. Rather, I would not

Graph 1.8 The variables of ‘taught alone’ and ‘taught within’ combined and plotted along the progression of educational levels. Source: Author.

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Paul Fleet

suggest that we extinguish the candle from our music stands in the style of Haydn’s Farewell Symphony (Church, 2003) but that we take that light from our commitment to ear training and return to our practice. We can find solidarity in this data and take stock of the current situation in general. We can understand the terrain we find ourselves working within, and work toward setting the ear-training learning events we value within a mutually agreed collective framework of understanding within our respective institutions across the globe. We cannot do this as individuals. By exploring the good practice and gaining perspective on the relative variations on training throughout the following chapters, you will encounter voices and ideas from those that are keen to change the curriculum, and they offer practical and guided solutions that we could agree to collectively adapt or adopt. If time is tight and you plan to dip in and out of this book over a period of time, then the next logical chapter on your reading list is the coda, ‘The Future of Aural Training: Clausula Vera (True Cadence).’ In this closing chapter of the book, we will return to the main ideas of collective and inclusive education in ear training, or to be as clear as possible, thinking of its teaching as ‘within’ rather than ‘alone’ or ‘not.’ It will also end with a manifesto for ear training: a short position piece that sets out the values of ear training that have been gained from the encounters in this journey with the people who traveled to that symposium in 2017, then agreed to be part or help inform the chapters in this volume from the subsequent call for papers, until this point in which its publication marks the first collective voice for aural training before, in, and beyond higher education.

Notes 1. If the reader can hold their excitement, on reaching the final chapter in this volume (Coda, ‘The Future of Aural Training: Clausula Vera (True Cadence’) they will find a methodology and a manifesto that moves towards answering exactly these questions. 2. The campaign poster from the College of Humanities at the University of Utah is no longer available through their .edu site but can be found on Pinterest: www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/482377810062102452/. 3. Please note that on the graph the percentage figures may seem to not add up exactly to 100%, but this is due to the rounding to one decimal place.

References Agawu, V. K. (1991). Playing with signs: A semiotic interpretation of classic music. Princeton, NJ; Oxford: Princeton University Press. Americas, S. A. o. t. (2020). About the Suzuki method. Retrieved from https://suzukiassociation.org/about/ suzuki-method/ Biggs, J. B., & Tang, C. S.-k. (2011). Teaching for quality learning at university (4th ed.). Maidenhead: McGrawHill/Society for Research into Higher Education/Open University Press. Castillo, M. (2013). The scientific method: A need for something better? American Journal of Neuroradiology, 34(9), 1669. http://doi.org/10.3174/ajnr.A3401 Church, M. (2003). The story behind: Haydn’s Farewell Symphony. Retrieved from www.tes.com/news/ story-behind-haydns-farewell-symphony Covington, K., & Lord, C. H. (1994). Epistemology and procedure in aural training: In search of a unification of music cognitive theory with its applications. Music Theory Spectrum, 16(2), 159–170. http://doi. org/10.2307/746031 European_Union. (unknown). Description of the eight EQF levels. Retrieved from https://europa.eu/europass/ en/description-eight-eqf-levels Fieldman, H. (2008). The complete musician: An integrated approach to tonal theory, analysis, and listening. Music Theory Spectrum, 30, 366-U125. Fieldman, H. (2015). Aural skills in context: A comprehensive approach to sight singing, ear training, harmony, and improvisation. Music Theory Online, 21. Hamner, L., Dubbel, P., Capron, I., et al. (2020). High SARS-CoV-2 attack rate following exposure at a choir practice – Skagit County, Washington, March 2020. MMWR Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 69, 606–610. http://doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm6919e6external

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Ear Training Across the Globe Herdener, M., Esposito, F., di Salle, F., Boller, C., Hilti, C. C., Habermeyer, B., Scheffler, K., Wetzel, S., Seifritz, E., & Cattapan-Ludewig, K. (2010). Musical training induces functional plasticity in human hippocampus. The Journal of Neuroscience, 30, 1377–1384. HMC. (unknown). The British education system. Retrieved from www.hmc.org.uk/about-hmc/projects/thebritish-education-system/ Karpinski, G. (1989). Ear training and integrated aural skills: Three recent texts. Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy, 3, 127–149. KodályHub. (2018). The Kodály concept. Retrieved from https://kodalyhub.com/main-principles-of-kodaly-smusic-pedagogy Kubrick, S. (Writer). (1960). Spartacus [Film]. E. Lewis (Producer). Universal International. Mayfield, C. (2002). Theory essentials: An integrated approach to harmony, ear training, and keyboard skills (Vol. 1). New York: Thomson Schirmer. Ministry of Housing, C. L. G. (2020). COVID-19: Guidance for the safe use of places of worship during the pandemic. Retrieved from www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-guidance-for-the-safe-use-of-places-ofworship-during-the-pandemic-from-4-july/covid-19-guidance-for-the-safe-use-of-places-of-worship-duringthe-pandemic-from-4-july#:~:text=Except%20for%20the%20limited%20circumstances,transmission%20 from%20aerosol%20and%20droplets. Moss, L. (2020). Singing ‘no riskier than talking’ for virus spread. Retrieved from www.bbc.co.uk/news/health53853961 Nattiez, J.-J. (1990). Music and discourse: Toward a semiology of music. Princeton, NJ; London: Princeton University Press. NEU. (2019). Streaming and setting. Retrieved from https://neu.org.uk/streaming-and-setting QAA. (2019). Subject benchmark statement: Music. Gloucester: Quality Assurance Agency. Small, C. (1998). Musicking: The meanings of performing and listening. Hanover; London: University Press of New England. Tagg, P. (2012). Music’s meanings: A modern musicology for non-musos. New York: Mass Media Music Scholars’ Press. UKuni. (2019). Types of UK universities. Retrieved from www.ukuni.net/articles/types-uk-universities Winnicott, D. W. (2000 (1964)). The child, the family, and the outside world (International Edition ed.). London: Penguin Books.

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2 AURAL TRAINING WITHIN AN INTEGRATED APPROACH TO MUSICIANSHIP TRAINING Simon Parkin

Introduction This chapter originated as a talk given at the symposium Aural Skills Pedagogy: What is to be done? held at the Royal Academy of Music, London, in April 2017. Speakers were chosen from a wide variety of backgrounds, some more academic than others. My own experience is that of a performing musician, composer, and arranger who has been involved in curriculum development and delivery at a UK music college (‘conservatoire’) over a long period of time. The experiences and views here expressed are my personal experiences and views, and I have not sought to reinforce them with academic citations. These could no doubt be found, along with citations supporting an opposing view, but my hope is that the experiences I have had will resonate with readers, both those who have undergone aural training in the past, those who are now involved in its delivery, and those interested in the way conservatoire-level musical education is developing, in my own institution at least. A typical UK music college may take on between 100 and 150 new students each year with varying degrees of proficiency on their instruments, academically and in terms of general musicianship skills. These skills would include aural ability and knowledge and experience of theory and harmony. Our task as educators is twofold: first, to prepare our students for an ever-evolving musical workplace, and second, to develop their intellect, sense of curiosity, work ethic, and power of selfexpression in a more general sense. Many factors have driven the evolution in the curriculum that music colleges provide. The increasing variety and unpredictability of the workplace has necessitated more flexibility and adaptability from our students, who now need a greater range of skills than ever before. Some formerly ‘academic’ skills such as harmony, arranging, and aural skills have taken on a more direct relevance as potential prerequisites for a portfolio musical career. This chapter will argue that these skills are better taught in an integrated way. To separate aural from theory, for example, impoverishes both subjects, and leads to an insular attitude where these subjects become ends rather than means. I will argue that aural training, being in general the most demonstrably relevant aspect of conservatoire-level academic provision, is now increasingly in the vanguard of the new integrated approach that is evolving.

Part 1: How It Used to Be Approaches to aural training at college/conservatoire level are changing. Three principles seem to be driving developments in what we provide for students. One is a recognition that the world of work

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is changing rapidly and constantly, and aural-skills teachers need to provide graduates with a range of practical skills to equip them for a professional life that will involve far more than playing standard repertoire on their instruments. The second principle is that the acquisition of these new skills involves forming connections between academic subjects that, in my own education, were taught in isolation. Finally, in my own institution at least, there is increasing pressure for academic courses to lead to practical outcomes – performable arrangements, recordable lecture-recitals, transcriptions, improvisations, and so on. This chapter will suggest some practical steps for achieving these triple goals of relevance, integration, and output. This section discusses some of the obstacles institutions will face in achieving these goals, viewed through and drawing on my experience with evolving and delivering a curriculum, at conservatoire level, which now incorporates aural training, improvisation, instrument- and paper-based harmony, composition, and arranging in an increasingly integrated way. Starting with an examination of my own experience of aural training, the section then discusses the musical goals of aural training before suggesting how it can be expanded to include, theoretically, any other academic subject you care to put in the mix. It is a (relatively) exciting time to be an aural teacher, since the relevance of what we do is becoming increasingly palpable. At school and then at college, I was taught aural in the following way. At the beginning of the lesson, a dictation would be played, and we would attempt to write it down. After a couple of times through, the teacher would ask who had finished. A few people would put up their hands. The teacher would then play it a few more times, until either everyone had finished or nobody could hear any more. People who only required a couple of play-throughs were ‘good at aural’ and people who took longer were ‘weak.’ Everyone knew where they stood. The weaker ones were discouraged because they never improved relative to the better ones, who spent most of the lesson sitting around looking ostentatiously bored and a bit smug while they waited for the others to finish. My own perfect pitch was such an advantage that I’m not sure that my musical perception really benefited from this training beyond the mere exercising of a muscle. Sight singing and rhythm, the other two main components of standard aural training, were, similarly, continually tested rather than trained. The educational principle seemed to be that doing things over and over again made you better at them, which is, of course, true to an extent, though what I really missed in my own education was an examination of how I listened, and any strategy for improvement. While those of us who practiced regularly did better than those of us who didn’t, it was, in many ways, a frustrating subject to study, and, when I started my job, to teach. Shortly before graduating, I was invited to be an aural teacher at my music college. I had happened to get high grades in my aural exams, and this was presumed to qualify me to explain to others how they could do the same. I got good grades primarily because of my perfect pitch, which when I started to teach seemed a disqualification to be an aural teacher, since it made it more difficult to get inside the mind-set of students who did not have this mixed blessing. The initial problem for me was that I had always found it easy, and never had to think about how I did it. When I started to consider how to teach rather than test, I needed to examine my own thought processes, which was a little like breaking down a movie into a succession of still shots. It was at this point that aural training became fascinating, as it gave me the opportunity to compare how I, myself, thought to how my students thought. The self-reflection was a vital precursor to formulating ways to explain the process to my students. Aural was streamed and graded when I started to teach, and the attainment of a certain standard was a requirement for the award of a diploma. One or two students (generally singers) would come back to college for a chance to resit every summer for up to seven years before giving up. At that time there was something of a divide between instrumental teachers and academic staff. The instrumentalists, not all of whom had had uniformly positive experiences of training in aural, harmony, and essay-writing, were disheartened by the fact that students who in their view were excellent musicians were being denied degrees because of weaknesses in ‘academic’ subjects.

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In subjects like history and, to a lesser extent, theory, this was somehow more acceptable than in aural. The Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) requires a certain minimum standard of literacy, for example, to justify the award of a university-equivalent degree. Theory can be taught mechanically, with both species counterpoint and Bach Chorales being ‘solvable’ by following sets of rules and guidelines. They can be negotiated without requiring musical ability, demanding, rather, a certain level of organization and meticulousness. Although the exercises are musically sterile, they are ‘correct’ and the application of common sense and method can improve a student’s results very quickly. One can see the pragmatic purpose of objectifying music in this way (easy to teach, easy to mark, the mark unlikely to be affected by the personal taste of the marker), but since this objectification stifles creativity it is, by and large, demotivating to students, and the relevance to their future musical life is hard to prove. Aural is different. You can’t be a good musician if you don’t have a good musical ear, and, surely, if you don’t have a good musical ear, you won’t do well on aural tests. Therefore, people who get low marks in aural tests can’t be ‘good musicians.’ The problem was that instrumental teachers brought me examples of students with excellent intonation, sensitivity to sound, and ensemble skills who had done badly in aural tests. The top marks always went to those with perfect pitch, which is by no means a prerequisite for a successful career in music. We made various attempts to link aural training with the ‘musical ear’ – perceptions of intonation, instrumentation, performance nuance, and so on, but this didn’t prove a great success, being rather unchallenging and largely over-obvious. These tweaks to the curriculum didn’t address the core of the problem: the ‘musical ear’ doesn’t appear to equate with success in aural tests.

Part 2: What Is Trained in Aural Training? Let us examine what aural actually does test. There are three principal components: structured listening, the development of short-term musical memory, and the ability to process the information that is taken in. First, let’s look at the ability to plan and prioritize your listening. Let’s assume you have 20 minutes to complete an eight-bar dictation exercise that will be played 15 times. How do you plan your listening for maximum success? Work on organization and strategy produces the most dramatic and rapid improvement in aural grades. Two playthroughs, for example, to determine key and meter. Two more to sketch in the rhythm independently of the notes. Two more to mark every occurrence of the tonic. There are many strategies, which should be individually tailored to each student. The instinct of the untrained student is to concentrate on the first few notes of an exercise, and the student feels unable to proceed until these notes are correct; often, they have run out of time before getting beyond the first couple of bars. It is more effective to get the general picture and the musical highlights (eight bars, 3/4, C minor, triplet in bar five, diminished seventh in bar seven, and so on) before focusing on the detail. This is far closer to the way in which people normally listen to music: forming a general impression, noting interesting details, and discovering more on each subsequent hearing. So in training students to develop strategies for transcriptions (number of bars first, then time signature, then identify tonic and key-signature, then placing significant notes and rhythms in the relevant bars, getting the outline before the detail), we are also training them to listen to music more constructively and less haphazardly. In my college we now deliver the dictation test as a sound file that students listen to on their phones, tablets, or laptops. This means that the strategy is chosen by the student rather than imposed by the examiner, since the student can determine the length of extracts, the number of play-throughs, and the size of the gaps between them, as well as check the given first note as a reference pitch whenever they like. The development of technology (universal

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access to Wi-Fi and the ubiquity of smartphones, tablets, and laptops) has made these new ways of doing assessments more practical, and the enormous wake-up call given by the 2020 pandemic has intensified the search for more effective means of technology-based learning and assessment. The second ability that needs to be developed for success in aural exams is good short-term memory. The student needs to be able to retain a reference pitch for long enough to relate it to a series of other pitches in the course of the test. The student must be able to remember musical fragments for long enough to process them during the silences between play-throughs. The training of musical memory involves analytical listening. In the same way that we can remember a multi-digit number as a series of four-digit dates (much easier to remember if the dates are famous historical ones), we can look for patterns in groups of notes (e.g., a descending D major seventh chord, the first five notes of the Franck Sonata, four notes of an octatonic scale). We seek ways of forming larger units from individual notes, or of gradually increasing the level of detail from a general impression. These two techniques (micro to macro or vice versa) are fundamental to musical analysis, so this aspect of aural training develops an analytical way of thinking that will help musical memory and understanding. The third ability is that of good theoretical knowledge, or musical processing ability. Clearly, you can’t recognize a descending D major seventh chord if you can’t name it or don’t know how it’s made. The greater this processing ability is, the less likely it is that short-term memory will have faded before the notes have been reproduced on the page. The processing of musical information (recognition of interval size, chord types, harmonic progression, rhythmic detail) needs secure foundations in theory, and training in theory is fundamental to understanding how and why music works. So the training of aural encompasses theory, memory, and structured listening. All of these move into the territory of other areas of the curriculum. The necessity for an integrated approach becomes clearer.

Part 3: Toward Integration The initial stage in an approach to integration would seem to indicate the necessity for some kind of liaison with the teachers of these relevant subjects (theory, in particular). Personal experience as ‘module coordinator’ for theory and musicianship shows that if aural and theory are taught separately, it is very difficult to coordinate the two subjects. Aural trainers demand of theory teachers continual reinforcement of material theory teachers consider basic (chord types, progressions, inversions, intervals, even key signatures) that has generally been covered within the first couple of weeks of a theory course. As aural trainers, we find that many students have not truly absorbed this basic information long after their theory course has moved way beyond it. Program managers need these courses to move in parallel; this is impracticable, because in aural training this basic theory has to be completely understood and ‘felt’ – in theory lessons, you write your exercise and move on to the next thing. What could be understood theoretically is always far in advance of what can be applied practically. This is not to say that advanced theory shouldn’t be taught – the information and techniques are always potentially useful. There are many things I was taught as a child that I was able to apply practically only when I was an adult. For example, I was taught to resolve diminished sevenths in certain set ways without realizing their usefulness in (particularly improvised) modulations or their creative uses in nineteenth century music. In an ideal world, then, the theory needs to be taught simultaneously with the aural training, either by the same tutor or by two tutors in close liaison. As an institution, we have expressed this as an aspiration for many years, but it has always come up against practical difficulties. Theory and aural teachers can appear to have different priorities – to summarize crudely and far from impartially, for theoreticians, practice comes out of theory (or will, eventually!); for teachers of aural, the theory will emerge from the practice (almost immediately!). Theory classes work more easily to a curriculum, since there is less necessity to wait for something

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to be absorbed before passing on to the next topic. It would be extremely frustrating for a teacher to have to repeat the same piece of information until a student had fully absorbed it, but this absorption is a prerequisite for the development of aural skills. Nevertheless, we have recently decided to grasp this nettle. The initial impetus for this was the relatively low level of engagement manifested in students in theory lessons in comparison with aural. In these days of satisfaction surveys where ratings can relate directly to funding, this has become much more important. Aural classes in our institution had already evolved into ‘Musicianship,’ having been combined with improvisation and instrument-based harmony (more detail in the next section), and were well received by students, who immediately saw the relevance to their own performing. As an institution, we are also moving toward a position where assessments should result in a product – something that could potentially be disseminated – whether this is a presentation that could be recorded and posted onto a media-streaming channel, or, in the case of theory, an arrangement or piece that could be rehearsed, recorded, or performed. This result is easier to achieve in the postmodern era, in which the distinction between ‘harmony’ and ‘composition,’ a ‘piece’ and an ‘exercise.’ ‘original’ and ‘pastiche’ has become usefully blurred. As a good practical example, we had to think of a practical application of the Schenkerian ‘reduction’ that has been a staple of our theory syllabus for some years. We have decided that, for example, singers should take a song with a piano part they can’t play, and reduce/arrange it so that they can play it. The weaker the pianist they are, the more reducing they have to do. They then perform and record their arrangement, playing and singing simultaneously. The usefulness of this approach is obvious, particularly as we build up a repertoire of simplified accompaniments that could be shared between colleges and then used when students learn, then teach, a song. Second-study piano tutors (about which we will say more later) have also become involved in helping the singers with this project, and engagement has been very encouraging. This engagement has led to a more ‘practical’ approach to teaching, and the marriage with our musicianship course has become much easier as a result. Student groups are now the same for both subjects, and the assessment mark is a composite (which means that a good musicianship mark can compensate for a weak theory mark, and vice versa). We therefore rely on a close liaison between musicianship and theory tutors. The difficulty has always been in finding the tutors with the skill set to encompass both subjects, but the more practical orientation of theory is making doing this more feasible.

Part 4: From Aural to Musicianship and Beyond Although the skills taught by traditional aural training are manifestly useful, perhaps they don’t immediately engage with performance and composition in the way that they might. I would like to examine the ways in which the aural syllabus can expand to encompass more obviously musical elements. This expansion is the rationale behind the ‘Musicianship’ aspect of our provision. We should begin by involving instruments in aural lessons. This creates the vital link between theory and practice. The link between the tactile sense of an interval and its sound is necessary for good performance. Pianists have the advantage that the keyboard is a graphic representation of a chromatic scale, so the visual aspect is also helpful. Intervals have a ‘stretch,’ chords have a handshape. String players are the next most favored, since on a single string there is a clear relationship between stretch and interval size. Next come the woodwinds, with some association between fingering and sound, though this is more rational on some instruments than others. Brass players have even less help from their instrument, with subtle differences in embouchure/air pressure determining the pitch, and only three valves or a slide. The worst off are singers, whose voices are subject to external factors, might change from day to day, and have no reliable way of ‘feeling’ a pitch physically before singing. It is no accident, therefore, that in our streamed aural groups, keyboard players and string

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players tend to be in the higher sets, woodwind players intermediate, then brass, and finally singers. As a result of this, many singers arrive at their first aural lesson with a rather low view of their own abilities. There are always exceptions, of course, but the correlation is strong enough to indicate a causal link between instrument choice and aural ability. One solution is to take secondary piano study seriously, as a means of generating a tactile feeling for intervals and, particularly, chords. It is no coincidence that the singers or brass players in the higher groups tend also to be competent pianists. The role of secondary piano study in music colleges is relevant here: students on these courses can often be regarded as poor pianists rather than good instrumentalists with specific reasons for studying the piano. Finding the best way to teach this subject is a real challenge; done properly, it is a real help to students of aural, giving a much more tactile sense of interval, chord, and tonality The introduction of instruments to aural lessons has been a very positive development, and as a result, the link between aural and performance can be developed. But what should students do with their instruments when they’ve brought them? The most natural extension of aural training into instrumental playing is in the area of improvisation. I have found that the best way to start to link aural, theory, and performance is by liberating the student’s attitude to scales and arpeggios. These are learned as patterns, to develop facility on the instrument, and because they form the building blocks of so much classical music – fingering patterns can be transferred directly from a scale to a Beethoven sonata. But scales and arpeggios are limited and ritualized: why should a scale always have to start on the tonic? Why should the descending scale always have to be the same as the ascending? (The artificial construct called Melodic Minor is the only scale that uses a different form on its descent, and Harmonic Minor is disfigured by the un-vocal augmented second to the extent that singers never use minors in warm-ups and are therefore less confident when sight singing in a minor key.) What better way to absorb the cycle of fifths, for example, than to play scales that add a sharp or flat on each change of direction? What better way to absorb the disposition of triads and seventh chords in scales than to practice them as broken chords on each degree? What better way to teach students the relationship between melody and harmony than to have them change the scale as the underlying harmony changes? It is a very important technique in so many ways, developing a sense of harmonic function, fluency, and flexibility in scales and arpeggios, as well as the foundation of some technical competence in improvisation. The inclusion within the aural syllabus of this way of working with the instrument leads naturally to improvisation as a skill to be taught in conjunction with aural. If there is an improvisation department within the institution, there should be links formed, joint classes with improvisation teachers, prior to the ideal situation when one tutor can cover both topics. Given the vast advantages of linking aural training with instrumental playing, it would be of clear benefit to both teacher and student if the aural teacher could attend the instrumental lesson to see how the student’s musical ear manifested itself in playing. Similarly, the instrumental teacher would gain from observing how their students remembered and processed musical information – how quick and accurate their ear was. But enough idealism. This hardly ever happens, for obvious reasons. Primarily, time and money. Teachers are either salaried, in which case these visits would be outside of contractual duties, or hourly paid, in which case the visits would either have to be voluntary or funded out of a departmental budget. They would tend to be one-off and token, although the pandemic-led upsurge in online meetings has created a technological basis upon which this is more achievable. As aural training/ theory becomes ever more demonstrably relevant to performance, instrumental teachers (by far the most significant influence on the student’s musical life) are much more likely to want to become engaged. The academic-practical divide is clearly outmoded. The range of skills needed in a modern musical career (how many of our graduates will be soloists? Full-time chamber musicians? Orchestral players?) is ever-expanding. Today’s musician needs to be versatile, flexible, organizational, entrepreneurial, motivational, inspirational, and imaginative. Many of the possible components of a ‘portfolio career’ call on skills and abilities way beyond those

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traditionally provided by the instrumental teacher. Many academic subjects are modernizing accordingly. Harmony becomes pastiche composition in a range of idioms, leading to commercial uses in film or gaming music. Exams give way to presentations, lecture-recitals, and projects in collaboration with external organizations. The theory agenda, which used to be set by church organists, is now set by composers and jazz musicians. Improvisation is being redefined as a core skill, the most direct means of communicating and ‘reaching out’ to new audiences, and the missing link between theory and practice.

Part 5: The Role of Aural Training in Our Brave New World For me, aural training is the prerequisite for all these other skills, necessary if a musician is to be anything other than instinctive. It is the binding agent between theory, improvisation, and performance. Theory names what you hear, improvisation plays what you can name, performance is informed by all of these. Aural training analyzes how musicians think and trains them to use their musical ear and brain in the most efficient and productive way. It deals in the most direct way with the musicianship of the individual. It builds the foundations for musical rather than only intellectual understanding of the information given in theory classes, and as such, it is clearly less effectively taught as a discrete subject. We need to bring in theory to explain to students how to process what they hear. A meaningful theory syllabus should, I feel, derive from the aural syllabus, and informed performance should derive from this integrated academic syllabus as well as the technical and interpretative insights provided by the instrumental teacher. The responsibility that goes with this is that we do not regard our subject as circumscribed and restricted. There is an unhelpful comfort zone in aural training in which the ability to transcribe dictation is regarded as an end rather than a means, and a belief that the method of achieving this ability is continual testing. We may all be able to agree that the ideal situation is to find in a single teacher everything you need. A great practitioner/composer develops your playing, your musical ear and your musical understanding, your historical and contextual background by means of a kind of apprenticeship. In the real world this can’t happen – one-to-one teaching for several hours a day for about ten years would be a little expensive for most institutions! Our task as educators is to simulate this situation as closely as we can, but there are immediate problems. The structuring of colleges in departments, each with its own head, budget, and staff, with quasi-autonomy for both Instrumental and ‘academic’ tuition. It is common for the instrumental tutor to have no idea who teaches their student aural or theory, or how or what they are taught, or even why they are taught. The demands of staffing, curriculum, and assessment mean that a subject like music has been broken into components, which should, in an ideal world, be reintegrated. Aural training can lead the way toward this reintegration. It will be a long journey, but with a clear view of the goals, and of their purpose, a true synthesis with other aspects of the curriculum is achievable.

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INTERMEZZO 2

Theory and Curriculum Methodologies for the Learning Space

This section begins with three chapters that take a close look at the process of dictation and why a well-formed curriculum teaches it. The first chapter, by Gary S. Karpinski, builds on his decades of work examining and writing about aural-skills curricula. This chapter expands on his description of the process of dictation that he described in his Aural Skills Acquisition (1990), defining each of the four steps (focused attention, melodic memory, understanding, and notation), describing how one can identify and potentially correct individual student deficits in each and then explaining how that skill transfers into the broader work that musicians of a variety of disciplines might do. Karpinski argues for the relevance of dictation as one of the few places in a traditional curriculum where students bring together and practice relevant and transferrable musical skills and proficiencies. In the next chapter, Timothy Chenette takes a closer look at Karpinski’s ‘focused attention’ in dictation, examining and applying recent literature on the skill to come up with a more comprehensive understanding of it. He then suggests strategies for building a class environment and activities that promote the development of beneficial focusing skills. Martin Scheuregger makes the case for teaching analysis as an aural skill and describes a learning module that he uses at his institution where he begins the process of analysis with listening assignments that intentionally do not involve using a score. (A different take on this topic can be found in Jorge Costa’s chapter, later in the book.) Jeffrey Lovell also tries to bridge a gap – this one between conceptual and applied music theory courses as they are commonly taught at the university level. He points out one of the most significant problems arising with integrated curricula – the amount of material that needs to be learned in a short amount of time in the aural-skills curriculum – and looks to research on language acquisition to point out a fundamental flaw with this approach. He advocates for a different type of integration, one that allows these two subjects to proceed at their own paces through integration within each track, rather than between the two. Samantha Inman brings the piano into the discussion, advocating for the importance of integrated music making that is a necessity of the sing-and-play exercise. This chapter reviews the use of singand-play exercises in commonly used aural-skills textbooks and demonstrates how these exercises are used to address some of the significant deficiencies that aural-skills teachers say they need to have addressed (through a survey that she administered to these teachers). She then explains how she uses these exercises to teach specific concepts and skills in her aural-skills classes. The reader may also want to read the chapter by Justin Mariner and Peter Schubert (Chapter 9), who provide other ways in which to use the keyboard in aural-skills training.

Intermezzo 2: Theory and Curriculum

Bridging the gap between discussions focused on dictation and those focused on performance skills and integrating the various themes found in this section, Chris Atkinson’s chapter makes the case that an underlying understanding of pitch function (understanding of a pitch’s scale degree within a key and location within a chord) improves the quality of a student’s sight singing and, through transference, overall musicianship. His observation is that many students lack this understanding, and that this condition is apparent to the attentive listener – whether that is the performing musician’s discerning ear or the untrained ear (even if he or she can’t put into words why one performance sounds ‘better’ than another). An attentive ear can differentiate when a student ‘gets it’ (i.e., understands the pitch function of the notes they perform) versus when they ‘don’t get it.’ Pitch function is, in his description, a stand-in for an awareness of a defined and integrated conception of the sound the student wants to make. This is separate from, but no less important than, the technical side of the sound concept. He then proposes an alternate notational method, focused on pitch function, that might be used in an aural-skills classroom to make students more aware of, and thus more attuned to, pitch function in their performance. What binds these chapters together is not just that they consider the theory and curriculum but that they put an explicit and implicit emphasis upon integration. When we integrate we do not lose something within another, we find an enrichment of purpose by combining the theory with the practice or, if you will, the ear training with the musicianship. For Karpinski, integration comes in the form of recognizing the connection in his four-step model; for Chenette and for Scheuregger, respectively, it is the integration of the activity with the person; and for Lovell, Inman, and Atkinson, it is the respective understanding of integration with the other parts of the curriculum. This section is therefore a recognition of the benefit of ear training within a curriculum. This has been known for many years by those who lead aural training in their institutions, but it is hoped that this collection of chapters will help those often lone voices when they find themselves in challenging discussions on the competition for curricular space during curriculum design. To integrate is not to lose anything, or keep a learning skill in isolation; it is to strengthen the links of learning during the academic journey toward professional musicianship.

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Development of Listening Skills

3 THE SEEING EAR Toward a Rationale for Dictation Gary S. Karpinski

Listening is the most dangerous thing of all, listening means knowing. – Javier Marías Corazón tan blanco You can listen as well as you hear. – Mike Rutherford, B. A. Robertson The Living Years

Introduction Universities, colleges, and conservatories around the world cram students in rows and force them to huddle over staff paper as they listen to short passages played on classroom pianos (see Figure 3.1). Students strain to focus on these fleeting pitches and rhythms, and they scribble furiously as they try to translate sounds into symbols. Why do we force our students to take dictation? For what reasons has this practice become ensconced in music curricula from Arkansas to New Zealand? There are very few vocations in which listening to several iterations of a brief passage and then writing it down in pencil is a quotidian skill. Indeed, none of us can envision a world in which the want ads in Figure 3.2 would be posted. Nevertheless, this is a nearly ubiquitous pedagogical requirement. For example, in the United States, the National Association of Schools of Music lists ‘the ability to take aural dictation’ as part of the ‘common body of knowledge and skills’ that all students must acquire in programs leading to baccalaureate degrees in music and all undergraduate degrees leading to teacher certification (NASM 2020, 102–103). Similarly, in the United Kingdom, the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education specifies ‘the ability to recognize and identify by ear essential components of a musical language, such as intervals, rhythms, motifs, modes, meters, and qualities of sound and to notate them if and where appropriate’ among the ‘practical skills’ all students should develop while earning bachelor’s degrees in music (QAA 2019, 9). But if few or none of our graduates will find work that requires them to take dictation, then why require students to take dictation during their schooling? This volume originated in the papers delivered at a symposium entitled ‘Aural Skills Pedagogy: What is to be done?,’ which was held at the Royal Academy of Music in London during April 2017. The call for papers for that symposium (Royal Academy of Music 2016) contained the observation

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Figure 3.1 Students taking dictation in an aural skills class. Source: Author.

Figure 3.2 Dream jobs for some; nightmares for others. Source: Author.

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that ‘there are conflicting views about the underlying purposes of such training: for example, whether it is to service the student’s general listening ability (whatever that might be), whether it is to develop specific skills (e.g., dictation) of immediate relevance to live physical performance, and so on,’ and included the following questions: ‘Why teach aural skills?’; ‘Does aural-skills training develop employability skills?’; and ‘What is the relation between dictation and musical performance?’ I will address these questions by examining the process of melodic dictation in some detail and explicating the skills necessary in order to take dictation, showing the relevance of those skills in musicians’ everyday lives.

A Model for Music Perception During Melodic Dictation Three decades ago, I introduced a model for what transpires in musicians’ minds while they listen to a melody and write it down (Karpinski 1990). Simply stated, the model divides the process into four broad phases: (1) focused attention; (2) short-term melodic memory; (3) understanding; and (4) notation. Students must be proficient enough at all of the skills necessary to complete each of these phases in order to take dictation. My contention was then, and remains today, that proficiency in these skills – and not the act of taking dictation itself – is where the value lies in dictation training. And no other musical activity brings all these skills together and requires their mastery in the way that dictation does. This model for music perception will guide us as we take a close look at the many skills necessary for listeners to translate musical sounds into notation, with an eye toward the practical applications those skills find in musicians’ daily lives. Let us examine each phase of this process in turn.

Phase 1: Focused Attention To begin the process of hearing a melody and writing it down, listeners must not only hear, but must also focus their attention on the music at hand. In some of my earlier work (Karpinski 1990, 2000), I referred to this phase simply as ‘hearing.’ While that label is serviceable, this phase requires more than the mere mechanisms of hearing. The best listeners make a conscious decision to attend to a passage and focus their awareness before, during, and after what they hear. Dictation work can lead astute instructors to suspect that certain students might be having difficulties with focused attention. Perhaps just as often, there are students who diagnose themselves with difficulties in this phase of the process. There are remedial activities in which such students can engage that can help improve their ability to attend to what they hear. In addition, specialists – such as those in audiology, attention-deficit disorders, and test anxiety – can be brought in to assist in appropriate cases. I think most pedagogues would agree that the ability to discipline one’s hearing through focused attention is a crucial skill for musicians of all stripes in many and various careers and activities. For example, it is vitally important for a studio teacher to be able to carefully attend to certain measures or certain features from a longer passage performed by a student, or for a conductor to focus on, say, what the clarinets are playing in specific measures while an entire ensemble plays from rehearsal G to rehearsal H.

Phase 2: Short-Term Musical Memory After they have focused their attention on a musical passage, listeners must then retain it in memory in order to do anything useful with it. Research into musical memory has shown that listeners can typically recall 6–10 bits of information from an auditory stimulus immediately after hearing it.1 Just what constitutes a bit is beyond the scope of this chapter, but suffice it to say that for many entering

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music students a bit is equivalent to a single note. Because short-term memory is so limited and capricious, my Manual for Ear Training and Sight Singing (Karpinski 2017) begins with several weeks’ worth of melodic dictation materials that span no more than 10 notes in length. Alas, this ‘typical’ 6–10 note limit can be quite variable among beginning music students. In my four decades of teaching dictation at the college level, I have seen more than a handful of students who – at the outset – can remember only a few pitches at most.2 I have encountered others who recall only a few notes correctly, followed by other incorrect pitches (see Figure 3.3). I have also come across students who sometimes (or frequently!) recall the contour of a melody but do so starting on the wrong pitch, thereby rendering a version that lies on the wrong scale degrees (see Figure 3.4).3 Students’ work in dictation can help to single out difficulties with short-term musical memory. Although it’s often impossible to determine if memory problems are causing difficulties simply by looking at students’ dictation results, certain errors in written dictation can serve as red flags pointing to the need for further attention. And there are diagnostic procedures that can be used to ferret out students with such short-term memory difficulties and time-tested remedial activities to help them improve.4 It’s one thing to learn to train one’s attention on certain measures or specific features of a musical passage, but yet another to retain such passages in short-term memory in order to process them, to react to them, and to act on them. Some cognitive psychologists use the term ‘working memory’ to refer to the mental system that holds such stimuli (musical or otherwise) in recall in order for the mind to process them.5 For musicians, working memory is important because the ability to recall

Figure 3.3 (a) Short melodic stimulus; (b) student response. Source: Author.

Figure 3.4 (a) Short melodic stimulus; (b) student response. Source: Author.

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such short passages is a vital skill that most musicians use in their everyday musical lives: as listeners, performers, conductors, coaches, teachers, composers, arrangers, and so on. What ensemble coach can function well without the ability to remember the passage that’s just been played? What performer can soak in the nuances and influences of others’ performances absent the contemplative scrutiny afforded by working memory? Of course, real melodies are not limited to 6–10 pitches in length, and this brings into focus an important skill I dubbed ‘extractive memory’ in some of my earlier research.6 Most listeners can at best recall 6–10 notes when hearing an unfamiliar melody the length of a phrase (or longer).7 Listeners often struggle when they try to remember too much, or when they simply listen in an unfocused, undisciplined manner. However, when trained to focus their attention on and remember manageable portions of longer melodies, students usually thrive at this same task. Most specifically, students should be guided in how to attend to the first 6–10 notes of a melody during a first listening, then to the next 6–10 notes during a second. When the dictation process is working well, listeners can remember and process dictation melodies of 12–20 notes in length in two playings.8 Longer melodies require additional playings. This is an important reason why melodic dictations should last longer than a handful of notes, and why they should be listened to in their entirety. Textbooks, recordings, software, and classroom teachers that break longer dictations down into shorter, easily-remembered melodic morsels are doing students a disservice by eliminating the need for students to listen contextually and to develop their abilities to deliberately choose to focus on a specific melodic segment and retain it in memory. This is an important skill for all musicians. Music students must attend to excerpts in music theory and history classes, and they must answer questions such as ‘Is that a tonal answer or a real answer?’ and ‘What motive are the cellos playing just before the recapitulation?’ Conductors, coaches, and studio teachers find themselves listening to extended passages while trying to retain what they’ve heard while judging aspects of it in order to offer feedback afterwards. Music producers need to retain specific passages in mind while rethinking, comparing, and editing recorded material. Ethnomusicologists must remember passages in order to transcribe them. All musicians use extractive memory throughout their careers. Work in melodic dictation hones this skill, requiring listeners to focus their attention on specific passages and extract them into memory for further processing. In my teaching, I regularly put incoming music students through diagnostic procedures that – among other things – assess and evaluate their ability to remember melodic materials. For most students, this is the first time that anyone has examined their short-term musical memory. I consider pinpointing memory issues and fixing them to be one of the most rewarding aspects of my aural-skills teaching, in part because it can have such far-reaching and even life-changing effects on musicians’ lives.

Phase 3: Understanding The third phase in taking dictation is musical understanding. In order to continue with the dictationtaking process, students must retain in working memory whatever passage they have remembered and then begin to work on understanding it.9 In the context of dictation, musical understanding flows through two main paths: the temporal domain and the pitch domain.

Understanding Meter and Rhythm In the temporal domain, understanding metric music begins with inferring the pulse. All further understanding of the meter and rhythms of a passage derives from this. Listeners must – either

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explicitly or implicitly – infer multiple levels of pulse in order to understand meter, and then measure the durations of the notes they hear in relation to those pulses. For this reason, I have argued for (in my research) and implemented (in my teaching and textbook) not providing extramusical cues that convey the pulse and meter in dictation.10 It is not unusual to see classrooms and textbooks in which the meter sign, the rhythm of the starting note, and the number of measures are all written down for students. And it is not unusual to hear dictations introduced with preparatory beats or to hear foot tapping, metronome clicks, or numbers counted aloud during each playing. Instructors, textbooks, recordings, and software that provide such cues obviate the need for students to develop an important set of musical skills – the ability to infer various levels of pulse and to determine from those which kind of meter they are hearing – duple (or quadruple) vs. triple, and simple vs. compound.11 Students can then use a variety of means to represent the pulses and meter of what they have heard. One of the simplest and most practically applicable ways is for them to conduct. Conducting expresses meter through at least two levels of pulse – the tactus and the downbeat. However, conducting doesn’t explicitly express whether that meter is simple or compound (one might say it models tempus, but not prolation). Another way is for students to simply state with words what they hear, for example: ‘Simple triple meter,’ or ‘Compound duple.’ And yet another is to use pulse graphs – like those used in Cooper and Meyer (1960), Lerdahl and Jackendoff (1983), Rothstein (1989), and others, or to use protonotation, as in Karpinski (2017). Conducting, of course, has broad and deep applications for a variety of musicians. Forming intense and deep-seated connections between what musicians hear and the various conducting patterns they see and use has profound implications for performers, conductors, coaches, and others. But even words, pulse graphs, and protonotation can help students articulate, represent, and communicate the nature of metric structures. It seems to me that every music graduate ought to be able to speak intelligently about the meter of what they hear. Once students have inferred the pulse and meter of a passage, they must then deduce the durations of the notes in relation to those pulses. It is valuable for students to be able to think generically about rhythms as measured against a tactus, not simply as absolute note values. Thus, for example, the dotted-beat-followed-by-half-beat rhythm is a single percept that can be notated in a variety of ways, depending on the bottom number in the prevailing meter sign, as shown in Figure 3.5. But during the understanding phase it is sufficient – indeed important – for students to measure the durations of the notes they hear in relation to pulses, beats, and measures in the abstract without regard to a particular beat unit or meter sign.

Figure 3.5 Various ways of notating the dotted-beat-followed-by-a-half-beat rhythm. Source: Author.

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Understanding Pitch In the pitch domain, understanding tonal music begins with inferring the tonic. Listeners must become explicitly aware of where the tonic pitch lies in what they have heard, regardless of whether or not the passage begins, ends, or is framed by the tonic. I am not saying that listeners can or should infer the pitch name (or absolute pitch) of the tonic, but just that they should infer the sound of the tonic, be able to reproduce it by singing, and then discern the scale degrees of other pitches from that. There is now rather extensive literature on the subconscious processes listeners’ minds use to infer the tonic while listening to a passage of music,12 but that is well beyond the scope of our current discussion. What’s important to acknowledge here is that every musically sensitive listener possesses a keen sense of where the tonic lies in what they hear, and every music student must be tested on this skill and trained to develop it, if necessary. Consider, for example, the interchange between a student and me that I documented in Karpinski (2000, 44–45). He recalled a seven-note melody with ease, but failed to identify the tonic explicitly before attempting to apply scale-degree syllables to what he’d heard. The results were completely incorrect. But once prompted to explicitly attend to inferring the tonic of that passage, his understanding of the functions of all the pitches suddenly blossomed into not just the right answer, but into a deep understanding of where those pitches lie and how they function within a key. Such awareness of tonal function has far-reaching implications in various musical contexts. To illustrate this, permit me to retell a story I related in a footnote in that same book. A clarinet instructor once told me he was listening as one of his students played an assigned passage and he was puzzling over the fact that – although she performed all the pitches and rhythms accurately – there was still something drastically wrong. On a hunch, he asked, ‘What key is that in?’ She replied, ‘A♭ major.’ The passage was in fact in F minor. He spent some time reeducating her to hear the passage with its proper tonal functions and was pleased thereafter to hear her playing it in a way that made sense (Karpinski 2000, 95). A sense of the tonic and its related scale-degrees pervades the thoughtful musician’s life. We speak of the characteristic qualities or ‘personalities’ of the various scale degrees. We expect performers to embody these and listeners to respond to them. We express chords in terms of Roman numerals, representing the scale degrees of their roots.13 We write Ursätze in careted scale-degree numbers.14 We do all this because – in tonal music – absolute pitches have no functional meaning in and of themselves. They take on meaning as scale degrees in relation to a tonic. Work in dictation develops, relies on, and enhances students’ awareness of and facility with the tonic and other scale degrees.

Phase: Notation Once a student has heard, remembered, and understood a passage, he or she can then move on to the final phase in dictation taking – notation. It’s easy to think about notation as the point of taking dictation, but I think it should be apparent by now that skills like extractive memory, pulse inference, and deducing scale-degree functions are at least equally important, and if any of those skills are executed improperly (or not at all), then there’s no hope for what will happen during the notation phase. However, if a student has indeed heard, remembered, and understood something, then translating that into actual music notation is an important step in its own right. For most classically trained musicians, a musical life is lived in large part through notation. Music students spend a great deal of time working with music notation – in lessons, ensembles, courses, master classes, and other venues, and most of all while practicing. Professional classical musicians also do the same – in ensembles, while teaching and conducting, when seeking out and learning new music, while composing and arranging, while transcribing, while editing, while reading books and journal articles, writing books and articles, and in various other pursuits.

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It’s important to note that there is a difference between merely reading music and having to produce music notation oneself. The act of translating sound into notation forces students to attend to the various conventions of notation on the fly – the proper use of clefs, key signatures, meter signs, note values, stems, flags, beams, dots, and other symbols. When students have to use these quickly while they’re taking dictation, certain preconceptions, misunderstandings, and gaps in their knowledge are often laid bare.15 For some, dictation is the only time when they’re called upon to use all these symbols and to construct them correctly. Dictation also affords an ideal opportunity for students to work in a balanced variety of keys and meter signs. For example, although so much Western tonal music is written in keys with few sharps or flats in the signature, students should be familiar with and fluent in keys up to seven sharps and flats. Similarly, students should be working in, say, 23 meter as well as in 4. 3 To this end, dictations can be presented in any key and any meter, requiring students to work adeptly in all of them. One crucially important skill that’s closely related to dictation is error detection. The ability to detect and correct errors plays an important role in many musicians’ lives. It’s obvious that conductors, coaches, and teachers use this. But performers, composers, arrangers, editors, recording engineers, copyists, musicologists, and other musicians also rely heavily on the ability to discern and rectify discrepancies between sound and notation. Byo (1997), Sheldon (1998), and others have shown that training in dictation (along with sight singing) improves error-detection skills.

Conclusion I had the great privilege to get to know Bruce Benward during the final decades of his long career. As the author of several books on aural skills, he was a fierce advocate for developing students’ capacity to turn what they hear into notation, a facility he called the ‘seeing ear,’ which he defined as ‘an ear that can perceive and identify patterns both large and small in music’ (Benward & Kolosick 2010, xi). Everything necessary to most fully realize that capacity – focused attention, musical memory, understanding, and notation – and all the subphases within them, are important and practical musical abilities and skills that support and enable so many musicians as they make their way through their musical lives.

Notes 1. Studies by Marple (n.d.), Tallarico (1974), Long (1977), and Pembrook (1983) found that listeners’ abilities to remember melodic material typically fall somewhere in the 6–10 note range when that material contains both pitches in a tonal context and rhythms in a metric context. 2. I am using words like ‘remember’ and ‘recall’ here as equivalent to ‘able to sing back.’ Aural skills instructors almost always use the voice as a means with which to diagnose memory problems. Simply asking a student to repeat a melody can be an illuminating way to witness how well melodic memory is functioning. Of course, instructors can worry (and students can complain) that vocal problems – and not memory – are the impediment, but asking a student to sing a familiar tune (such as ‘Happy Birthday to You,’ ‘Frére Jacques,’ etc.) in the same register where recall problems occurred will often reveal that vocal production is not the central problem. And any other responses we might elicit – about contour, scale degrees, specific pitches and rhythms, and so forth – cannot isolate pure memory from the vagaries of musical understanding and notation. So, until brain scans are consistently capable of practically and affordably reproducing what students auralize as they silently recall music, we must rely on students’ voices as the most reliable means of assessing melodic memory. (See Kraus, Anderson, & White-Schwoch 2017 for information on the tantalizing potential of monitoring the frequency-following response in listeners’ brains.). 3. Figures 3.3 and 3.4 contain transcriptions of actual student responses on the diagnostic placement exam described in Karpinski and Heinzelmann (2018). 4. I discussed various diagnostic and remediation procedures in Karpinski (2000, 37–39; 66–70) and Karpinski (1990, 209–213). 5. For a good introduction to working memory and a review of the literature on the subject, see Buchsbaum and D’Esposito (2013). 6. I offered a synopsis in Karpinski (2000, 71–77).

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The Seeing Ear 7. This is the limit in the absence of chunking, which can extend the number of notes (but not the number of bits) a listener can recall de novo. See Karpinski (2000, 73–77 and 98–100) for an introduction to musical chunking. 8. It is not uncommon to offer an additional playing, for purposes of error correction or for students to recover portions of the melody not processed during earlier playings. 9. Although those of us fluent in notation can absentmindedly think of musical understanding as manifesting itself directly in the form of F♯s and quarter notes, pure musical understanding takes place in its own pre-notational phase. When presented appropriately – without unnecessary extramusical cues – dictation requires students to understand meters and rhythms without regard to particular meter signs and rhythm symbols, and to understand pitches without regard to particular keys, clefs, and absolute pitches. See Karpinski (2000, 92–98) for ways to present dictation without unnecessary cues. 10. See Karpinski (2000, 92; 96–97) for the theoretical argument and Karpinski (2017) for the implementation. 11. Duple vs. triple and simple vs. compound are the most basic types of meter discrimination (see Karpinski 2000, 22–24). Quadruple is the result of an additional layer of complexity (a doubling of duple). Asymmetrical and changing meters arise from even more complex metric relationships. But duple, triple, simple and compound meters lie at the heart of Western metric music, and should form the starting point in Western music pedagogy. 12. See, for example, the summary in Krumhansl and Cuddy (2010). 13. Those of us who are adamant that musicians must learn to think of chords in terms of the functions of their roots’ scale degrees within a key should be just as adamant that musicians who hear pitches in a tonal melody should be processing them not as (or at least not only as) absolute pitches or as a succession of intervals but as scale degrees in relation to the tonic. If it’s important that any musician point to a cadence and say ‘supertonic six, dominant, tonic,’ then it should be just as important that a musician hear F♯-G-A-C♯-D and say ‘3ˆ–4ˆ–5ˆ–7ˆ–1ˆ’ or ‘mi-fa-sol-ti-do’ (if using movable do). This is why we speak of, for example, a ‘dominant chord’ and not simply a G chord in the key of C, or an A chord in the key of D. 14. Every Schenkerian labels notes in an Ursatz ‘3ˆ–2ˆ–1ˆ’ or ‘5ˆ–4ˆ–3ˆ–2ˆ–1ˆ’ (not just, say ‘B♭-A♭-G-F-E♭’) because the functions of the pitches matter. An F has no functional meaning in and of itself, but 2ˆ conveys a great deal of meaning in terms of tonal function as a scale degree. 15. See Karpinski (2011) for more on this.

References Benward, Bruce, & Kolosick, Timothy J. (2010). Ear training: A technique for listening (Instructors Edition), 7th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill. Buchsbaum, Bradley R., & D’Esposito, Mark (2013). Working memory. In The Oxford handbook of cognitive neuroscience, volume 1: Core topics, edited by Kevin N. Ochsner and Stephen Kosslyn. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199988693.013.0019. Byo, James L. (1997). The effects of texture and number of parts on the ability of music majors to detect performance errors. Journal of Research in Music Education 45: 51–66. Cooper, Grosvenor, & Meyer, Leonard B. (1960). The rhythmic structure of music. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Karpinski, Gary S. (1990). A model for music perception and its implications in melodic dictation. Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy 4: 191–229. Karpinski, Gary S. (2000). Aural skills acquisition: The development of listening, reading, and performing skills in collegelevel musicians. New York: Oxford University Press. Karpinski, Gary S. (2011). The view from the aural skills classroom. Paper delivered to the 87th annual meeting of the National Association of Schools of Music, Scottsdale, AZ. Karpinski, Gary S. (2017). Manual for ear training and sight singing. New York: W. W. Norton. Karpinski, Gary S., & Heinzelmann, Sigrun (2018). Diagnostic assessment of aural skills based on cognitive principles: Placement testing and curricular ramifications. Paper presented at the International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition & European Society for the Cognitive Sciences of Music joint conference, Montréal, Canada, July 2018. Kraus, Nina, Anderson, Samira, & White-Schwoch, Travis (2017). The frequency-following response: A window into human communication. In The frequency-following response (Springer Handbook of Auditory Research 61) edited by Nina Kraus, Samira Anderson, Travis White-Schwoch, Richard R. Fay, and Arthur N. Popper. Cham, Switzerland: Springer. Krumhansl, Carol L., & Cuddy, Lola L. (2010). A theory of tonal hierarchies in music. In Music perception (Springer Handbook of Auditory Research 36), edited by Mari Riess Jones, Richard R. Fay, and Arthur N. Popper, 51–87. New York: Springer. Lerdahl, Fred, & Jackendoff, Ray (1983). A generative theory of tonal music. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

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Gary S. Karpinski Long, Peggy A. (1977). Relationships between pitch memory in short melodies and selected factors. Journal of Research in Music Education 25: 272–283. Marías, Javier (1992). Corazón tan blanco. Translated by Margaret Jull Costa as A heart so white. London: The Harvill Press (1995). Marple, Hugo D. (n.d.). Short term memory and musical stimuli. In Psychology and acoustics of music: A collection of papers, edited by Edward P. Asmus, Jr., 74–93. Lawrence, KS: Division of Continuing Education, University of Kansas. NASM (2020). Handbook 2019–20. Reston, VA: National Association of Schools of Music. Pembrook, Randall G. (1983). The effects of contour, length, and tonality on melodic memory. Paper presented to the Southeast Regional meeting of the Music Educators National Conference, Louisville, KY. QAA (2019). Subject benchmark statement: Music. Gloucester, UK: Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education. Rothstein, William (1989). Phrase rhythm in tonal music. New York: Schirmer Books. Rutherford, Mike, & Robertson, B. A. (1988). The living years. On Living Years [Music CD]. New York: Atlantic Records. Royal Academy of Music (2016). Call for papers, Aural skills pedagogy: What is to be done? https://goldenpages. jpehs.co.uk/2016/11/02/aural-skills-pedagogy-what-is-to-be-done/. Sheldon, Deborah A. (1998). Effects of contextual sight-singing and aural skills training on error-detection abilities. Journal of Research in Music Education 46: 384–395. Tallarico, Thomas P. (1974). A study of the three phase concept of memory: Its musical implications. Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education 39: 1–15.

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4 ATTENTIONAL CONTROL A Perceptual Fundamental Timothy Chenette

It is important to recognize that without attentive hearing there is no listener in the world who can succeed at the ensuing stages of memory, understanding, and notation. Gary S. Karpinski, Aural Skills Acquisition, p. 65

Introduction It is the central premise of this chapter that control of one’s ability to pay attention underlies everything we do in the aural-skills classroom. The importance of this skill is suggested by the epigraph from Gary S. Karpinski’s classic pedagogy text Aural Skills Acquisition that begins this chapter (2000): Karpinski locates attention at the beginning of the dictation process along with the physical ability to hear. And yet hearing and attention together are given about a page in this portion of Karpinski’s text, which primarily suggests that the aural-skills classroom ‘can often serve as an initial point of diagnosis’ for conditions such as hearing loss and Attention Deficit Disorder (Karpinski, 65). Indeed, most of the problems that Karpinski lists in this section are medical in nature and thus not appropriate for nonspecialists to remediate. While Karpinski’s focus is clearly on the later stages of the dictation process, he does address the importance of attentional control several times in the course of his text. In particular, later in Aural Skills Acquisition, Karpinski gives a more detailed account of strategies useful in polyphonic dictation relying in part on control of attention (Karpinski, 111–117). He then connects this discussion to harmonic hearing when he suggests that making the ‘leap’ from single-voice to multiple-voice dictation ‘can often serve as an intermediary step and an extremely controlled environment within which to hone lower-voice attention skills’ (Karpinski, 121), an important component of how humans hear harmony. Attentional control is something we work on in class all the time, even if we do not do so consciously, and it pervades ear training work so thoroughly that we should think deeply about how we might help our students improve in this ability. In service of this goal, this chapter will explore attentional control in the aural-skills/ear training classroom with a particular focus on listening skills.1 I will first explore the literature on attentional control, demonstrating its various components and how it interacts with working memory. I will then describe barriers to effective control of attention. Finally, I will examine the aural-skills curriculum in light of this information, demonstrating the ways that this literature highlights certain aspects and problems of this curriculum and giving suggestions for how we might more purposefully address attentional control at each stage of student learning. 47

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What Is Attentional Control? Though there is debate about the exact nature of attention, modern definitions tend to focus on its role in selecting among possible perceptions and preparing individuals for action. Montemayor and Haladjian (2015), for example, state: ‘Attention, broadly defined, is a selective processing mechanism (or rather, a group of mechanisms) that enhances and selects perceptual information for executing actions and higher-level cognition, and, as we will argue, for consciousness’ (25). As they point out, ‘Attention is a central aspect of perception, and the manner in which attention is directed can dictate how visual information is perceived, often resulting in different interpretations of a single perceptual stimulus’ (26). Perceptually, attending to an object gives it salience, almost as if it were louder, brighter, or otherwise more prominent than it would otherwise appear to be – this idea is common in research on attention, though it is a particular focus of Wu (2011). As a result, attention is sometimes compared to a spotlight, emphasizing the object(s) toward which it is directed. (This analogy also reflects the visual bias of much of the research on attention, a matter I will address later.) As simple as this system may seem, Montemayor and Haladjian’s reference to a ‘group’ of mechanisms is appropriate. One common distinction made in research on attention is between more general states of attention such as drowsiness and alertness, which may vary based on both diurnal cycles and aspects of one’s immediate environment, and specific acts of attending to individual objects. An overview of research by Posner et al. (2007) refers to these as ‘intensive’ and ‘selective’ aspects of attention, respectively. The intensive aspect of attention is in turn related to the ‘alerting’ system of the brain, which itself involves ‘a number of midbrain neural modulators such as norepinephrine and dopamine’ and can also be affected by ‘the presentation of an external stimulus.’ Selective aspects of attention, in turn, are involved in two complementary systems called ‘orienting’ and ‘executive control.’ Posner et al. define orienting as dealing with ‘selective mechanisms operating on sensory input;’ orienting processes are typically considered ‘bottom-up,’ that is, driven by aspects of the environment (say, the introduction of a novel, eye-catching object). ‘Executive control’ or ‘executive attention’ is ‘top-down,’ that is, more consciously-driven, and deals with ‘conflict among competing responses’ and self-regulation (Posner et al., 412–413). For example, executive control is what allows an individual to choose to listen to a less salient bass line rather than a more salient melody. ‘Executive control’ forms an important point of contact between studies of working memory – the brain mechanisms responsible for short-term storage and processing of information – and studies of attention. Numerous studies have found connections between the ability of subjects to control their selective attention and the capacity of these subjects’ working memory: for example, Fukuda and Vogel (2009, 2011) demonstrated that individuals with higher working-memory capacity (storage) were better able to recover from distractions (through attentional control), while de Fockert et al. (2001) provided evidence that ‘working memory serves to control visual selective attention’ (de Fockert et al., 2001). Cowan et al. (2005) speculate that this correlation between working memory capacity and attentional control arises from variations in individuals’ ‘scope of attention,’ or, more informally, the size of their attentional ‘spotlight.’ After all, like working memory capacity, attention is a limited resource (that is, one cannot fully attend to every object in one’s environment at once), and the scope of an individual’s attention (roughly, the number of objects they can pay attention to simultaneously) appears to vary somewhat among individuals. As a result, Cowan et al. suggest that it is an individual’s scope of attention capacity that limits his or her working memory capacity. While researchers have not settled on this explanation, these studies and models suggest a strong connection among these important abilities. Like working memory capacity, it appears that many attention-related capacities may be fixed by adulthood. This does not mean that they are necessarily inherited, as Posner et al. (2007) claim that ‘genetic differences observed to date account for only a small part of the variance found in behavior and imaging.’ Yet Posner et al. highlight studies that suggest that the interaction of genetics

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with environmental factors in childhood appears to create a stable capacity before the age at which students enter university study (Posner et al., 420). While they also refer to other studies that suggest some changes may occur in adulthood, it seems safest to assume that we are not able to have a large effect on our students’ capacities. Nevertheless, while we may not be able to improve our attentional capacities, we may be able to improve their performance. Strait and Kraus (2011), for example, speculate that the superior performance of musicians on tasks related to attention is likely due to training, not ( just) ‘natural selection.’ This would suggest that while our capacities may be relatively fixed, we may also be able to improve their efficiency and our ability to apply them to different tasks and situations. While their conclusions are speculative, other studies have found that certain kinds of training can indeed change how we pay attention: Anderson et al. (2011), for example, showed an effect on attention from ‘value-driven capture,’ where objects previously associated with rewards drew attention away from other objects. Research on the effects of anxiety on attentional systems, such as that of Pacheco-Unguetti et al. (2010), suggests additional ways we may be able to affect our students’ performance on attentionrelated tasks. The vast majority of studies on attention focus on the visual realm. This is likely due to multiple factors, but surely among them are that visual orienting mechanisms such as head orientation and eye tracking are far easier to observe than auditory orienting mechanisms, and that visual objects (‘a cat,’ ‘the number 2,’ etc.) are often easier for non-experts to describe than auditory – and especially musical – objects (‘C4 on the piano,’ ‘a tonic triad in first inversion’). Fortunately, it appears that findings in visual attention likely have implications for auditory attention. Alais et al. (2006) review prior studies on the connections between auditory and visual attention and present evidence that while the two systems are independent, they appear to have similar structures and effects. Montemayor and Haladjian (2015) similarly suggest that findings in visual attention ‘are generally applicable to other modalities’ (Montemayor and Haladjian, 25). And Posner et al. (2007) review evidence that ‘the same areas [of the brain] may be active irrespective of whether the stimuli are spatial, verbal, or visual objects,’ at least in the realm of executive control (Posner et al., 417); given this cross-domain similarity, it seems likely that musical objects could also be added to this list. As a result of this visual bias, perhaps the best-studied aspect of musical attention is the act of sight reading. Puurtinen (2018) and Madell and Hébert (2008) give useful overviews of research in this area, which usually focuses on tracking eye ‘saccades’ (movements) and ‘fixations’ (stationary periods during which information is taken in). While both sources critique the fragmented and nonstandardized nature of research in the field, they draw attention to several common conclusions, such as the fact that the eyes of expert music readers move around more often during music reading compared to novices, who need longer during each fixation to absorb relevant information and therefore cannot scan around the music as quickly. Since these articles give an effective overview of this research and Karpinski’s note-reading advice (Karpinski, 172–175, under the headings ‘Eye Movements,’ ‘Visual and Mental Chunking,’ and ‘Reading Ahead’) is still relevant, this chapter will focus primarily on listening skills. Among studies on auditory attention, most focus on the so-called ‘cocktail-party effect,’ or the ability to extract a single stream of information from a chaotic environment, such as a relevant conversation during a noisy cocktail party. While these studies focus on verbal stimuli, this phenomenon is clearly relevant to aural-skills training, as Chandrasekaran and Kraus’s (2010) description suggests: We will argue that perceiving sensory information in background noise is a complex task involving the abilities to extract key features in the signal while suppressing irrelevant details, temporarily store this information while ignoring noise, process a stream from a single source in the midst of numerous other sources (e.g., a speaker’s voice), and use

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linguistic context to ‘fill in’ details lost in the noise. These components of speech in noise perception are enhanced in musicians. (297) Research on the cocktail-party effect will thus be cited later as relevant. While there is consensus that ‘musical training’ improves the ability to detect and decipher a single stream of meaning within background noise, researchers typically judge this based on music training writ large, so it is not at all clear what component of music training improves this ability. For example, Strait and Kraus (2011) argue: ‘[O]ur work and the work of others indicate that music training provides a mechanism for that very education in the auditory domain, enhancing our ability to direct our attentional spotlight, to remember what was recently heard, and to separate a target sound stream from other auditory input – not just for music but for other auditory domains as well.’ The authors speculate that these ‘auditory advantages . . . stem from focused and consistent interactive experience with sound’ (Strait and Kraus, 135–6). This is somewhat vague, and we might wonder exactly which ‘interactive experiences’ are most helpful for our students; such experiences surely happen throughout music curricula and even in broader musical experiences, not just in aural skills. The answer lies beyond current published research, but we can at least consider how our aural-skills curricula offer such opportunities. The most well-developed area of inquiry into listening as attention within music-specific scholarship lies in the realm of meter. In fact, work by Gjerdingen (1989), Hasty (1997), London (2012), and others has firmly established that hearing meter is an attentional activity. That is, humans perceive strong beats in those temporal locations where they most strongly expect new events of various kinds; these ‘strong beats’ thus represent not accents composed into the music, but rather peaks of attention. This understanding of meter is supported by experimental results, including those reported in Keller and Burnham (2005) that demonstrate that congruency and simplicity of metric organization improves our attentional abilities. Among other implications, this suggests that count-offs before a listening task are likely to improve recall (albeit in a potentially nonrealistic situation), and that metrically ambiguous openings are destructive to recall. Unfortunately, this focus on attention has yet to be extended to the realm of pitch with the same level of thoroughness and detail.

Barriers to Effective Attentional Control The most notable factor that affects attentional control is stress. This fairly intuitive conclusion is supported by research reported by Liston et al. (2009), but, fortunately, this research also highlighted the plasticity of the stress-sensitive prefrontal cortex. Liston et al.’s subjects displayed impaired attentional control after a month of ‘psychosocial stress’ induced by preparing for a major academic exam; specifically, they were less able to disengage from particularly salient stimuli (Liston et al., 917). Fortunately, this effect is reversible, as the subjects returned to normal performance after a month of reduced stress. A study by Pacheco-Unguetti et al. (2010) expands on our understanding of how different phenomena often grouped together under the term ‘stress’ can affect individuals. This research demonstrates that high ‘trait anxiety,’ a relatively stable condition based on an individual’s ‘attitudes and strategies,’ correlates with a lack of executive control of attention and a resulting difficulty in inhibiting ‘distractor information.’ Meanwhile, high ‘state anxiety,’ an anxiety induced by factors in a specific environment, heightened the sensitivity of the ‘alerting’ and ‘orienting’ attentional networks, leading to an increased receptivity to salient information (Pacheco-Unguetti et al., 299). Both effects may diminish students’ performance in class. While we do not have total control over students’ anxiety levels, we may be able to help reduce trait anxiety by molding student attitudes, while state anxiety may be more affected by grading structures and the classroom atmosphere.

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Of these, the easiest elements for a teacher to control are grading and atmosphere. Scholars of teaching and learning often suggest frequent low-stakes quizzes (see, e.g., Weinstein and Sumeracki 2019, 125), both to manage student stress levels and to encourage frequent recall; such frequent, lowstakes assessments are advocated for aural-skills classes in particular by Kleppinger (2017, 154–155), who cites similar remarks by Rogers (2004). Many of the types of assessments used in aural skills, however, are still particularly apt to be stressful, given both the element of performance (in hearings and singing in front of a class) and the ephemeral and intangible nature of sound (in dictations). When this stress leads to high state anxiety, students will be less able to tune out distracting information such as sounds bleeding in from other rooms. Fortunately, there are ways to make assessments less stressful, including asking students to submit recordings rather than perform in front of a class (see de Clercq 2013). For instructors who retain in-class singing because they believe it is a valuable venue in which students can learn to manage their performance anxiety, it is important to give students techniques to do so, if we wish for them to meet their potential in an attention-related skill. Multitasking among our students may also detract from attentional control. Ophir et al. (2009) found that heavy media multitasking correlates with less executive control and an impaired ability to ignore irrelevant information. Importantly, this study was unable to prove whether this correlation necessarily results from cause and effect, but the authors still strongly advise against multitasking. Regardless, multitasking imposes a cognitive penalty; as Weinstein and Sumeracki (2019) write, ‘One important aspect of attention is the finding that going back and forth between two different tasks involves switch costs that decrease efficiency and slow down reaction speeds in both tasks’ (Weinstein and Sumeracki, 53; italics in original). The most obvious culprit here is of course personal electronic devices, and the most obvious solution to simply ban them from the classroom. But banning personal devices may not be practical or desired, and other sources of multitasking can also be an issue. For example, students may come to class preoccupied with a life problem and find their brains switching back and forth between this and the class material; attention-getting and involving warm-ups may be able to help students focus on the task at hand.2 Finally, any time students are doing a complex task with multiple subcomponents that are not yet automatic, they are in effect multitasking. For example, when students first do melodic dictation, they are switching between trying to attend to a melody, trying to recall the melody, using various methods to analyze pitches and rhythms, recalling how to notate what they hear, considering metacognitively what they ought to be doing next, and possibly pondering how frustrating the whole process is. Practicing these tasks in isolation (except, let us hope, the frustration) to help students automate these various tasks may also help them maintain control of their attention. Familiarity (or lack thereof ), particularly in the realm of timbre, may be important in helping students attend to a stimulus. Johnsrude et al.’s (2013) study of the cocktail-party effect found that ‘speech perception is considerably improved when a highly familiar voice is present in a two-voice cocktail-party situation’ – interestingly, both when the familiar voice was the target to be listened to and when it was the distractor voice ( Johnsrude et al., 2013). Extending this to music, the same might be true of ‘highly familiar’ instrumental timbres. The question of how timbre affects student performance in dictation has been of interest to scholars since at least Gephardt (1978). Such research has sometimes produced mixed results, which may be due to the requirement for truly deep familiarity; Johnsrude et al. contrast their results with another study where a somewhat familiar voice did not produce the same effect, suggesting that the level of familiarity matters. And certain instruments (say, the bassoon) have a much less variable range of timbres than others (say, the voice). Finally, one of the most intractable barriers to improving attentional control is that this ability is so invisible and mysterious, and it is hard to give advice beyond simply saying, ‘listen better this time!’ (Indeed, this frustration was, in part, the inspiration for this research and chapter.) As a result, it will be useful to consider in detail how each stage of the traditional aural-skills curriculum exercises attention, in order to refine the kinds of advice and activities we might use to help our students.

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Conceptualizing the Aural-Skills Curriculum Through Attentional Control The role of attention in the aural-skills classroom starts the minute students walk in the door, as students vary in their attentional states. These states are affected not only by time of day and recent experiences (say, tiredness and distractedness from staying up late to study) but also by student anxiety. While this is true for other classes as well, the effects of students’ attentional states may be particularly substantial in aural-skills classes, as many of the skills we practice are predicated on control of attention – as the Karpinski epigraph at the beginning of this chapter suggests. While claims of students’ 10-minute (or shorter) attention spans may not be supported by the literature (see Bradbury 2016), students’ attentional states clearly wax and wane during the course of a class. This fluctuation of attentional state may be more destructive during a skill-and-practice-oriented class than during a lecture, where concepts may be repeated or studied later and logic may be able to fill in gaps related to mind-wandering. As such, it is likely important to create an environment that encourages an attentive state, both to facilitate the basic learning process and to allow students to effectively practice attention-related skills. Standard aural-skills curricula do, fortunately, move from less difficult attentional tasks to more difficult attentional tasks, each of which calls for different approaches to attention. In particular, virtually every textbook begins with single-line music, often with limited numbers of potential objects: some begin with just pairs of notes (e.g., Horvit et al. 2013), some with just rhythms, some with melodies that do not use all the notes in a diatonic scale (Jones et al. 2014, for example, begins with melodies drawn from five-note scales). These materials do not heavily tax students’ orienting and executive control systems, as there is only one stimulus to which students must pay attention (unless, of course, there is someone practicing next door). Because single-line music involves a relatively simple stimulus, the primary challenge for students at the beginning of an aural-skills curriculum is to join effective habits of attentive listening with working memory. That is, attention here involves not just paying attention to a stimulus but paying attention in such a way that the attended object is encoded in some way in the brain. Sounds can certainly be encoded directly as sounds in the brain, but it seems likely that giving those sounds an alternative system of representation will strengthen our ability to attend to them and encode them in memory. The most common such representations used in aural-skills classes are solfège (or other representations of scale degree) and written musical notation. Kraft (1999), for example, writes (under the subtitle ‘The Big Picture: Remember the Melody!’), ‘It helps, too, if you can see the melody in your mind’s eye while you hear it in your mind’s ear’ (Kraft, 3). There is a chicken-and-egg problem here: this is the first page on teaching melodic dictation, so the idea that students would be able to visualize notation as they hear may only be true for those with many years of experience. But it seems likely that there is a feedback loop as students translate heard notes into other modalities, whether verbal (solfège) or visual (notation), and instructors should be mindful of encouraging this loop to operate. Less common, but equally promising: one might consider adding to these the physical/kinetic modality. The only well-developed system of using kinesthetic associations to support listening is Dalcroze Eurythmics, applied to aural-skills instructions by Urista (2016); using such physical motions will likely aid both attention and encoding. Nevertheless, there are other potential physical systems that might be of use, if developed appropriately: Mikumo (1994), for example, describes a study that investigates the effectiveness of a ‘finger-tapping strategy’ for remembering a melody, that is, encoding the melody ‘by the fingers moving as if playing the piano’ (Mikumo, 175). Though this strategy did not improve retention in all situations, it did appear to be useful for ‘subjects who were highly trained in music,’ for longer melodies, and for situations where auditory rehearsal strategies were impaired (Mikumo, 195; this would include interference from sound bleeding in from other rooms). Though Mikumo focuses on benefits for encoding, it is quite possible that such a strategy

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would also improve attentiveness to a stimulus, as it adds visual and kinesthetic modalities to our traditional modes of music perception. Additional methods of using physical motion to improve attention and encoding might also be developed.3 Such multimodal frameworks can become especially powerful when combined with chunking, that is, grouping individual objects (say, notes) into larger units (say, metric units or arpeggios within a single chord) to facilitate the encoding of a longer auditory stimulus. While this is typically considered a necessary strategy for encoding, it is also likely important for attention: if we think of attention as a ‘spotlight’ that emphasizes some object within an environment, then allowing that spotlight to encompass multiple objects will allow deeper engagement and more immediate recognition of chunks for purposes of encoding. Aural-skills textbooks commonly tout the benefits of chunking through learning those patterns that are most common; for example, Jones et al. (2014) state: The paradigmatic approach found in this text employs real stylistically based harmonic progressions, melodic patterns, and specific rhythmic shapes to give students an aural vocabulary.  .  .  . Several studies have shown that students who learn to label musical paradigms consistently are more successful in meaningfully parsing the musical surface. ( Jones, xvi) Yet while it seems likely that working with common objects will facilitate chunking, it also seems worthwhile to ask students to listen with a conscious focus on chunking. (Chenette [2019] gives advice on how one might structure this activity.) If all of this fails, then in order to give deeper advice, we need to investigate exactly what it is that students are paying attention to. Extensive research demonstrates that experts do not pay attention to the mechanics of a task but rather its outcome. This research is surveyed in Duke et al. (2011), which also extends the research to music, demonstrating that when musicians playing piano were directed to listen to the sound they produced, they played more accurately than when they were instructed to attend to their finger motions, the action of the keys, or the action of the hammers.4 Their explanation of this effect, drawing on the conclusions of similar research in other fields, is that focusing on the end result recruits sophisticated automated processes, while paying attention to the mechanics of the task forces the brain to bring in less well-practiced conscious processes. Clearly, taking melodic dictation is far different from playing piano, but it is possible that focusing student attention on more goal-directed aspects of a task – say, truly focusing on remembering a melody rather than worrying about notation right away – might help them recruit long-practiced habits of attention. Listening to multiple-line music – usually practiced as harmonic dictation – presents the most obvious attentional challenge in the aural-skills curriculum: how to meaningfully follow a stimulus that involves multiple simultaneous streams of information. Humans are typically only able to focus on one object at a time, an insight already applied to music in Justin London’s rejection of the perceptual possibility of polymeter.5 Karpinski (2000) suggests that the desired end point of harmonic aural-skills training is for students to hear chords as ‘Gestalts;’ if this is possible, then students will eventually be able to focus their attention on complete chords (as ‘objects’) rather than individual notes. Unfortunately, this attractive ability is likely not available to all listeners in all situations. For listeners without Gestalt hearing, listening to the bass can facilitate relatively accurate and quick aural harmonic analysis, particularly when combined with stylistic knowledge and other listening strategies such as paying attention to chord quality. Of course, attending to the bass rather than the (usually more salient) melody brings its own challenges. Karpinski (2000) suggests twovoice dictation as a useful stepping stone on the way to learning to listen to the bass in larger textures. Presumably this is helpful because it introduces an element of scaffolding into the activity, allowing students to practice attention-directing skills in an easier situation before moving to harder

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ones. Yet two-voice dictation can actually sometimes be more difficult than bass dictation, particularly if the voices are of similar timbre and register, and there are other kinds of scaffolding that one could draw on. In particular, research on auditory streaming suggests that we might scaffold activities by making use of the ‘what’ and ‘where’ of sound to make a bass line easier to attend to. With regard to ‘what,’ as Posner et al. (2007) describe, When the target differs in a single element from the background reaction times generally are similar irrespective of the number of elements as though they pop out from the background. However, when the target and background have attributes in common reaction times generally increase linearly with the amount of background elements. (p. 413) It seems likely that a similar principle holds when tracking an auditory target – that is, that an auditory target that is different from all other simultaneous auditory streams in some salient parameter will ‘pop out’ – and one of the most important modalities of similarity/contrast is timbre. As a result, one might present students’ first dictations not in a uniform timbre like the piano but rather with at least the bass differentiated; for this reason, popular music, with its often timbrally and registrally separated bass lines, may be a particularly useful place to start. With regard to ‘where,’ our brains rely in part on the locations of sounds to separate and identify different auditory streams. Alain et al. (2001) give evidence that pitch discrimination and location determination are processed in different parts of the brain, suggesting these processes will not interfere with each other, while Hawley et al. (2004) demonstrate that ‘binaural hearing,’ which facilitates the better detection of source location, improves detection of speech in the presence of distractor information. As a result, a dictation performed by (say) a quartet could be scaffolded by first placing the bass in a separate location from the rest of the ensemble and then moving closer with each hearing; or a dictation from a recording could have the bass panned to one speaker and the rest of the ensemble panned to the other. Once aural-skills curricula move past diatonic music and into chromaticism and modulation, new attention-related challenges come primarily from relationships between the referential frame (overall pitch collection) and the object at hand (the note or chunk we are hearing at any given time). Effective understanding of chromaticism requires retention of the referential frame in the face of conflicting stimuli, a process that research does not currently allow us to understand in great detail but that clearly complicates the attentional task. The change of referential frame in a modulation, in turn, might act somewhat like a visual change of scene, encouraging the brain to discard old information in order to adapt to a changing environment. Other changes in the relationship between a subject and an environment, such as self motion around a physical environment, have been found to ‘reset’ a subject’s auditory scene analysis (that is, their parsing of the sonic environment into coherent ‘streams’ of information; see, e.g. Kondo et al. [2012]), and it seems possible that modulation also prompts the brain to use more resources as it reinterprets its environment in light of a new situation. If this is the case, it will involve significant exercise of executive control to maintain attention on the appropriate stimulus as the key change occurs and to retain events that occurred before the modulation in working memory. This analogy between diatonic systems and visual environments is speculative, but one research study gives results that may support this connection. Dowling and Tillmann (2014) demonstrate that when subjects were asked to remember a melody and the music was allowed to play on past the designated melody before testing, subjects’ accuracy in distinguishing that melody from similar ‘lure’ melodies actually increased. The researchers hypothesize that participants quickly encode the contour of the melody, but that the salience of exact scale degrees increases with additional music, allowing stronger and more accurate encoding. Nevertheless, they note that ‘for this binding process

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to occur, the similarity of the filler material with the preceding, to-be-memorized material, as well as its continuity and coherence, is important’ (Dowling and Tillmann, 29). Though Dowling and Tillmann’s results did not clearly establish this, it seems likely (especially given their focus on the importance of scale degree identity) that key is an important element of this continuity. Further research to determine the exact nature of modulation’s effect on attention, and any variations in effect caused by different types of modulation (shift by half step, closely related modulation, common-tone modulation, etc.), would be helpful in understanding how best to help our students navigate these tricky musical environments.

Conclusion Attentional control is a crucial skill for all listening activities, and particularly the detailed activities traditionally undertaken in aural-skills classes. As Karpinski recognized, effective habits of attention must exist before a listener can be successful at later stages of the dictation – or, really, any listening – process. Outside of polyphonic dictation, the new challenges presented by each successive stage of the traditional aural-skills curriculum have been less well recognized. It is to be hoped that in understanding the nature of attentional control and exactly how it is tasked in the course of the curriculum we can address student difficulties more effectively and directly and that doing this opens the door for more students to be successful listeners.

Notes 1. Sight singing clearly also requires attentional control, but I focus elsewhere in large part because focus of attention while sight singing is more straightforward. While listening skills require attention to an ephemeral audio signal, attention in sight singing is typically focused on a more permanent physical/visual object. In addition, given the focus on the visual domain (and the ease of tracking eye movements), the science in this area is more clearly established. 2. By ‘involving,’ I mean activities that engage all students actively, hopefully encouraging them to leave other matters outside the classroom. For example, I often begin my aural skills classes by asking my students to stand up and sing, engaging their muscular system, their voices, and their brains. 3. For example, in teaching my students to follow chord progressions, I have experimented with having them step through an imagined ‘chord geography’ as they listen. I have not rigorously tested this method, but have gotten positive feedback from students. 4. The subjects were primarily music majors with extensive training on orchestral instruments. Interestingly, these instructions did not have a noticeable effect on the playing of the four pianist participants, who seemed to play equally well in all conditions (Duke et al. 2011, 51). 5. London (2012) points out that listeners confronted with polyrhythmic stimuli will either extract a composite pattern or focus on one rhythmic pattern at the expense of the other. In other words, ‘[B]ecause the need to maintain a single coherent ground seems to be universal . . . there is no such thing as a polymeter’ (London, 67; italics in original).

Bibliography Alain, C., S. R. Arnott, S. Hevenor, S. Graham, and C. L. Grady. (2001). ‘What’ and ‘Where’ in the Human Auditory System. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 98(21): 12301–12306. https://doi.org/10.1073/ pnas.211209098. Alais, David, Concetta Morrone, and David Burr. (2006). Separate Attentional Resources for Vision and Audition. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 273(1592): 1339–1345. https://doi.org/10.1098/ rspb.2005.3420. Anderson, B. A., P. A. Laurent, and S. Yantis. (2011). Value-Driven Attentional Capture. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 108(25): 10367–10371. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1104047108. Bradbury, Neil A. (2016). Attention Span During Lectures: 8 Seconds, 10 Minutes, or More? Advances in Physiology Education 40(4): 509–513.

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Timothy Chenette Chandrasekaran, Bharath, and Nina Kraus. (2010). Music, Noise-Exclusion, and Learning. Music Perception 27(4): 297–306. https://doi.org/10.1525/mp.2010.27.4.297. Chenette, Timothy. (2019). Taking Aural Skills Beyond Sight Singing and Dictation. Engaging Students: Essays in Music Pedagogy 7. https://doi.org/10.18061/es.v7i0.7364. Clercq, Trevor de. (2013). Toward a Flipped Aural Skills Classroom: Harnessing Recording Technology for Performance-Based Homework. Engaging Students: Essays in Music Pedagogy 1. http://flipcamp.org/engaging students/deClercq.html. Cowan, Nelson, Emily M. Elliott, J. Scott Saults, Candice C. Morey, Sam Mattox, Anna Hismjatullina, and Andrew R.A. Conway. (2005). On the Capacity of Attention: Its Estimation and Its Role in Working Memory and Cognitive Aptitudes. Cognitive Psychology 51(1): 42–100. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogpsych. 2004.13.001. Dowling, W. Jay, and Barbara Tillmann. (2014). Memory Improvement While Hearing Music: Effects of Structural Continuity on Feature Binding. Music Perception: An Interdisciplinary Journal 32(1): 11–33. https://doi. org/10.1525/mp.2014.33.1.11. Duke, Robert A., Carla Davis Cash, and Sarah E. Allen. (2011). Focus of Attention Affects Performance of Motor Skills in Music. Journal of Research in Music Education 59(1): 44–55. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022 429410396093. Fockert, Jan W. de, Geraint Rees, Christopher D. Frith, and Nilli Lavie. (2001). The Role of Working Memory in Visual Selective Attention. Science, New Series 291(5509): 1803–1806. Fukuda, Keisuke, and Edward K. Vogel. (2009). Human Variation in Overriding Attentional Capture. Journal of Neuroscience 29(27): 8726–8733. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2145-09.2009. Fukuda, Keisuke, and Edward K. Vogel. (2011). Individual Differences in Recovery Time From Attentional Capture. Psychological Science 22(3): 361–368. Gephardt, Donald Louis. (1978). The Effects of Different Familiar and Unfamiliar Musical Timbres on Musical Melodic Dictation. Ed.D. dissertation, St. Louis: Washington University. Gjerdingen, Robert O. (1989). Meter as a Mode of Attending: A Network Simulation of Attentional Rhythmicity in Music. Intégral 3, 67–91. Hasty, Christopher F. (1997). Meter as Rhythm. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hawley, Monica L., Ruth Y. Litovsky, and John F. Culling. (2004). The Benefit of Binaural Hearing in a Cocktail Party: Effect of Location and Type of Interferer. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 115(2): 833–843. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.1639908. Horvit, Michael, Timothy Koozin, and Robert Nelson. (2013). Music for Ear Training. 4th ed. Boston: Schirmer Cengage Learning. Johnsrude, Ingrid S., Allison Mackey, Hélène Hakyemez, Elizabeth Alexander, Heather P. Trang, and Robert P. Carlyon. (2013). Swinging at a Cocktail Party: Voice Familiarity Aids Speech Perception in the Presence of a Competing Voice. Psychological Science 24(10): 1995–2004. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797613482467. Jones, Evan, Matthew Shaftel, and Juan Chattah. (2014). Aural Skills in Context: A Comprehensive Approach to Sight Singing, Ear Training, Harmony, and Improvisation. New York: Oxford University Press. Karpinski, Gary S. (2000). Aural Skills Acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Keller, Peter E., and Denis K. Burnham. (2005). Musical Meter in Attention to Multipart Rhythm. Music Perception: An Interdisciplinary Journal 22(4): 629–661. https://doi.org/10.1525/mp.2005.23.4.629. Kleppinger, Stanley V. (2017). Practical and Philosophical Reflections Regarding Aural Skills Assessment. Indiana Theory Review 33(1–2): 153–183. Kondo, H. M., D. Pressnitzer, I. Toshima, and M. Kashino. (2012). Effects of Self-Motion on Auditory Scene Analysis. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 109(17): 6775–6780. https://doi.org/10.1073/ pnas.1112852109. Kraft, Leo. (1999). A New Approach to Ear Training. 2nd ed. Norton Programmed Texts in Music Theory. New York: W. W. Norton. Liston, C., B. S. McEwen, and B. J. Casey. (2009). Psychosocial Stress Reversibly Disrupts Prefrontal Processing and Attentional Control. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 106(3): 912–917. https://doi. org/10.1073/pnas.0807041106. London, Justin. (2012). Hearing in Time: Psychological Aspects of Musical Meter. New York: Oxford University Press. Madell, Jaime, and Sylvie Hébert. (2008). Eye Movements and Music Reading: Where Do We Look Next? Music Perception: An Interdisciplinary Journal 26(2): 157–170. https://doi.org/10.1525/mp.2008.26.3.157. Mikumo, Mariko. (1994). Motor Encoding Strategy for Pitches of Melodies. Music Perception: An Interdisciplinary Journal 12(2): 175–197. https://doi.org/10.2307/40285650. Montemayor, Carlos, and Harry Haroutioun Haladjian. (2015). Consciousness, Attention, and Conscious Attention. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

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Attentional Control Ophir, Eyal, Clifford Nass, and Anthony D. Wagner. (2009). Cognitive Control in Media Multitaskers. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 106(37): 15583–15587. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0903620106. Pacheco-Unguetti, Antonia Pilar, Alberto Acosta, Alicia Callejas, and Juan Lupiáñez. (2010). Attention and Anxiety: Different Attentional Functioning Under State and Trait Anxiety. Psychological Science 21(2): 298– 304. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797609359624. Posner, Michael I., M. Rosario Rueda, and Philipp Kanske. (2007). Probing the Mechanisms of Attention. In Handbook of Psychophysiology, 410–433. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Puurtinen, Marjaana. (2018). Eye on Music Reading: A Methodological Review of Studies from 1994 to 2017. Journal of Eye Movement Research 11(2): 1–16. https://doi.org/10.16910/jemr.11.3.3. Rogers, Michael R. (2004.) Teaching Approaches in Music Theory (2nd ed.). Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. Strait, Dana, and Nina Kraus. (2011). Playing Music for a Smarter Ear: Cognitive, Perceptual and Neurobiological Evidence. Music Perception: An Interdisciplinary Journal 29(2): 133–146. https://doi.org/10.1525/ mp.2011.29.2.133. Urista, Diane J. (2016). The Moving Body in the Aural Skills Classroom: A Eurythmics Based Approach. New York: Oxford University Press. Weinstein, Yana, Megan Sumeracki, and Oliver Caviglioli. (2019). Understanding How We Learn: A Visual Guide. New York: Routledge. Wu, Wayne. (2011). What Is Conscious Attention? Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 82(1): 93–120.

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5 TEACHING MUSICAL ANALYSIS AS AN AURAL SKILL Martin Scheuregger

Introduction This chapter presents an example of undergraduate music teaching in which musical analysis is considered as an aural skill. In this model of ‘listener-led’ musical analysis, scores are no longer the primary source for the student, who must instead develop aural-analytical skills and present their findings in primarily graphic forms. While the case study in this chapter moves beyond general principles, it is not necessarily to be taken as a fixed model; instead, a rounded view of how aural skills can be integrated into the music theory classroom is presented through reference to my pedagogical intentions, reflections on experience in the classroom, and the broader context in current literature on musical analysis teaching. Precedents and context are given first, as approaches to music theory and analysis teaching are explored that focus on listening and inductive reasoning. Next, the module for which this approach was developed is outlined, including the assessment task and an overview of the teaching setting. Lastly, reflections from the classroom are given, along with a discussion of graphic approaches to analysis, repertoire choices, problems, and tips, before scope for development is outlined by way of a conclusion.

Approaches to Musical Analysis Teaching When considering how to teach musical analysis, we might first turn to where our students may be directed. A reading list for the student of musical analysis may vary greatly from institution to institution, but some texts do appear rather frequently in the UK. Charles Rosen’s The Classical Style (1971) and Sonata Forms (1988) often provide a foundational understanding of common-practice repertoire; the histories and methods of analysis can be covered by Bent and Drabkin (1987), Nicholas Cook (1987), and Dunsby and Whittall (1988). Beyond this, more specialized works can shed light on analytical approaches for particular composers – Bartók may be covered by Ernö Lendvai (1971), for example – or from individual articles and chapters. More broadly, analysis will be practiced by the student under the direction of a tutor, who may draw on a suite of analytical tools that can be explored in more detail once a student comes to use them more thoroughly. An Introduction to Music Studies (Harper-Scott & Samson, eds., 2009) provides a broad overview for first-year undergraduate music study, of which music theory and analysis – introduced by Rachel Beckles Willson – is just one part. The author outlines approaches to musical analysis, addressing

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some fundamental questions and introducing important names and theories. It is only in the final section of this chapter that we are introduced to approaches (broadly couched as post-structuralist) that put greater emphasis on experience and perception. This highly instructive chapter perhaps reflects a common approach to analysis teaching: namely, for students to learn and apply a range of theories and then – time permitting – consider some broader concerns such as ‘a listener.’ This may be a slight oversimplification, but it is easy for analysis teaching to rely heavily on the learning and application of predefined theories or approaches: while these are undoubtedly useful skills, learning them does not necessarily constitute learning how to analyze. The problem with formal approaches is not so much that they are unhelpful but that teaching them as the foundation of analysis rather misses the point. Analysis should not be about repeating quasi-experimental findings but about generating musical conclusions that are evidenced in what can be observed (whether aurally or in the score). From such inductive reasoning, analysis will grow, but to start with the application of theory is to somewhat negate the experiential dimension of good musical analysis. Removing the score from the equation – as the method presented in this chapter does – makes such approaches mostly impossible to use, so we turn to our ears and a naturally inductive, more creative, and more personal approach. None of this is to deny the importance of formal analysis but is simply a provocation to rethink how we might teach analysis in a way that engages as many students as possible. There is a wider issue regarding engagement, in that the texts, theories, and practices of music analysis exist in a white racial frame (Ewell, 2020) which, in itself, we must rethink. More than simply diversifying the repertoire with which we teach – which can simply entrench this frame (Ewell, 2020, 5.1–5.3) – we must use ‘nonwhite’ music theories as essential elements in our curricula. This is not to negate what we think of as ‘European’ models of understanding primarily Western art music but to show to our students that there are many other music theories which deserve our attention. By avoiding some aspects of formal music theory (primarily through the removal of the score), the methodology under discussion here goes some way to enabling a more plural approach to musical analysis; however, a more self-conscious attempt to ‘deframe,’ ‘reframe,’ and ‘counterframe’1 is needed. There is great potential for this approach to become genuinely ‘diverse,’ but it is by no means there yet: I return to this point in my conclusions, where I look to the next steps in my teaching.

Aural Approaches and Inductive Reasoning Hutchinson and Howell (2016) present an approach to analysis teaching that is both accessible and rigorous. Although they do not dispense with the score, they do quite explicitly engage with the aural and the individual experience of students. Their approach is couched as an antidote to the preconceptions of musical analysis that students bring to undergraduate study: it is either descriptive in the extreme – ‘a detailed, painful, blow-by-blow inventory of the succession of events that make up a piece of music – nothing more than a running commentary’ (156) – or ‘dauntingly academic’ and ‘painstakingly couched in language of alienating complexity’ (156). As the authors reflect, neither approach is ultimately beneficial. Instead, musical analysis is best practiced as a creative act that maintains the balance between subjective experience and technical understanding. Echoing Nicholas Cook (1987, 245), the authors’ approach is inductive rather than deductive: students make observations that lead to theories and conclusions rather than imposing extant models onto musical works. Cook outlines recommendations for starting an analysis (1987, 237–259). A gradual familiarization with the music should begin with listening without a score, and we should recognize that what we find meaningful at this early stage may ultimately be important to our analysis: [S]ome analytical observations will occur to you as you play the music or listen to it or read it: large-scale repetitions, motivic connections, points of high tension or release, structural

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breaks and so on. These are worth noting down, and so are any other immediate responses to the music, however fragmentary or subjective. (237) The experience of listening is important to Cook, who suggests that relying on a recording first will: guarantee that you are analyzing the music you heard and not a kind of shadow-piece that is visible in the score but bears little relationship to the musical experience. If, on the other hand, you rush into some kind of analytical reduction before having made sure of your initial responses to the music, then in a real sense your analysis has nothing to work on. It will end up as an analysis of the score and not of the musical experience. It will not, in short, be a musical analysis. (240, emphasis in original) Cook recommends moving on to using a score to confirm what we hear and add detail, but is adamant that we should focus on what our ears tell us are musically significant details. His is ‘a simple, inductive approach’ (245) that reflects enlightened methods of musical analysis teaching (some examples of which are discussed later). Such inductive approaches tend to feature listening as an essential process and to acknowledge the experiential and individual nature of listening (and therefore of analysis). Beginning with form and structure, the approaches to music theory teaching discussed later all share an inductive, aural approach. Áine Heneghan demonstrates that even those works that exemplify formal archetypes can be analyzed inductively rather than through the application of formal theory. Through a case study of teaching form with Beethoven’s Piano Sonata, Op. 2, No. 1 in F minor, Heneghan writes of the importance of viewing form as a result of observable musical processes: [W]e focus less on what the form is and more on how it comes into being. In so doing, we consider form not just as a noun but also as a verb – the process of forming, how something is formed. If we are to understand how music acquires shape, structure, organization, arrangement, or form, we must shift the emphasis away from forms and onto the principles that generate those forms. (2020, 271, emphasis in original) Such a viewpoint is reflected in my approach discussed later. Heneghan acknowledges that ‘our experience of the work is necessarily informed by hearing how it unfolds over time, and how we as listeners or performers apprehend those moment-to-moment associations’ (271). This attention to foreground concerns echoes Jerrold Levinson’s conception of concatenationism (1997) whereby moment-to-moment changes are more important for the appreciation of music than larger, architectonic connections.2 In contrast, Daniel B. Stevens believes that ‘we must provide the tools applicable to entire movements, not just short didactic examples’ (2020, 215). He demonstrates a method through which students are trained to hear the harmonic structure in a symphonic movement rather than simply identify it in a score. While this involves recognizing localized harmonic changes and cadences, these foreground observations crucially feed into conclusions related to the middle ground and background of a work. Micro and macro are integrated here in a manner that resonates with the method proposed in this chapter. In a similarly bold rejection of the score, David Geary (2020) looks to aural skills in the context of twelve-tone music, outlining ‘an introduction to dodecaphony with zero score analysis. Instead, activities such as contextual listening and melodic dictation provide the input for identifying pitch and formal features that, in turn, become the foundation for narrative analysis’ (217). This approach can be considered inductive in that students’ observations feed into analytical understandings particular

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to the work, and shares the exploratory, creative nature of Hutchinson and Howell’s method (2016). Furthermore, in both chapters the authors discuss their encouragement of students applying their observations to performance and composition, and more broadly considering analysis as a creative act. The degree to which aural observations are translated into analytical conclusions in both cases is striking and informs the approach presented here. The challenge posed by musical analysis teaching can be summarized as needing to encourage creativity, to embrace subjectivity, to not be merely descriptive, to not rely solely on the application of extant theories, to embrace theories from beyond Western art music or popular music, and to be enlightening and useful for an analyzer’s broader musical activity. When considering analysis pedagogy in a first-year undergraduate context, the need for accessibility and relevance can be added to this list, although these terms are more about how the subject is taught than the nature of the repertoire used. Hutchinson and Howell as well as Cooke emphasize listening as an integral part of analysis; indeed, listening is presented as a protective shield against the score to be used as much as possible and as early as possible in order to keep our conclusions musical. Others have sought to propose ways of hearing and understanding music that are self-consciously experiential, including Levinson’s emphasis on moment-to-moment listening (1997), Fink’s highlighting of the importance of surface (1999), and, more tangentially, Adlington, who considers the listening experience in relation to our perception of time (1997, 2003). In all of these approaches there are common threads that inform the model discussed here. The starting point for my own music analysis teaching is to use these approaches and embrace individual listening experiences and inductive reasoning as the foundations of my method. While in most teaching we may start with listening but ultimately move on to using a score, the approach outlined in this chapter tests how much we can gain from focusing entirely on audio in a manner that echoes Stevens’s and Geary’s approaches. This listening-led musical analysis seeks to reframe analysis in the minds of students as an experiential rather than an abstract endeavor, further echoing Heneghan’s aim and Howell and Hutchinson’s observations around student expectations. The intention is not to ignore what can be gained from a score but to increase aural-analytical acuity so that analytical conclusions can be made from listening alone and used by students in their future work. Indeed, it is my hope that students will be encouraged to use such skills in musicological study more broadly.

Knowing the Score: The Module and Assessment The approach described in this chapter arose through the redesign of a first-year undergraduate module on the BA (Hons) Music program at my institution.3 The module, ‘Knowing the Score,’ runs across both semesters of the first year and is compulsory for all students on the program. As its learning outcomes (LOs) show, it combines elements of notation, composition, theory, and analysis. By the end of the modules, students should be able to: LO1: Create scores using appropriate music notation software. LO2: Generate and develop musical material within appropriate stylistic conventions. LO3: Understand and apply appropriate principles of melody, rhythm, harmony, and counterpoint. LO4: Transcribe elements of recorded or live performance into appropriate notation. LO5: Identify and apply appropriate analytical techniques to a range of musics. LO6: Communicate analytical findings in a range of formats. LOs 1–4 are covered in the first semester of study and focus on notation, arrangement, composition, and the use of notation software. LOs 3–6 are covered in the second semester and focus on analysis and theory: this part of the module forms the focus in this chapter. LOs 3 and 4 are assessed in both semesters: for LO3, the emphasis is on generating musical material in semester A and identifying these

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features in semester B; LO4 is approached through melodic and harmonic transcription in semester A and moves to the transcription of form in semester B. The first year of a music degree in the UK will usually include a module or modules covering similar issues: music theory, harmony and counterpoint, composition and arrangement, notation, musical analysis, and aural skills all appear in various guises. While the emphasis will differ depending on the focus of the degree program and experience of the students, some combination of these areas will provide a starting point for technical study in a music degree. The module under discussion here, therefore, is only unique inasmuch as every such module will be different; however, by examining a range of music from both the ‘generative’ perspective of composition and the ‘reductive’ perspective of analysis, the intention is that a rounded view of music theory may be encouraged in which creating and analyzing music are seen as two sides of the same coin. Students on the module have a wide range of experience and expectations: while some have undergone the conventional route of practical performance exams (ABRSM or equivalent), music theory exams and A-levels – with some already having attained grade eight theory – others have had less formal training and may be less confident with score reading.4 The module has developed to cater for students of differing experience, from those with little confidence in notation, through to those who are already familiar with aspects of analysis. This is achieved, in part, through emphasis on peer-learning and methods similar to the self-directed adjustment of level described by Cora S. Palfy (2020), in which students can work on a given task at a level they can achieve before increasing its complexity. The assessment and method of teaching is, therefore, developed with this variety of experiences in mind (with the aim of stretching students regardless of prior attainment) but is suitable to any level and could be applied in a pre-university through to a postgraduate context by adjusting the complexity of the concepts and repertoire explored. The semester B assessment through which LOs 3–6 are measured is outlined to students in the module handbook as follows: This coursework will be completed during a one-week period. Speed is not being tested here: the time period given will be ample for completing the task amongst your other programme commitments. You will be given audio files of several pieces in different styles and asked to choose one. Using this audio file, you will create a graphic analysis of this work that may be hand-written, computer-generated or a mixture of the two. During semester B of this module you will learn how to complete such an analysis. The following guidelines explain how this should be created and some rules that must be adhered to. On a single A3 page, you should create a graphic analysis of the piece of music using a timeline from left to right that corresponds to the timings in the recording. On this analysis you should mark out different types of section change from large-scale formal development to localised changes. Using text, graphics (with a key), or a mixture of the two, you should describe the musical features of the work. These may include: • • • • • • • •

The texture of different sections. Dynamics and articulation used. Thematic material used. How material is linked from one section to another. Labels of formal units (e.g.: verse/chorus, or development/recapitulation, etc.). Important changes ( for example in dynamics, texture, tessitura). Climax(es) and other important moments. Any other features important in the piece.

You may use some musical notation if useful, but this is not a transcription exercise. Students choose from six pieces of around four to eight minutes’ duration, spanning a range of styles and formal possibilities. (Repertoire choice for teaching and assessment is discussed in further detail later.)

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Teaching is conducted through ten weeks of twice-weekly two-hour sessions: one practical workshop in a computer lab and one discussion-focused seminar. Across the ten weeks there is a gradual shift from demonstration and discussion to the creation of graphic analyses following the model described in the assessment task. By the final weeks of teaching, students are working through an array of example pieces that represent the variety that will be present in the final assessment. Students are encouraged to share their ideas, questions, and progress on ongoing visual analyses so that they can learn from each other. Aside from the formal learning outcomes, my own hope is for the students: • • • • • • •

To develop ‘vertical’ listening skills (identifying details of texture, instrumentation, harmony, etc.). To develop ‘horizontal’ listening skills (identifying musical processes, developments and other changes over time). To acknowledge and embrace the subjectivity of analysis. To differentiate between description and analysis, and to include musical insight in their work. To be introduced to new concepts through a variety of repertoire. To access music that is not notated, or that utilizes complex notation. To develop aural-analytical skills that can be applied in other areas of the degree program.

This approach is not intended as an alternative to the use of score-based analysis but is designed to develop more analytical listeners and to enable analysis to fit more easily into other areas of musical enquiry for the students.

Graphic Analyses While the focus here is primarily the aural nature of the teaching method, it is also important that the students’ analyses are presented visually rather than in a solely verbal form. The use of graphics in musical analysis is well established: when trying to reduce substantial musical information into a form that is digestible, a picture can truly speak a thousand words. Diagrammatic representations are fundamental to Schenkerian analysis, for example, and when dealing with temporal segmentation, visual analogies can act like maps that provide a structural bird’s-eye view of a piece. Lendvai’s use of golden section principles to understand Bartók’s music (1971) lends itself well to such diagrams, which are particularly important to understanding his analysis. Similarly, the music maps of Deborah Pritchard (see Figure 5.1) – who is, notably, synesthetic – use a timeline layout but are more evocative than technical (although they contain a wealth of musical observations). Examples of Pritchard’s work help demonstrate to students that visual representations can be used to guide a listener through an unfamiliar work and are particularly powerful when applied to nontonal music. My own approach is built on visual means as well: I will begin an analysis by sketching the skeletal details of a work – large-scale structural moments and points of change – and gradually add to this as my understanding of the music evolves. In my teaching, I use an early graphic example from my own postgraduate study to show how such an approach can be effective. The final diagram from my analysis of Philip Cashian’s Chamber Concerto (see Figure 5.2; Scheuregger, 2011) demonstrates the basic format that I want my students to follow. Simple principles are important: it is presented as a timeline, there is a scale (mapping timings in a specific recording to measurements on the page), and there is semiotic coherence (in that the diagram uses principles consistently and coherently to aid understanding). Two further characteristics are particularly important: it is selective in the observations it draws upon (the focus here is the role of instruments in the texture), and it provides a relatively self-contained analytical reading (that concerto grosso principles can be observed, and that a large-scale interaction of soloist and ensemble is at play). The conclusions I draw in relation to Cashian’s work are relatively advanced insofar as they came from a substantial

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Figure 5.1 Music map of György Ligeti’s Chamber Concerto for 13 instruments by Deborah Pritchard, commissioned by the London Sinfonietta. Source: Deborah Pritchard, commissioned by the London Sinfonietta.

period of analysis and rely on more than listening alone; nevertheless, this diagram demonstrates the principles that the students should follow in their assessments.5 A further example I use is from my doctoral analysis of George Benjamin’s Sudden Time (see Figure 5.3; Scheuregger, 2015), where there is a greater reliance on text, but the principles of the prior example are present. Again, there is a clear reading of the work, this time as echoing the dramatic curve of sonata form and being segmented by moments of stasis. Figure 5.4 shows an example of a student’s analysis of John Williams’s theme from the 1990 film Home Alone.6 We can see the use of a timeline, observations of texture, instrumentation and dynamics, and an overall sense of the different sections of the piece. Graphical features aid understanding here, too: instrumentation is presented through blocks of color, dynamics are shown on a continuous line, and textural density is represented in a sort of bar graph. These three sets of observations can be assimilated simultaneously in a way that makes this effective as a graphic analysis.

Choosing Repertoire The starting point for developing this method was, to some extent, a desire to bring contemporary classical music into a classroom where it might not otherwise be featured. When approaching contemporary music, it can be particularly useful to place emphasis on the listening experience, as traditional forms may not be observable. However, with a desire to incorporate aurally derived graphic analyses comprehensively into a module, the need to include more varied repertoire was clear. In the students assessment

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Structure of Philip Cashian’s Chamber Concerto by Martin Scheuregger (2011).

Source: Scheuregger (2011).

Figure 5.2

Teaching Analysis as an Aural Skill

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Structure of George Benjamin’s Sudden Time by Martin Scheuregger (2015).

Source: Scheuregger (2015).

Figure 5.3

Martin Scheuregger

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Structure of John Williams’s theme from Home Alone by a first-year student.

Source: Author.

Figure 5.4

Teaching Analysis as an Aural Skill

Martin Scheuregger

(described earlier), repertoire is chosen to complement their concurrent areas of study and includes common-practice classical music, early music, film music, electronic music, experimental music (in various styles), and improvisation. A representative selection that could be set for the assessment might be: • • • • • •

Carlo Gesualdo – ‘Sicut Ovis Ad Occisionem’ (1611) Mozart – Horn Concerto No. 4, Mvt. III (1786) Thelonious Monk – Brilliant Corners (1956) Bruno Maderna – Serenata per un Satellite (1969) Clint Mansell – Lux Aeterna from Requiem for a Dream (2000) Anna Meredith – Paramour (2019)

Although any varied list might be appropriate, works are chosen that contain some interesting formal idea that can be observed by the students. The Mozart, for example, is a rondo: while a relatively straightforward form to identify, the challenge comes in articulating the changes between sections and the effect of their interplay. The score for the Maderna presents melodies and fragments across curving, sometimes distorted staves, and it does not specify the form of the work: an aural approach to analysis is, therefore, important and allows students to understand that analysis pertains to performance as much as to notation. The Meredith is a work that does not sit comfortably in a specific genre, so students cannot rely on obvious formal precedents. In short, a rationale for each piece is present, although a defined ‘answer’ is not sought. In the course of teaching this module, several works act as pillars that introduce important concepts and against which other works can be compared. Three such examples are given now, each demonstrating how an aural approach to the work elicits analytical responses that are of pedagogical value. Furthermore, each piece acts to demonstrate the underlying principle of the approach to analysis being taught: the use of analytical models, the use of graphics, and the interplay between observation and analysis.

Using Analytical Models: Mozart – Symphony No. 41 in C major, K. 551, ‘Jupiter.’ Mvt. I (1788) An early issue to tackle is the use of analytical models, with sonata form being a useful starting point. Many students will have learned sonata form principles before university, although a recap will often show that less knowledge has been maintained than the student or teacher may think. An overview of the basics is therefore useful for all, after which the class can listen to this movement and identify the moments at which structural events occur. This particular movement is chosen for its ‘breaking’ of the rules as much as its demonstration of them. While two thematic groups are presented that outline tonic and dominant, a third theme is introduced seemingly at random toward the end of the exposition. This is, in fact, a quotation from one of Mozart’s arias. Its presence may elicit some discussion and debate around exactly what the thematic groups are. Furthermore, significant use of fanfares, transitions, and development can lead students in different directions when attempting to identify stages of the exposition. Regardless of prior experience, students are likely to find ambiguity here. As the class discusses their readings of the exposition, they begin to question the sonata form principles that they are applying, as either the ‘third theme’ or some element of the first two do not quite fit. As well as these purely formal concerns, the historical and social context is shown to be important as we touch upon Mozart’s use of quotation and how such a device may have been perceived at the time of composition. For purely practical reasons such musicological context is only fleeting, but the further contextualization of analysis is something that can be considered across the whole degree program. By using this movement, the imprecision of formulaic models is demonstrated and a greater understanding of sonata form as a flexible principle emerges: it is not a set of rules so much as a box

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of tools. Furthermore, students can begin to see how such models can be transcended as they read a layperson’s guide to the symphony from Tom Service (2014), which offers a compelling interpretation of the first movement that acknowledges but moves beyond sonata form. What starts as a simple theme-spotting workshop turns into a questioning of formal models and opens a can of worms that the rest of the module attempts to clean up.

Using Graphics: György Ligeti – Artikulation (1958) Artikulation is an electronic work, just under four minutes’ duration, that uses synthesized sounds without traditional rhythmic or pitch structures. For a first-year class, the work is likely to be unknown, to represent a highly abstract style (as it might to many listeners), and not to offer an immediate formal reading. Although a traditional score of the work is not needed for its performance, a graphic analysis does exist. Created by graphic designer Rainer Wehinger (1970), this highly accurate ‘listening score’ (‘Hörpartitur’) visually represents sounds in terms of their means of generation through different colors and shapes, presenting pitch and time on the y- and x-axis, respectively. Related sounds are linked visually, so that when the work is heard alongside the score – especially when synchronized as a moving video image – connections are easy to make. Having first heard it without, when the listening score is added, students tend to find it gives greater sense to the music. The usefulness of a graphic representation is made clear as highly abstract music becomes more approachable. The map-like, representational clarity of this score – it describes but does not analyze – is the first step in showing students the value of such an approach, and is enhanced through reference to related work such as Deborah Pritchard’s music maps (discussed earlier). As the module moves on, Artikulation provides a yardstick against which to measure analyses of other works when presented visually.

Moving From Observations to Analysis: Charles Ives – The Unanswered Question (1908)7 The Unanswered Question, scored for strings, four flutes, and solo trumpet, clearly demarcates a structure through the distinct role and material of the two instrumental groups and soloist. The strings play a slowly changing, consonant sequence of chords throughout, while above this the trumpet and the woodwind group exchange phrases. The trumpet plays an almost identical melody, each time followed by a more elaborate and increasingly dissonant interjection from the woodwinds. The result is a structure that can be described in terms of its vertical separation (strings below; woodwinds and trumpet on top), and horizontally as an interaction of blocks of instruments. Students are able to identify the basic map of the work on an initial listening. From here – and with the aid of further hearings – the class can discuss the different groups in terms of their level of consonance, their rhythmic and textural profile, and how these elements develop over time. An interpretation of the work in relation to the title can then follow, with students discussing what the question is, who asks it and whether or not it is ultimately answered. An outline of such an initial reading is seen in Figure 5.5, which shows how observations and conclusions can begin to be integrated graphically. Once this initial analysis is complete, the detailed programmatic description provided by the composer in the score can be referred to, giving an ‘official’ account of how the title can be interpreted in terms of the work’s dramatic characters and processes. Whereas Artikulation provides a persuasive case for the use of graphics, but does not demonstrate analytical conclusions, The Unanswered Question gives a clear example of linking musical observations with an analytical reading. Students move from simple description to more nuanced observations related to development and finally pull these elements together to give a true musical analysis of the piece.

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Source: Author.

Figure 5.5 Outline analysis of Charles Ives’s The Unanswered Question.

Martin Scheuregger

Teaching Analysis as an Aural Skill

*** In these three examples we see how specific aural-analytical skills are developed in relation to the aims of the module. These three issues – use of analytical models, use of graphics, and moving from observation to analysis – scaffold my teaching, with further works linked to these themes given as case studies. As the module moves on, students are increasingly required to consider works in terms of analytical models, use observations to inform analytical conclusions, and present their ideas in graphic forms. There are two cyclical processes happening concurrently here. First, a cycle of observe – analyze – present builds as the module moves forward and the students’ understanding of analytical concepts develops. The pattern repeats with ideas accumulating along the way. Second, when students aurally analyze a set work, a cyclical listening process takes place in which progressive hearings allow layers of detail to build up in a manner that reflects Hutchinson and Howell’s view that ‘analytical observations feed back into the listening process – as we may hear additional qualities upon re-listening’ (2016, 154). There are, of course, difficulties that arise from attempting to cover a relatively wide range of repertoire. In the list of example pieces for assessment presented earlier, there is a diversity of musical periods, structures, styles, and purposes, from film music to Renaissance polyphony. This breadth can make assessing work of this nature difficult: are observations regarding, for example, harmonic progressions more worthy of praise in music of greater harmonic complexity than a song that uses only a few chords? This is where framing the assessment task in terms of an analytical reading (or reaching analytical ‘conclusions’) becomes important: the sophistication of the conclusions and the relevance they have to the observations made are key to a successful analysis for the module. Furthermore, while there is stylistic diversity in the set of works, there is an effort to use pieces that are open to equally sophisticated observations. This will never be perfect, but the benefit of presenting varied repertoire (and emphasizing that analytical enquiry is equally valid across styles) outweighs issues of technical disparity.

Reflections From the Classroom The literature base previously mentioned, rationale, and description of process is, to an extent, an idealized version of how teaching this module works. Having taught using this approach, observations from the classroom bring to light both advantages and limitations that give a greater sense of reality to the model. On the whole, I would characterize my experience as positive for both students and teachers, but I hope that by offering a series of thoughts, those who wish to adopt or adapt my approach may be able to benefit from my experience.8

The Score The degree to which students will want to use a score should not be underestimated. Although there is little resistance to ‘just’ listening, when an option to follow a score is given, some students tend to fall easily into the comfort of this approach. While the intention was initially to have an aural-only semester of teaching and learning, students would often ask for a score or – when working individually in a computer lab – would find one online. This was particularly the case for works in which an established form is used: when something is likely to be in sonata form, students want to look for this rather than listen for it. My solution was to clearly signpost where I wanted us solely to listen and where I was happy for students to follow scores if they wished. While this seems to go against the whole endeavor, it can be used to the class’s advantage, in that comparisons can be made between purely aural observations and those supported by a score.

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A concurrent issue is the teacher’s need to use a score. While we may want to teach by example, it can be difficult to retain sufficiently detailed knowledge of set works while juggling hectic teaching schedules. By preparing through both listening and using a score (where one is available), I found the best solution in the classroom was to acknowledge my use of a score (that I annotated with notes and time markers) but to aurally prepare close to the session so that material is fresh. Analyzing for one’s own research is a very internal and quite personal process, during which – for me, at least – I move through using the score heavily to using it very little. Analysis for teaching is quite different, as the end result is inherently more ‘public’ and reference to the score can be quite important.

Observation vs. Analysis Visually representing musical elements is an essential part of creating a graphic analysis, but for the process to be successful students should ensure that they provide a reading of the work in terms of how it functions based on features that are observed. This reading – that I frame as analytical conclusions so as to provide a clear link with other forms of academic enquiry that the students are developing – need only be modest, but it must be present. This idea has been more challenging to communicate than I first thought: I use examples (such as the Cashian Chamber Concerto discussed earlier), but it can be difficult to guide students without giving ‘the answer.’ So much of the students’ prior experience of analysis is based around observations that fit into preexisting models. Without these models, students can find individual conclusions difficult to arrive at, or they may be unsure what an analytical conclusion should look like. And so, in some cases, the students with the least prior experience of analysis found this concept easier to grasp, as they did not have such strong preconceptions of formal models, while those with greater experience were keener to observe features and apply deductive reasoning. A useful case study in translating observations into analytical conclusions is Grieg’s In the Hall of the Mountain King. The work is short enough to allow for multiple hearings during a single class and straightforward enough to establish conclusions in this time. Students work together to note instrumental entries and build up a description of the structure. I tend to do this with one student making a large diagram on a whiteboard and encourage the whole group to contribute. A quickfire analysis results in an often messy but instructive diagram (see Figure 5.6). We conclude that the short work is built upon a gradual increase in tension through dynamics, tempo, and orchestration, and that the tension can be graphically represented as a gradually rising line with key moments of climax toward the end. This is not a hugely sophisticated analysis, but it demonstrates the concept that observations must feed into analytical readings and, as a result, we have to be selective in what we represent graphically. (In the case of the Grieg, for example, we note the tonality and chord progression in our discussion, but ultimately do not make conclusions based on harmony.)

Text and Graphics Just as the more experienced students can tend toward observation, they may also be more comfortable expressing their observations in text alone. Experience of essays or text-based responses to exam questions feeds into this, but all students tend to find graphic representation the most difficult concept to grasp. Particularly difficult is the notion that there is not a single method to adopt: depending on the nature of their analytical conclusions (whether primarily related to tonality, instrumentation, texture, and so on), different visual approaches may be used. Several examples are given as indicative rather than prescriptive approaches (as discussed earlier); however, students tend to crave certainty and, as a result, either apply the same approach to all works (many, for example, would follow the presentation of instrumentation from my Cashian diagram, or use a literal interpretation similar to Wehinger’s aural score of Artikulation), or fall back on extensive use of text. The best approach to

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Figure 5.6 Sketch analysis of ‘In the Hall of the Mountain King’ by students in the class. Source: Author.

tackling this was simply exposure to different pieces that require different analytical approaches, and to practice this consistently as one would with any new skill. Similarly, once cannot expect students to be graphic designers, so encouraging working by hand or introducing basic computerized graphic skills is helpful.

The Issue of ‘Accessibility’ Palfy reflects on the particular difficulties posed by the mixed-ability theory classroom: as she pithily puts it, ‘[E]xperts feeling bored, novices feeling lost’ (2020, 376). She encourages students to adjust the level at which they are working on a task while maintaining the same objectives. This ‘objectivefocused and skill-scalable’ (376) approach reflects that adopted in my own classroom. Justin London similarly embraces the positive impact that including multiple perspectives can have in the teaching of theory (2020, 427–428). My technique lends itself well to this approach, with some pleasant surprises along the way. Although not the key motivator in developing this method, the accessibility one unlocks by forfeiting the score cannot be denied. However, student engagement tends not to correlate with traditional measures of expertise. I have found that students from all musical backgrounds have contributed in different ways to discussions, often bringing complementary skills, approaches, and readings of works. Sometimes the most insightful comments would come from students with the least prior experience of the style of music under discussion. Students with experience in music production, for example, are well accustomed to listening in a certain way, and so when discussion

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moves to the minutiae of texture, for example, they may be able to focus on the sound and describe its features in a way that score-focused students may not. More generally, by allocating generous time to discussion, students’ varied experiences and existing knowledge of analysis are all valued and brought together. Combining different experiences and levels has been an empowering experience as a teacher and has increased the confidence of students in expressing their views and making analytical judgments.

Conclusions The fundamental aim in developing an aural approach to musical analysis teaching was to ensure students engage in analysis through inductive reasoning and by embracing their own experience of the music. By doing this, students are able to draw well-reasoned analytical conclusions about a variety of works and use this across their study of music. My experience in teaching with this method so far is that it is broadly successful in achieving this aim. Moreover, the interlinked aims explored in the introduction are achieved through this approach alongside some unforeseen benefits: students’ accuracy of description (especially in a discussion setting) seems to increase, a level of confidence can grow in students whose analytical experience is low, and, more generally, interesting discussions develop through varied repertoire choices that occasionally spark new interests. Rather than simply recommending this approach wholesale, I offer some final reflections and thoughts for the future. The method described here may be interpreted as the result of an ideological position that questions precepts of traditional music theory in a postmodern, post-structuralist manner. As the discussion in this chapter I hope has shown, this was not the intention. Nevertheless, it may be instructive for students to understand the approach they are learning in its broader musicological context through discussion of new musicology and concepts including structuralism, postmodernism, and positivism. An integrated curriculum in which these ideas are explored in a different setting (a separate module, for example) would help give this context: Straus (1995) offers a straightforward introduction to some of these ideas in the context of analysis that at the least could frame the listening-led analysis task for students. If contextualized in this way, we might also consider whether a more traditional score-based approach should be developed concurrently. As reflected earlier, recourse to the score was not prohibited altogether on this module, and for reasons of analytical thoroughness a curriculum in which an aural-focused approach is counterbalanced with score-based teaching and assessment may be beneficial. London asks: ‘[C]an we get by with a lot less harmony and traditional tonal analysis?’ (2020, 428). The answer differs from student to student, but ultimately theory is powerful and useful. I would, however, caution against recourse to formulaic approaches and suggest a reevaluation of score-based analysis that takes some of the useful elements of the aural-focused approach. I touched upon the white racial frame of music theory in my introduction, with specific reference to Philip Ewell (2020). This is, admittedly, an issue that has come to me quite late in writing this chapter. Indeed, it was not something I had particularly considered when developing the curriculum and method described here. As I look ahead to delivering this module again, I am considering how to engage with Ewell’s points. On the one hand, the method of analysis teaching I have described does not rely explicitly on existing Western forms of musical analysis; on the other, the roots of many principles that inform my teaching do. But the method is rather malleable – given individual listening experiences are embraced – and so there is an opportunity to integrate a greater variety of music theories. Similarly, the repertoire I choose clearly has some way to go in becoming truly global, and by increasing the cultural origins of the music presented, there are obvious benefits. There are some hurdles to this, though. I am trained in, and primarily research, Western art music and have limited immediate knowledge of other musics, and so some personal re-education is required. When faced with competing pressures and vanishingly little preparation time, this can seem a difficult task.

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Nevertheless, it is vital that we engage in such a move, even if we broaden our curricula in small steps. Over time it will be possible to widen our teaching, and this can only be a good thing. Whether integrated with score-based analysis or historically contextualized, an aural-based approach does have significant benefits. Over and above the benefits described here, there is a sense of revitalization that comes hand in hand with developing a new form of teaching. I have felt this as a teacher and am confident that at least some of my students have benefited too. The words with which Áine Heneghan concludes her chapter on teaching form echo this: In the reorientation that is the privileging of principles, students are invited to reconceive form not as a series of labels that must be committed to memory but rather as the outcome of diverse musical processes and energetic impulses. The strategy outlined here stimulates thinking about forming and formation, aiding the understanding of how mutually dependent components collaborate to generate an evolving structure that is apprehended by the performer and communicated to the listener. Teaching in this way provides a necessary corrective to the taxonomic approach, revitalizing our classroom discussions, and, most importantly, restoring to musical form its inherent properties as a living organism. (2020, 278) With the rethinking of analysis teaching reflected by Heneghan and the other recent works cited here, there is a sense that new approaches are being sought not simply to make analysis accessible and to diversify its underpinning scholarship, but to make its usefulness more apparent to the next generation of music scholars. Embracing what aural approaches can offer will be, I think, an important part of how the teaching of our discipline develops.

Notes 1. Ewell uses the term ‘reframe’ (2020), but more broadly refers to sociologist Joe Feagin’s use of all three terms (Alfano, 2020). 2. The difference between these views can be observed through Levinson’s original publication, Music in the Moment (1997) compared to Peter Kivy’s 2001 challenging of this view and Levinson’s latter reply (2009). 3. As this is a UK institution, the terminology used here reflects the specific setting of the UK. 4. In a UK context, practical instrumental/vocal studies are assessed through graded examinations (grades one to eight) as well as various diplomas. Typically, entry into degree-level study is associated with grade eight standard in performance. Furthermore, the most established exam board, ABRSM, requires students to take a music theory exam (grade five) in order to pursue higher practical grades (six and above). Therefore, students will often start university study with a foundation in theory. The General Certificate of Education Advanced level (A-level) has traditionally been the typical qualification gained at ages 16–18, with students generally studying for three separate subjects. A-level Music is no longer a prerequisite for undergraduate study at many institutions, but those who have taken it are likely to have much greater experience of traditional score-based musical analysis. 5. The use of this as an exemplar has proved to be occasionally problematic, as students can take it to indicate that instrumentation should be the focus of their analyses when, in fact, I am encouraging them to follow their observations and focus on the elements that are most relevant to their analytical reading of the music they are studying. 6. The original is in color, but many of the links remain clear even in black and white. 7. I must acknowledge that the idea to use this piece in an analysis class is taken directly from the first-year analysis module I took as an undergraduate with Professor Tim Howell (University of York, UK), who would later become one of my PhD supervisors. 8. I must acknowledge my colleague Edward Wellman, whose co-teaching of this module has enriched both the students’ experience and my understanding of the methods we use.

References Adlington, R. (1997). Temporality in Post-Tonal Music (Doctoral dissertation). University of Sussex. Retrieved from https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.320419

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Martin Scheuregger Adlington, R. (2003). Moving beyond motion: Metaphors for changing sound. Journal of the Royal Musical Association, 128(2), 297–318. https://doi.org/10.1093/jrma/128.2.297 Alfano, L. (2020, July 23). 5 Questions to Philip Ewell (Author, Music Theory and the White Racial Frame). Retrieved from www.icareifyoulisten.com/2020/07/5-questions-philip-ewell-author-music-theory-white-racial-frame/ Bent, I., & Drabkin, W. (1987). Analysis. WW Norton & Company. Cook, N. (1987). A Guide to Musical Analysis. Oxford University Press. Dunsby, J., & Whittall, A. (1988). Music Analysis in Theory and Practice. Faber. Ewell, P. A. (2020). Music theory and the white racial frame. Music Theory Online, 26(2). https://doi.org/ 10.30535/mto.26.2.4 Fink, R. (1999). Going flat: Post-hierarchical music theory and the musical surface. In N. Cook & M. Everist (Eds.), Rethinking Music (pp. 102–137). Oxford University Press. Geary, D. (2020). An aural skills introduction to twelve-tone music: Dallapiccola’s ‘Vespro, Tutto Riporti’. In L. VanHandel (Ed.), The Routledge Companion to Music Theory Pedagogy (pp. 217–222). Routledge. Harper-Scott, J. P. E., & Samson, J. (Eds.). (2009). An introduction to music studies. Cambridge University Press. Heneghan, Á. (2020). Principles of form. In L. VanHandel (Ed.), The Routledge Companion to Music Theory Pedagogy (pp. 271–278). Routledge. Hutchinson, M., & Howell, T. (2016). Imagined structures: Creative approaches for musical analysis. In E. Haddon & P. Burnard (Eds.), Creative Teaching for Creative Learning in Higher Music Education (pp. 153–167). Routledge. Kivy, P. (2001). Music in memory and music in the moment. In New essays on musical understanding (pp. 183– 217). Oxford University Press. Lendvai, E. (1971). Béla Bartók: An Analysis of His Music. Kahn & Averill. Levinson, J. (1997). Music in the Moment. Cornell University Press. Levinson, J. (2009). The aesthetic appreciation of music. The British Journal of Aesthetics, 49(4), 415–425. https:// doi.org/10.1093/aesthj/ayp043 London, J. (2020). What should an undergraduate music theory curriculum teach? (And, alas, what most of the time we don’t). In L. VanHandel (Ed.), The Routledge Companion to Music Theory Pedagogy (pp. 424–432). Routledge. Palfy, C. S. (2020). Instructing a range of experiences within the music theory classroom. In L. VanHandel (Ed.), The Routledge Companion to Music Theory Pedagogy (pp. 376–381). Routledge. Rosen, C. (1971). The Classical Style. WW Norton & Company. Rosen, C. (1988). Sonata Forms. WW Norton & Company. Scheuregger, M. (2011). The Twentieth-Century Chamber Concerto: Losing the Italics, Finding the Form (Unpublished masters dissertation). University of York, York, UK. Scheuregger, M. (2015). Time and Form in Twentieth and Twenty-first Century Music (Doctoral dissertation). University of York, York, UK. Retrieved from http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/11402/ Service, T. (2014, May 27). Symphony Guide: Mozart’s 41st (‘Jupiter’). Retrieved from www.theguardian.com/ music/tomserviceblog/2014/may/27/symphony-guide-mozart-41st-jupiter-tom-service Stevens, D. B. (2020). An exercise in symphonic hearing. In L. VanHandel (Ed.), The Routledge Companion to Music Theory Pedagogy (pp. 211–216). Routledge. Straus, J. N. (1995). Post-structuralism and music theory (a response to Adam Krims). Music Theory Online, 1(1). Retrieved from www.mtosmt.org/issues/mto.94.0.11/mto.94.0.11.krims.html Wehinger, R. (1970). György Ligeti, Artikulation: eine Hörpartitur. Schott, Mainz. Willson, R. B. (2009). Music theory and analysis. In J. P. E. Harper-Scott & J. Samson (Eds.), An introduction to music studies (pp. 25–42). Cambridge University Press.

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6 RETHINKING INTEGRATION IN THE MUSIC THEORY CURRICULUM Jeffrey Lovell

Introduction Today’s college-level music theory curricula, typically consisting of sequential courses in written music theory, aural skills, and keyboard skills, is coordinated by topic for the purpose of reinforcing key concepts in order to activate different learning pathways of grasping theoretical knowledge. Two popular textbook packages, The Musician’s Guide to Theory and Analysis and The Complete Musician, tightly integrate conceptual learning with applied learning – and for compelling reasons in principle.2 In a 1995 article for the College Music Symposium, theorist Steve Larson pointed out that holistic integration of music learning combines different ways of knowing and that a better understanding of concepts requires that multiple senses be activated.3 As the mind, ears, eyes, feet, voice, fingers, heart, or other ways of knowing are engaged, musical learning becomes an interconnected network of associations.4 But how exactly should this integrative ideal be accomplished? For an increasing number of students who begin their college music studies lacking basic fundamental knowledge and skills, the coordinated course approach poses significant challenges. Theoretical topics progress too quickly from the fundamental to complex, making it difficult for skill development in the applied core courses to keep pace. Michael Rogers, evaluating the merits of a strictly integrated curriculum versus a separated one, acknowledges the concern, ‘that intellectual comprehension and hearing abilities develop at completely different rates – the ear, generally, lagging behind the eye and mind.’5 With this type of integration, students are often evaluated in aural and keyboard skills on a dizzying amount of material over a standard two-year college music theory curriculum, some of which is beyond their capacity to absorb and demonstrate adequate proficiency.6 This frustrating situation seems to create an ironic tension with Larson’s assertion that theoretical topics are best encoded in students’ minds when understood not only from an intellectual perspective but in combination with other sensory stimulation. I ask, approached in this manner, has integration served its intended purpose? In some ways, it is the intimate pairing of these two domains that has created unintended challenges, due to the pacing of the concepts that written theory covers and the longer time span required to develop meaningful musicianship skills. Rogers proposes a middle path that potentially addresses the issue of integration between these two domains: ‘Integration, then, has to do with making connections and establishing relationships between thinking about and listening to music.  .  .  . Integration and correlation, in other words, are two different things.’7 It is with this ideal in mind that I offer some alternative ideas on what integration means in the music theory curriculum, one that partially disentangles these core courses

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from each other without sacrificing the benefits of integration. Using learning activities from lesson plans and specific assignments drawn from my own teaching designed to activate different pathways of knowing, I will demonstrate how integrated learning can occur more holistically in these core courses. After discussing the implications that strict integration has on aural skills development, I will show how skills-based tasks (i.e., singing, ear training, and keyboard exercises) can effectively be incorporated into the music theory course as low-stakes learning activities. I hope to illustrate that it is still possible to achieve the spirit of integration while allowing the skills-based courses to follow their own curriculum and proceed at a pace that is more appropriate for meaningful musicianship development – and not merely to exist in the service of the topics covered in music theory.

Background Deficiency Implications A rigid interpretation of integration places a significant burden on musicianship skills development, particularly for the inexperienced student. One of the most confounding aspects related to aural skills pedagogy in the United States is dealing with the vast range of experience and ability with which young musicians enter college music programs. The dichotomy is astounding and puzzling. Consider the student who struggles with the most fundamental task of pitch matching or vocalizing of any kind with an underdeveloped voice, but who has exceptional aural recognition skills and can accurately notate what is heard. Then there is the student who has years of singing experience and yet struggles to decipher the notation of pitch and rhythm. What about the student who possesses a keen aural memory, but is unable to understand and interpret the relationships that they hear? More problematic are the students who struggle with all of these. The deficiencies and inexperience just described prevent this population of students from experiencing the robust training we strive to give them. Many of these developmental issues stem from neglect in the formative years of students’ musical training. The little time devoted to music literacy training in many public schools across the United States, for instance, has made it difficult for educators to provide requisite attention to these fundamental skills in any systematic way beyond what can be accomplished intermittently.8 To make matters more daunting, an increasing number of students who arrive at the institution where I teach have never had private instruction. Despite our efforts to provide outreach to music educators in order to address these challenges proactively, there is little control we have when it comes to prior training. While we cannot make up for years of lost music preparation in the two-year window of the standard college-level music-theory core, we can look within our own curricula to find solutions that will benefit those students who lack the background to keep pace with the skills and concepts with which we bombard them. To help remedy this situation, we have access to a wide range of pedagogical approaches and resources on which to draw and inform our own curriculum; aural skills development has been the subject of much research over the past 20 years, especially with growing attention to the relationship between aural skills pedagogy and perception and cognition, beginning with Karpinski’s detailed study connecting science with skill development in his seminal book, Aural Skills Acquisition.9 Articles abound on the subject in the Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy. Music cognition specialist David Huron, in his book Sweet Anticipation, discusses at length one central ingredient, repetition, that is required for music schemas to be firmly encoded first into our short-term memory and, after repeated exposure, planted firmly into our long-term memory.10 For the student who lacks experience in musicianship training, these schemas have not been properly encoded and, given the fast pace in which new skills are often expected to be learned in a relatively short period of time in collegelevel aural skills courses, [music proficiency] is consequently difficult to achieve if those schemas haven’t begun to be encoded prior to college. The lack of exposure to the musical environment (i.e., pitch patterns, sensitivity to tonal centers and scale degree, harmonic function, aural memory

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development, keyboard skills deficiencies) has an impact on students’ ability to process and interpret what they hear or how the sound is represented with notation. This is why in some ways the coordinated approach has its limitations – inherent problems arise in its very structure. Integrated textbook programs, like those referenced earlier, are set up so that every theoretical topic or set of topics introduced in the primary theory text are tethered to a corresponding unit in the accompanying aural skills text. This topical alignment almost automatically forces a pacing that places a significant strain on skills development. Striking the right balance between the pacing of topics in written theory and aural skills is tricky. Recognizing this potential for issues with pacing, the authors of the aforementioned texts state in their introductions that their respective integrated programs are flexible enough to allow for some leeway between the concepts and skills.11 As I have attempted to structure my own curriculum around these coordinated programs in the past, it is evident that the conceptual far outpaces the applied, and not nearly enough leeway can occur for the inexperienced student to keep up by the end of the two-year sequence when the more advanced theoretical topics like chromaticism and nontonal systems are introduced. It seems to me that these texts presuppose a certain acuity or aptitude that is deficient in many of the students with whom I’ve worked over the years. Pacing even challenges the more experienced students: the skills tasks are beyond what they are equipped to do. Somewhat ironically, attempts at intentional integration are lost on some students because they are unable to apply their knowledge in the skills courses. Skills are stacked upon skills and before long a subset of our student population has reached maximum saturation and is drowning in a sea of information. This is most evident when it comes to learning how to hear harmonic relationships.

Balancing Harmonic Topics in Aural Skills Central to all traditional music theory curricula is the study of tonal harmony. Written theory introduces harmonic concepts very early in the curriculum, typically within the first few weeks of the first term, with a focus on triads and seventh chords: the building blocks of tonal music. By the end of the first term, students have learned how to voice-lead between I and V. The second term is an in-depth exploration of diatonic harmony and its grouping into common harmonic patterns, with emphasis on voice leading and function. Incidentally, it is this focus on building harmonic vocabulary and comprehension that is perhaps one of the bigger challenges that confronts our students in the integrated core. The introduction and pacing of harmonic vocabulary and then assimilating that vocabulary into their minds, ears, and fingers – especially for those students who haven’t yet learned to think harmonically at the keyboard – is undoubtedly the cause of much grief for many in the corresponding skills courses. Even after two terms, these students have at best only a fragmentary understanding of harmonic relationships. Since we use Laitz’s The Complete Musician where I teach, I will make some observations with it to illustrate the potential tension between the pacing of concepts and aural skills development during the second term of the core (see Example 6.1). Assuming one followed the suggested coordination of the integrated program as intended, and following an imagined schedule that is similar to the one we use where a new unit is introduced almost weekly, students would be tasked with assimilating diatonic harmonic vocabulary and its variety of tonal contexts over the course of eight weeks in written music theory. The remainder of the semester would be devoted to sequences, small form structures, and the introduction of applied chords. That’s less than one-and-a-half weeks per topic. Also note that this schedule assumes that the IV, V, and vii° chords are all introduced during the first term. This puts tremendous pressure on the aural skills course that presumably would be coordinated with it and leaves little time to address specifically the special kinds of challenges pertaining to harmonic listening.

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Example 6.1

Overview of Laitz’s The Complete Musician.

Source: Author.

Example 6.2 represents a sample schedule and side-by-side comparison between the second term written-theory curriculum and the pacing of harmonic topics for aural skills. The de-integration from written theory is most noticeable in this term, although topics do tend to overlap incidentally.12 Skill development in this area presupposes that students have attained some level of proficiency in their conceptual understanding of harmony in written theory. This schedule devotes more time to skill development and, as Huron states, allows for plenty of repetition. Building strong harmonic listening skills and hearing chords in context require several fundamental tasks that students must learn to do, such as: 1. 2. 3. 4.

Recognizing chord qualities. Recognizing chord stability (root position vs. inverted positions). Retaining the sound of the tonic chord in their aural memory. Isolating the bass voice and hearing through the interference caused by the upper voices. This, by and large, is one of the most challenging aspects of harmonic listening, especially for students whose primary instrument’s pitch range resides in the higher frequencies.

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TERM 2 15-week model

Imagined Schedule of Music Theory Topics Following Laitz’s The Complete Musician, 4th ed.

Separate Aural Skills Curriculum Based on Karpinski’s Manual for Ear Training and Sight Singing, 2nd ed.

Week 1

Review of the viio7 chord. Ch. 8: “More Contrapuntal Expansions”

Sing and aurally recognize melodic leaps in the V chord; introduction to Karpinski’s “inversion sequential.”

Week 2

Ch. 9: “The Pre-Dominant Function and the Phrase Model”

Aural recognition of harmonic rhythm.

Week 3

Ch. 10: “Accented and Chromatic Embellishing Tones”

Aural recognition of two-part music.

Week 4

Ch. 11: “Six-Four Chords, Revisiting the Subdominant…” Ch. 12: “The Pre-Dominant Refines the Phrase Model”; Review

Sing and aurally recognize melodic leaps in the IV chord; Sing and aurally recognize paradigmatic bass lines.

Ch. 13: “The Submediant: A New Diatonic Harmony…”

Sing and aurally recognize melodic leaps in the V7 chord.

Ch. 14: “The Mediant…”

Aurally recognize harmonic patterns that feature root position and first inversion triads on I, IV, and V; aural recognition of all root and first inversion diatonic triads.

Week 9-11

Chs. 15-16 on Small Forms (Period types, Sentences); Review

Week 12-13

Ch. 17: “Harmonic Sequences”

Sing and aurally recognize melodic and harmonic patterns and musical excerpts that feature the viio, vi, ii, iii, and V7 chords; each chord is introduced in turn.

Week 5-6

Week 7

Week 8

Ch. 18: “Applied Chords”; Review

Week 14-15 Example 6.2

Sing and aurally recognize patterns and musical excerpts that feature six-four chords.

Second term comparison of harmonic and aural skills topics.

Source: Author.

5. 6. 7. 8.

Differentiating between bass motion and harmonic motion in a chord progression (e.g., harmonic rhythm). Listening for voice-leading networks to aid in hearing harmonic rhythm and recognizing the identity of the individual harmonies. Listening for function: tonic, predominant, and dominant (e.g. learning to recognize the ‘fourness’ of the IV). Recognizing recurring harmonic patterns (tonic expansions, cadential formulas).

Following loosely the ordered topics found in Karpinski’s aural skills text, Manual for Ear-Training and Sight Singing, I front-load the first half of the term with preliminary harmonic listening exercises

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and drills that broadly address the learning tasks just listed before delving into more specific aural comprehension exercises that focus on individual diatonic harmonies and their normative harmonic contexts.13 Some of these activities include: (1) Singing harmonic arpeggiations. I regularly use a variety of chord-arpeggiation exercises in class as warm-ups. The two that I use from the start of the term are: a.

b.

Karpinski’s ‘Inversion Sequential’ (see Example 6.3), which requires students to sing with solfège the arpeggiation of the three possible triads that are built on each scale degree in sequence (root, first, and second inversions). This brain-twister type of exercise reinforces the relationship between chord and scale degree and the voice-leading that differentiates chords built on the same bass note.14 Arpeggiation of the basic phrase model: I IV V6-5 4-3 I. Students play this progression at the piano in keyboard style while they sing with solfège and/or letter names of the key, either from the bottom to the top of each chord or following the voice-leading path that connects them horizontally (see Example 6.4).

(2) Harmony signing. Based on Kodály, and further developed for use in the aural skills classroom by Nicholas Bannan, this is a group voice-leading activity where each student is assigned to sing a chord tone of the tonic triad. Chord progressions are formed by individual voices moving parsimoniously to the closest tone of the next chord. Corresponding hand signs associated with each chord function as cues to indicate chord and harmonic rhythm. Focus is on the I, IV, and V, initially before other chords are introduced later on in the term.15 (3) Harmonic rhythm. Students listen to short excerpts that include a handful of chords and determine how frequently the harmony changes.16 (4) Chord Progression Matching. Using four-chord progressions or common bass lines from popular styles of music that are limited mainly to I, IV, and V, students have to match the given progression or bass line to the song (see Example 6.5). The second half of the term is devoted to aurally recognizing common harmonic patterns (i.e., tonic expansion patterns, cadential formulas, and patterns involving the 6/4 chords) and becoming familiar with the sound of every diatonic chord. Each chord is addressed one at a time and included in short progressions used for harmonic dictation in order to help students learn to hear them in context. Harmonic dictation is a difficult learning activity that requires students to activate all their listening skills simultaneously. They must be able to hear and recall the bass line accurately and identify

Example 6.3

Karpinski’s ‘Harmonic Inversion Sequential’

Source: Segment extracted from Karpinski (2017). Used by permission.

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Example 6.4

Keyboard harmony exercises.

Source: Author.

how it is harmonized. Because the purpose of the exercise could potentially be derailed if a student mishears the bass line, I use two other approaches to gauge their harmonic listening development: 1.

Chord Matching. Similar to the chord progression/bass line matching exercise described earlier, students hear a chord progression and listen for the identity of the chord in question and select from the choices given. This exercise, despite the potential for ‘guessing right,’ allows students

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Harmonic Listening (three times). Instructions: Listen to the song excerpts and match each one with its corresponding chord progression. The Beatles, “Revolution” ______ Paul McCartney, “Sing the Changes” ______ Bryan Adams, “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You” ______ Jonathan Edwards, “Sunshine Go Away Today” ______

a) I – IV – V – I Example 6.5

b) I – IV – I – V

c) I – V – I – IV

d) I – IV – I – IV – V

Example of a chord progression matching exercise.

Source: Author.

Example 6.6

Example of a single-chord recognition in context exercise.

Source: Author.

2.

to concentrate on the qualities and identity of a specific chord. This activity doesn’t tax the students’ aural memory as does a harmonic dictation exercise and allows them to focus their attention on a single harmonic event. It also helps them hone their skills at differentiating chords with similar functions – IV vs. ii6, vi vs. IV6, and so on (see Example 6.6). The other type of focused listening activity is a little more rigorous. I provide a bass line and ask students to list the most common harmonizations for each scale degree beneath the bass line (see Example 6.7). Then they are to circle the harmonizations that they hear. In addition to evaluating whether or not students can aurally discern chord identity, it also tests their conceptual understanding of scale-degree harmonizations

The point in describing all these learning activities is (1) to demonstrate the importance of structuring the aural skills curriculum in such a way that attention is given to the unique challenges associated with harmonic listening; and (2) to provide ample time to focus on those challenges without concern for alignment with the corresponding written music theory curriculum.

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The problems of integrating the core too closely become more pronounced by the end of the third term of aural skills study. This term typically ends with common-practice tonal relationships. Students have been introduced to a staggering corpus of harmony, having to somehow assimilate applied chords, mixture chords, chromatic predominants, and modulation into their vocabulary. From a statistical view, for an aural skills curriculum that follows lockstep with the written theory curriculum, a student could be confronted with a wide range of possible harmonizations of scale degrees with which they would need to be familiar. For instance, there are theoretically 15 possible harmonic choices that students could hear for scale degree 1 (see Example 6.8). In practice, we try to narrow these choices down to the most common possibilities. Teaching students to recognize recurring tonal patterns is more practical than getting them to hear every harmonic possibility. But even so, the strain on inexperienced ears becomes overwhelming, and just keeping up with the harmonic concepts is daunting. The student who is floundering in music theory, who struggles to grasp conceptually the relationship between bass note and harmony, will certainly struggle to understand and label what they hear even if they possess solid aural skills. This tension between knowledge and listening skills reinforces the idea that the aural-skills curriculum should be allowed to progress through key theoretical concepts at a pace that gives adequate time for skill development to occur. Example 6.9 shows how we’ve tried to stagger the core courses for optimal learning. Perhaps the most important advantage to keeping the two curriculums separate relates to how student success is measured. Sophomore students completing their final semester of aural skills were

Example 6.7

Example of a chord mapping exercise.

Source: Author.

Example 6.8

Possible harmonizations of Do.

Source: Author.

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Topics Schedule in the Music Theory Core Curriculum TERM 3 (15-weeks) Aural Skills Music Theory

Week Week 1

Review

Week 2

All Diatonic Seventh Chords

Applied Chords

Chromatic Passing Tones

Week 3 Week 4 Modulation to Closely Related Keys Week 5 Week 6

Binary Form

Week 7

Modal Mixture

Applied Chords

Week 8 Modulation to Distantly Related Keys Week 9

Modal Mixture

Week 10 Neapolitan Chord

Harmonic Sequences

Week 11 Neapolitan Chord

Week 12 Augmented Sixth Chords

Augmented Sixth Chords

Week 13 Linear Embellishing Chords/Review

Week 14-15 Example 6.9

Introduction to Modulation

Music theory core curriculum schedule.

Source: Author.

evaluated on specific bits of chromatic vocabulary, specifically applied chord and chromatic predominant aural recognition. As shown above in Example 6.9, we purposely staggered the alignment of topics between courses, first introducing them in music theory, sometimes weeks apart when possible, before working on them in aural skills. I tested them using three different approaches: 1.

Chord Matching (see Example 6.10a,b). As explained earlier, this activity is less about testing their aural memory and more about allowing students to focus specifically on chord identification in context of a harmonic progression

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Example 6.10 Two examples of assessments for evaluating harmonic listening. Source: Author.

2. 3.

Melodic Dictation (see Example 6.11). This exercise evaluated if students could recognize the distinctive leaps or melodic expression of particular harmonies Harmonic Dictation (see Example 6.12). This exercise evaluated how well students could grapple with additional listening complexities, such as accurately noting the bass line, isolating it from the interference of other voices, and retaining it in their aural memory

The results of the assessment showed that when students were able to focus their listening skills on one task, they performed better, and they were able to more accurately recognize individual harmonies. Listed here is the statistical breakdown (see Example 6.13).

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Example 6.11 An assessment exercise that focuses on distinguishing leaps in a particular harmony. Source: Author.

Example 6.12 Harmonic dictation exercise that focuses on bass line dictation. Source: Author.

Example 6.13 Applied chord recognition assessment data. Source: Author.

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Example 6.14 Chromatic predominant chord recognition assessment data. Source: Author.

1.

The results of the aural identification of applied chords in an isolated context showed that: a.

b. c.

2.

Most students (45 out of 48 or 94%) recognized the distinctiveness of the V/V. This statistic is understandable since they had been learning to recognize it since week four of the term and subsequent assignments continued to reinforce the sound of it. Thirty-one out of 48 (65%) students recognized the V/vi. Twenty-nine out of 48 (60%) students recognized the V/ii. Significantly, students had less exposure to these last two categories of chords and consequently less repetition since they were introduced to them in week seven and were grouped together with the V/iii over a two-week span.

The results of the aural identification of chromatic predominants in an isolated context showed that: a. b.

Forty-one out of 48 (85%) students recognized the Neapolitan chord. This chord was introduced in week ten in written theory and in week 12 in aural skills (see Example 6.14). Distinguishing between augmented sixth chord types proved less fruitful for students. However, most students recognized that they were hearing these varieties of chords. Expectedly, some students (19 of 48) mistook the Italian augmented sixth for the German augmented sixth and vice versa. Distinguishing between these two chords is really not that helpful since they are nearly identical in sound. In fact, this exercise was intentionally put on this evaluation in this way to make this point. Also, it’s important to keep in mind that the individual identities of these chords were not yet aurally discernable in part because students had relatively little time to process and learn to recognize their distinctiveness given how late in the curriculum they are introduced – another pedagogical topic worth considering when deciding on how much content to cover.

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3.

The results of the melodic dictation exercise, which included leaps in the Neapolitan chord, revealed that: a.

4.

Very few heard its distinctive leaps in the melodic dictation (see Example 6.15). Only 19 out of 48 (40%) students accurately notated it. Possible reasons for this may be that it was modally borrowed, but it is more likely that in general the length of the dictation put a strain on students’ aural memory, and many students struggle with scale degree recognition and comparing what they hear against the tonic backdrop.

Finally, the results of the bass line dictation, harmonized with chromatic chords, showed that: a.

Fourteen out of 48 (29%) students recognized that the second chord in the progression, the iv56, was some type of predominant chord but heard the incorrect bass note; none were able to recognize that it was a seventh chord (see Example 6.16).

Example 6.15 Chromatic chord melodic dictation assessment data. Source: Author

Example 6.16 Bass line dictation exercise assessment data. Source: Author.

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b.

c. d.

Of those that heard the correct bass line, only 4 out of 48 (8%) heard 5ˆ in the bass as being a V65 tonicization of VI. A higher number of students (11 out of 48 or 23%), recognized the correct function. This example is tricky because 5ˆ in the bass is almost always harmonized by a dominant-functioning chord and not as a setup for a deceptive move; in fact, V to VI is the normative deceptive move. Twenty-one out of 48 (44%) students heard the augmented sixth chord in the progression, but only 10 out of 48 (21%) identified correctly that it was a French augmented sixth chord. Familiarity of chord identity proved a challenge for many. If the conceptual understanding lacked, the student was unaware of the harmonic possibilities and how to label them.

This data raises some important questions regarding the pacing, content, and evaluation of harmonic listening development in the aural skills curriculum: how much time do we devote to the atomistic elements of harmony? Do we attempt to teach them how to hear every chord possibility that they learned about conceptually in written theory? Does it matter if a student mistakes the ii6 for the IV, so long as they hear the proper function? Does it matter if a student mistakes the vii°7/ii for the V65/ii so long as they hear the proper tonicization? As the harmonic dictation example suggested, hearing chords in context is a struggle for students, given the strain on their aural memory and hearing the bass line through the interference of the upper voices. And, as in the case of the minor iv56 chord in the progression, just because this chord may have been covered, doesn’t mean that our students will recognize them. I would be ecstatic if not all, but a majority of my students were able to demonstrate proficiency more in terms of the global music relationships and less in terms of the atomistic. These fine-tuning, detailed listening concepts take much longer to develop fluency in than there is time in the curriculum. Years of encoding and repetition are required in order to become familiar with the schemas that allow them to become experienced listeners of music. Even with the deliberate care and attention to these different aspects of harmonic listening, the passage of time necessary to better encode these skills is still minimal; the standard 15-week term is a small window of time to acquire these skills with some level of proficiency.

An Analogy Between Aural Skills Acquisition and Language Learning We can learn something about the process involved in learning music relationships by examining the way in which language educators determine the length of time and level of immersion for the acquisition of language skills. The similarities and connections between the process of learning the vocabulary and syntax of music, and learning a language, have been studied at length by neuroscientists. This connection offers us some justification to make this useful analogy. According to the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Language (ACTFL), with full-time immersion, with someone who possesses an average aptitude, the student will acquire, according to their metrics, an ‘Intermediate Mid’ level competency of a Group I language (what language experts consider to be the easiest languages to learn) after completing the absolute minimum of 240 hours of training in eight weeks.17 The exposure to and repetition of the language, and its vocabulary, syntax, and context is provided in a concentrated, immersive-type of environment. If the acquisition of a foreign language gives us any indication of the time and repetition required to become proficient in the skills we seek to develop in our students, then perhaps our expectations need some adjusting with respect to how much and how frequently we introduce and evaluate new topics. At my institution, we have two hours a week in class for 15 weeks over three terms, which adds up to about 90 hours of total instruction time (30 hours per term).18 I strongly urge that students practice for an average of at least 30 minutes a day (which is the minimum amount of time they are required to practice their primary instrument). Assuming that

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students did follow my program judiciously, this would amount to approximately three hours per week practicing, 45 hours per term, and a total of 135 hours over a two-year period. So, at best, my students would be actively working on their aural development for approximately 225 hours over the course of a year and a half of physical time. Following the ACTFL guidelines, it doesn’t even chart for the lowest possible level of proficiency, or a minimum of 240 hours of immersion. Granted, this is a very loose interpretation and comparison, and there is definitely some type of immersion going on outside of the aural skills curriculum (listening to, playing, studying music), but it gives us some idea about the practicality of what we expect our students to learn in their structured aural skills training. It should cause us to reflect on what we really want them to be able to do. We each have to decide for our own programs what kind of fluency we hope our students will achieve by the end of their formal training. The struggle is deciding which of those concepts are essential and which are peripheral.

A Different Kind of Integration This brings us back to the question of integration between written theory and aural skills. How is it best achieved? To return to Larson’s model for optimal ways of knowing through integration, it may appear from my explanations earlier as though the benefits of integration get tossed aside in order to allow for a more natural, gradual pacing for the acquisition of applied musicianship skills. However, this is not the case. Integration can still occur in a different, more loosely connected way. As I suggested at the beginning of this chapter, invoking Rogers’s integrative approach, meaningful integration can take place within each course and not necessarily between each course. ‘What I am proposing,’ Rogers states, ‘is simply that solid cross-referenced teaching be emphasized regardless of course labeling or surface division of content.’19 For instance, when topics are introduced conceptually in written theory, the sensitive instructor could engage the learner in myriad ways: through listening, playing, singing, seeing, and feeling. The learning activities need not be only pencil to paper (or finger to tablet) but could be low-stakes exercises that can help students begin to develop mental representations of theoretical concepts by other means. In this section, I provide a few examples of how I strive for this type of integration in my theory classroom, both in lesson and assignment structure. In this spirit of integration, whenever I introduce a new theoretical topic, I always try to begin by engaging the students’ ears. For instance, at the beginning of the third semester of theory, I introduce applied chords, beginning with the V/V. I’ll begin by asking students to listen carefully to a selected portion of the melody of Queen’s song, ‘Somebody to Love’ (see Example 6.17). Once we’ve established the tonal center, I ask students to sing back on a neutral syllable the melodic fragment in question, a 3ˆ–4ˆ –5ˆ pitch pattern they have previously learned to recognize, but now with a raised 4ˆ. I give them a minute to see if they can silently interpret what they hear. Next, I ask the students to identify the pattern by singing it back with solfège. Most of the class will instantly recognize that the second element, 4ˆ, is raised out of its normative diatonic position. This aural recognition leads to a brief discussion of the emphasis that a raised 4ˆ places on 5ˆ, creating the non-diatonic half step resolution ‘fi-sol.’ Students naturally make the connection to a ‘ti-do’ resolution. At this point, they are primed to understand the concept of tonicization before anything has been written down. During this process of discovery, I’ll have my students make their understanding explicit also by playing the pitches that represent 3ˆ-#4ˆ –5ˆ on the piano so that they can feel the weight placed on the resolution to ‘sol’ and further ground their conceptual understanding in the key. From here, we identify the dominant chord that the chromatic tone #4ˆ belongs to and begin to explore dominant-tonic pairs that exist within keys. This is one simple example of how integration can occur naturally in lesson planning: multiple ways of knowing were engaged (ears, voice, fingers) in the process of unpacking a conceptual topic like applied chords.

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Example 6.17 Excerpt from Queen’s ‘Somebody to Love.’ Source: Author.

Written theory assignments are another means by which integration can be fostered. Including listening activities on analysis assignments, where students need to transcribe a missing part (like the bass voice) before analyzing the harmony, or aurally identifying the form, can be effective ways to force students to apply their listening skills (see Example 6.18). This kind of activity also requires them to engage the recorded performance to ensure that they are listening closely. If keyboards are available in the classroom, assigning basic harmonic progressions as low-stakes exercises are valuable, arguably as useful as assigning part-writing activities. As I mentioned earlier, students learn how to play the standard I-IV-V6-5 4-3-I model progression in keyboard style during their first-year aural skills. We add to that framework by substituting chords (i.e., the ii6 for the IV), adding tonic expansions and other formulaic patterns. Students are expected to sing voice leading lines and or arpeggiate each chord from the bass note up. In their second year, students learn how to add applied chords, modally borrowed chords, and chromatic predominants. Student success at recognizing the Neapolitan chord from the data provided earlier was in part due to the fact that they (a) heard its distinctiveness when it was introduced, (b) played it on the piano, inserting it in a short progression, and (c) transcribed it as part of an analysis assignment. These were all skill-based activities that originated in the theory classroom (see Example 6.19). Key to the type of integration for which I’m advocating is that none of these applied learning activities assigned in the theory class are graded critically. I purposely want them to serve as introductory tasks that engage a different way of learning the concept and not necessarily as a demonstration of skill development. Most integrated activities are supplementary to the main learning objectives and are evaluated as either completion-based tasks, or hold relatively little weight in assignments that are graded. I leave the more intensive grading to the respective skills-based courses, should they cover, at some point, the same topic from an applied perspective. This approach, in my mind, preserves the spirit of integration without placing the burden of integration squarely on the aural skills curriculum.

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At the institution where I teach, not only are the instructors of the theory core finding ways to incorporate integration within their courses but so also are the instructors of applied music, ensembles, and music education. It requires that faculty communicate with each other and that there’s some buy-in to the ideals of integration and finding shared learning opportunities. For instance, my piano colleague frequently has his students chant perplexing rhythms using the TaKaDiMi system

Example 6.18 Harmonic transcription exercise.

Example 6.19 Harmonic transcription exercise. Source: Author.

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they are learning in aural skills. The flute instructor asks her students to identify the harmony of a troublesome passage in order to better execute it. The choral director (not surprisingly) routinely has students apply solfège to understand pitch relationships, and also asks for a harmonic analysis from his students. On the flip side, I’ve had my theory students complete analysis projects on the music that they are learning in their private lessons. In short, there are many useful ways to ensure that effective integration can take place.

Conclusion Decoupling the lockstep rigidity between the component courses of the theory core curriculum not only provides students with a little more time to assimilate and gain fluency as a skill but also affords students the opportunity to revisit a topic from different perspectives over time to better solidify concepts in their mind. From the data shared in this chapter, this time element was apparent in the high number of correct student responses to aural recognition of the V/V chord, introduced toward the start of the term, versus the V/ii chord, that was introduced later. Staggered integration between core courses allows for skills to coalesce more naturally. In my experience, while students do appreciate those instances where the interlocking of the core musicianship courses occur, they also appreciate that they are given more time to develop with some level of proficiency those skills on which they are being evaluated. Integration should be less about the coordination of topics between core courses and more about integrating the different ways of knowing within each course, as Larson points out, that is essential to optimal student learning. In that way, integration is not lost – it’s just redistributed.

Notes 1. For diatonic harmony aural skills topics, see chapters 34–46 of Gary S. Karpinski, Manual for Ear Training and Sight Singing, 2nd ed. (New York: W.W. Norton, 2017). 2. See, for instance, the following coordinated theory programs, Steven Laitz, The Complete Musician: An Integrated Approach to Tonal Theory, Analysis, and Listening, 4th ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012); Paul Murphy, Joel Phillips, Jane Piper Clendinning, and Elizabeth West Marvin, The Musician’s Guide to Aural Skills, 3rd ed. (New York: W.W. Norton, 2016). 3. Steve Larson, ‘Integrated Music Learning and Improvisation: Teaching Musicianship and Theory Through “Menus, Maps, and Models”,’ College Music Symposium 35 (1995): 76–90. 4. Ibid., 77. 5. Michael R. Rogers, Teaching Approaches in Music Theory: An Overview of Pedagogical Philosophies, 2nd ed. (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2004), 16–17. 6. This structure is the typical course sequence adopted by college music programs across the United States. The sequential format generally followed for the first two years of college music training is: four semesters of music theory, four semesters of aural skills and keyboard courses. Some institutions blend these separate parts into a combined musicianship class, alternating regularly between written theory, aural skills, and keyboard skills. 7. Rogers, Teaching, 18. 8. The lack of a consistent curriculum in music literacy in public schools across the US is astounding. There exists a wide spectrum of offerings from state to state, school district to school district, and school to school: some provide rigorous courses in music theory and aural skills, while others don’t provide anything. Music programs hampered by budget, time, scheduling, and/or enrollment constraints are ill-equipped to give students access to essential learning opportunities that would help prepare them for college-level music instruction. Two recent representative articles that survey music literacy in incoming freshmen speak to this disparity. See Huei Li Chin, “Literacy Status of Incoming Music Students in Illinois on Selected Fundamentals of Written Theory,” American Music Teacher 63, no. 6 (2014): 14–19; and Carolyn Livingston and James Ackman, “Changing Trends in Preparing Students for College Level Theory,” American Music Teacher 53, no. 1 (2003): 26–29. 9. Gary S. Karpinski, Aural Skills Acquisition: The Development of Listening, Reading, and Performing Skills in College-Level Musicians, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. 10. David Huron, Sweet Anticipation: Music and the Psychology of Expectation, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006. Chapters 4 and 12 specifically discuss the role of memory in music expectation.

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Jeffrey Lovell 11. In the Preface to The Musician’s Guide to Aural Skills, the authors acknowledge the potential for students’ skills to not keep up with their conceptual learning taking place in the coordinated theory text, stating that, “there is no harm done if aural/practical instruction trails slightly behind conceptual understanding [emphasis added].” See Murphy et al., Musician’s Guide, ix. 12. Students appreciate the overlap when they see how the courses tie together from a learning standpoint. From a skills assessment standpoint, however, they appreciate even more the extra time to assimilate the concepts. 13. Karpinski, Manual. This approach departs from Karpinski’s program temporarily, which doesn’t begin to focus on harmonic relationships explicitly until chapter 34, midway through the suggested curriculum ordering found on pgs. xvi-xvii of the introduction. Karpinski does, however, introduce the dominant and predominant harmonies from a melodic perspective in chapters 25 and 31, respectively. In my program, I introduce harmonic topics in chapters 34–37 alongside other melodic topics from the start of the term. 14. Karpinski, Manual, 162–3. 15. Nicholas Bannan, “Embodied Music Theory: New Pedagogy for Creative and Aural Development,” Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy, vol. 24 (2010): 197–216. 16. This approach corresponds with Karpinski, Manual, Ch. 35. 17. “How Long Does It Take to Become Proficient?”, Language Testing International, accessed July 29, 2020, www.languagetesting.com/how-long-does-it-take. 18. Note that these numbers would need some minor adjusting for institutions that have four semesters of aural skills. This number doesn’t account for breaks throughout the academic year or summer, when aural skills practice is typically not occurring. I usually assign exercises during these periods in an attempt to alleviate the atrophy of students’ skills. 19. Rogers, Teaching, 18.

Bibliography Bannan, Nicholas. ‘Embodied Music Theory: New Pedagogy for Creative and Aural Development.’ Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy 24 (2010): 197–216. Chin, Huei Li. ‘Literacy Status of Incoming Music Students in Illinois on Selected Fundamentals of Written Theory.’ American Music Teacher 63, no. 6 (2014): 14–19. ‘How Long Does It Take to Become Proficient?’ Language Testing International. Accessed July 29, 2020. www. languagetesting.com/how-long-does-it-take. Huron, David. Sweet Anticipation: Music and the Psychology of Expectation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006. Karpinski, Gary S. Aural Skills Acquisition: The Development of Listening, Reading, and Performing Skills in CollegeLevel Musicians. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Karpinski, Gary S. Manual for Ear Training and Sight Singing, 2nd ed. New York: W. W. Norton, 2017. Laitz, Steven. The Complete Musician: An Integrated Approach to Tonal Theory, Analysis, and Listening, 4th ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. Larson, Steve. ‘Integrated Music Learning and Improvisation: Teaching Musicianship and Theory Through ‘Menus, Maps, and Models’.’ College Music Symposium 35 (1995): 76–90. Livingston, Carolyn and Ackman, James. ‘Changing Trends in Preparing Students for College Level Theory.’ American Music Teacher 53, no. 1 (2003): 26–29. Murphy, Paul, Phillips, Joel, Clendinning, Jane Piper, and Marvin, Elizabeth West. The Musician’s Guide to Aural Skills, 3rd ed. New York: W. W. Norton, 2016. Rogers, Michael R. Teaching Approaches in Music Theory: An Overview of Pedagogical Philosophies, 2nd ed. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2004.

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7 THE SING-AND-PLAY Samantha M. Inman

Introduction Sing-and-play activities involve singing one line of music while accompanying oneself on an instrument, usually the piano. I first encountered sing-and-play activities as an undergraduate, where they were routinely interwoven in courses in keyboard, aural skills, and written theory. Later, my interest in sing-and-plays increased due to disappointment caused by one particular experience early in my teaching career: I had assigned my second-semester aural skills students a duet from their textbook, asking them to sing one line while playing the other line. Although this was the first time I had introduced a sing-and-play exercise to these students, I did not anticipate issues, since the played portion was less technically demanding than material the students were concurrently studying in class piano. Nevertheless, the resulting performances were wildly uneven. Some performed the assignment well; a few even sang better in tune than usual because of the presence of the accompaniment. Others struggled with the physical coordination of singing and playing at the same time, but could sing the melody in tune when I played the accompanying line for them. Far more students than I expected, though, could not sing the melody in tune even when I played the accompaniment for them, despite the fact that most of these students could sing the melody in tune a cappella. I drew three conclusions from this experience. First, singing a cappella and singing with accompaniment are distinct skills, and ability in one does not guarantee ability in the other. This is a significant point since the majority of sight-singing books and courses tend to focus on monophonic melodies, tacitly assuming students will be able to transfer skills to other contexts. Evidence to the contrary requires adjusting pedagogy, for performing musicians must be able to hear and adjust to other parts in real time. Second, sing-and-play exercises are arguably the most efficient means of teaching how to listen to another line while singing. Teaching tuning against another line can be accomplished through ensemble singing, another valuable activity. However, designing a task that can be performed alone encourages individual practice and, for the purposes of grading, eliminates confounds from a weak group member. It is far more difficult to ignore a part that one is personally sounding on an instrument in a sing-and-play activity than it is to disregard one voice in an ensemble. Furthermore, while keyboard proficiency limits difficulty, requiring the student to perform both parts also builds skill in multitasking. Third, acquiring the specific skill of playing and singing simultaneously requires regular incorporation, not isolated and infrequent assignments. This chapter advocates for the inclusion of sing-and-play activities in aural skills and theory courses. In particular, it summarizes current materials and practices as a model for instructors

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considering the incorporation of sing-and-plays into their pedagogy. Part I of this chapter surveys published sing-and-play exercises and justifications proffered in recent writings. Part II reports results from an online survey regarding how sing-and-plays are currently used in today’s theory classrooms. Part III considers additional concerns based on my experience tailoring sing-and-play examples for my aural skills courses. The value of developing skills through sing-and-play activities often outweighs the challenges, which can be overcome by adjusting materials, presentation, and grading.

I. Published Resources Examination of published textbooks and recent writings in theory pedagogy illustrates both the benefit of incorporating sing-and-play activities and the wide range of choices in their implementation. While nearly every aural skills or theory textbook contains some material that could be assigned as a sing-and-play, only a few have a substantial number of activities designed specifically for this purpose. Figure 7.1 compares six of these: five aural skills texts and one workbook that accompanies a core theory text. Even this small sample represents a range of types, textures, composers, and difficulty levels. Perhaps the text most well-known for its inclusion of sing-and-plays is A New Approach to Sight Singing by Sol Berkowitz, Gabriel Frontrier, Leo Kraft, Perry Godstein, and Edward Smaldone. The Book

#

Staves

Clefs

Length

Repertoire

Notes

Benjamin, T., Horvit, M., & Nelson, R. (2012). Music for Sight Singing. (6th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. Berkowitz, S., Fontrier, G., Kraft, L., Godstein, P., & Smaldone, E. (2017). A New Approach to Sight Singing. 6th ed. New York: Norton.

10

3: melody + piano

treble, bass

8–32 mm.

Piano usually doubles sung melody.

128

usually 3: melody + piano

treble, bass, alto

4–46 mm.; usually 8 or 16.

Carr, M., Benward, B., Greer, T., McKee, E., & Torbert, P. (2015). Sight-Singing Complete (8th ed.). New York: McGraw Hill.

34

2-4

treble, bass, soprano, alto, tenor

2–40 mm.; usually around 20

Jones, E., Shaftel, M. R., & Chattah, J. (2014). Aural Skills in Context: A Comprehensive Approach to Sight Singing, Ear Training, Keyboard Harmony, and Improvisation. New York: Oxford University Press. Laitz, S.G. (2016). Workbook 2: Skills & Musicianship to Accompany The Complete Musician (4th ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. Murphy, P., Phillips, J., Marvin, E. W., and Clendinning, J. P. (2016). The Musician’s Guide to Aural Skills: Sight-Singing (3rd ed.). New York: W. W. Norton & Co.

285+

2-4

treble, bass, alto

4–162 mm.

138+

1-3

treble, bass

1–24 mm.

19+

0-2

treble, bass

4–16+ mm.

“standard vocal literature” (x) Dowland to Robert Franz. Most written by the textbook authors. Composers range from Handel to Fauré. “18 th-21st-century instrumental and vocal repertoire” ranging from “Bach to Brubeck.” (12) Selections or adaptations from vocal and instrumental literature ranging from Victoria to Prokofiev. Mix of newly composed exercises and instrumental and vocal repertoire. Mostly abstract exercises written by the textbook authors.

Figure 7.1 Sing-and-Plays in commonly used aural skills textbooks. Source: Author.

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Often feature easy blocked or broken chords.

Textures vary from blocked chords to counterpoint.

Sing-and-play is the default throughout. Arranged into lines instead of block chords. More than 2/3s require a step beyond reading and performing. Most involve improvisation.

The Sing-and-Play

book includes 128 sing-and-play exercises. The preface defines sing-and-play exercises as ‘melodies with piano accompaniment’ (Berkowitz et al., 2017, vii). This description accurately reflects the formatting. With the exception of the earliest activities that are condensed to two staves, each example features a single staff containing the melody in treble, alto, or bass clef above a grand staff containing the piano part. The melodies tend to be more rhythmically active then the accompaniments, which employ simple rhythms, blocked or broken chords, and limit spacing to minimize technical difficulty. The piano part almost never doubles the vocal line, encouraging independent singing. Many of the exercises are composed by the textbook authors, though a few excerpts by composers ranging from Handel to Fauré also surface. The ten sing-and-plays in Music for Sight Singing by Thomas E. Benjamin, Michael Horvit, and Robert S. Nelson are more uniform than those in other sources. As the authors describe: [The] Sing and Play exercises are melodies with simple accompaniments drawn from the standard vocal literature. The accompaniments can be played by the singer, other student, or by the teacher. We have presented the melodies without the texts, so that the singer can concentrate on the rhythm and pitches. (Benjamin et al., 2012, x) These ‘simple accompaniments’ typically feature either Alberti bass or block chords. Most are within reach of a student taking class piano concurrently. The most difficult, Robert Franz’s complete ‘Widmung,’ could be simplified by dropping the octave doublings, particularly in some of the thicker chords. Some instructors might simplify others for different reasons, particularly since the right hand of the piano doubles the voice for part or all of several exercises. This doubling can be useful for students struggling to sing along with any kind of accompaniment. However, students who are more secure in their singing ability might benefit more from playing just the left hand while singing the melody. This has the dual advantage of accommodating weak keyboard skills while emphasizing the ability to sing a line not already present in the texture. The 34 sing-and-play exercises in Sight Singing Complete by Maureen Carr and Bruce Benward are ‘adapted from 18th through 21st-century instrumental and vocal repertoire’ ranging from ‘Bach to Brubeck’ (2015, xii). Exercise lengths range from two to 40 measures, with most excerpts falling midway between these extremes. The presentation of exercises varies more widely in this book than in the two previously discussed. The number of staves ranges from two to four. Bass and treble clef are used most often, but tenor, alto, and soprano clef also appear. Some examples sharply differentiate the melody from the accompaniment, while others feature contrapuntal textures offering multiple options for dividing sung and played parts, as noted in the preface. This has the advantage of occasionally offering the option of singing bass lines, which presents different challenges from melodies (Sayrs, 2019). Aural Skills in Context by Evan Jones, Matthew R. Shaftel, and Juan Chattah features ‘singable selections drawn from “real music” in their harmonic context’ ( Jones et al., 2014, xiii). As the authors note, ‘All of the excerpts in this book are arranged to be sung, either by yourself with a piano . . . or in a group . . . it is from simultaneous familiarity with all the parts that you will best be able to negotiate the relationship between harmony and melody’ ( Jones et al., 2014, 1). This book departs from most other texts in three ways. First, it does not separate melodies, duets, and sing-and-plays; most of the nearly 300 selections could be performed as sing-and-play exercises. Second, all excerpts contain two to four distinct lines placed on separate staves, prioritizing delineation of voices over condensed presentation. The emphasis on melody extends even to avoidance of simple piano textures playable by novice pianists. For example, the broken chords of Schubert’s Der Müller und der Bach are arranged as two lines, the top of which fills in select chord tones without reference to the top line of the original piano part ( Jones et al., 2014, 552–553, Ex. 21.1). Such arranging practices make

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possible the third difference: the inclusion of singable versions of complete movements in standard forms, which range from binary to sonata. This accounts for the unusually large range in the length of musical selections. Thus, the keyboard is mostly used as a surrogate for singing in an ensemble when performing passages from repertoire. The piano receives more attention in the ‘chorale workshops,’ which involve playing and improvising upon short progressions in up to four voices. Even here, though, the directions emphasize the importance of vocal arpeggiation. The Skills and Musicianship Workbook that accompanies the core theory text The Complete Musician by Steven G. Laitz differs markedly in approach from the other sources. Designated sing-and-plays number around 138. (For the purposes of this total, activities containing a group of one- to twomeasure drills have been counted as a single exercise.) Like Berkowitz (2017), Laitz (2016) incorporates both newly composed exercises and excerpts from the literature. Like Carr and Benward (2015), Laitz provides multiple options for dividing sung and played lines, often going further to instruct students to perform the exercise once while singing the melody and once while singing the bass. The most remarkable feature, however, pertains to the wide range of skills addressed. Less than one fourth of Laitz’s sing-and-play exercises involve only the notes printed on the page. All others incorporate one or more additional skills, such as transposition, realizing a figured or unfigured bass, constructing and playing a harmonic reduction, and improvising a bass line or embellishments. This increased difficulty takes longer to master but also has a higher potential payoff in developing fluency in musicianship. The Musician’s Guide to Aural Skills: Sight Singing by Paul Murphy, Joel Phillips, Elizabeth West Marvin, and Jane Piper Clendinning moves even further away from notation, emphasizing improvisation (2016). The low number of sing-and-plays indicated in Figure 7.1 does not fully convey the extensive material in this book, partially due to formatting. Keyboard assignments – some of which involve singing and playing at the same time – are segregated in a section at the book’s end. Improvisation assignments – some of which contain sing-and-play elements and several of which refer to material in the keyboard assignments – appear at the beginning of each main chapter. Both keyboard exercises and improvisations often feature multiple parts and multiple variations. The total listed only counts activities that specifically direct the student to sing one element while playing another, though the numerous exercises designed for two students to perform together could easily be adapted as sing-and-play exercises. Of the specified sing-and-plays, nearly all involve significant additions to the notated prompt. Some entail playing a model chord progression or improvising a phrase that combines multiple model progressions while singing an improvised melody. Others involve playing an improvised accompaniment while singing a notated melody. Published discourse connects sing-and-play activities to multiple skills. Roger Graybill identifies six interconnected ‘modalities for understanding musical relationships – hearing, notating, conceptualizing, singing, reading, and playing’ (2018, 188). He argues that sing-and-play activities are particularly valuable because they require engaging with all modalities except notating, applying multiple skills ‘in real time’ (2018, 189–190). He divides keyboard activities into two types: melodic and chordal. He advocates particularly strongly for chordal activities, lauding the value of figured bass realization while acknowledging the practicalities of model progressions. His specific examples of performing chorales include playing the bass line while vocally arpeggiating the upper three voices and singing one voice while playing the other three (2018, 184–191). Peter Schubert similarly advocates for both chordal and contrapuntal sing-and-play activities. Recounting his studies with Nadia Boulanger, Schubert describes how differentiation of timbre in sing-and-plays emphasizes melodies rather than a succession of verticalities (2017, 5–6; 2018, 15). Schubert routinely incorporates sing-and-plays into his counterpoint courses, which include both written and improvised activities. Practicing sing-and-plays develops skills necessary for ensemble performance, fosters effective practice techniques, and equips students with a tool for evaluating the

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music they write. As he notes, students would make far fewer mistakes if they always performed their work before submission (2018, 15). Comparison of published sing-and-play exercises and commentaries points to the range of factors involved in designing these activities. Questions abound: how long will the exercise be? How many staves and which clefs will it employ? How independent is the sung line from the played portion? Will the sung line always be the melody, or is there an option to sing a bass line or an inner voice? Will the exercise be taken directly from the literature, adapted from the literature, or newly composed? Will everything be fully notated for the student, or will the exercise entail figured bass realization, transposition, or improvisation? How often should these be assigned? In what courses will they be used? The answers to these questions vary according to resources, student population, and the inclination of individual instructors, as described in Part II.

II. Survey Design and Results This study gathered data on the range of approaches to sing-and-play assignments in current use. A call for participants was distributed via the email lists of the Society for Music Theory and the Society of Composers, Inc. Conducted in late April and early May of 2019, the survey included a mixture of multiple-choice, multiple-select, and free-response questions. In the figures shown in this chapter, results of multiple-choice questions are reported as percentages, while results of multiple-select questions are reported as raw numbers since the number of items selected can (and frequently does) exceed the number of respondents. This section first describes the population surveyed and then presents findings on why, how, and with what these instructors use sing-and-plays. The 81 survey respondents represent various backgrounds and current teaching circumstances. While the survey did not collect data on nationality, it is likely, given the demographics of the Society for Music Theory and the Society of Composers, Inc., that the majority of respondents are from the United States, while at least a few are from Canada and other countries. All but five respondents hold a doctoral degree. Most respondents hold degrees in theory, composition, or both, as shown in Figure 7.2. Just over half (54%) work at public institutions, roughly balancing their counterparts at private institutions (46%). Figure 7.3 shows the size of the music major population, with four size categories well represented. Figure 7.4 indicates the highest degree offered at each school. Only a few respondents work at community colleges, which is perhaps not surprising given the disparate subjects such instructors are often asked to teach. Schools that offer doctoral degrees have a high

Figure 7.2 Fields of advanced degrees held by respondents. Source: Author.

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Figure 7.3 School sizes (number of music students). Source: Author.

Figure 7.4 Highest degrees offered. Source: Author.

response rate, which makes sense since such institutions often have more career theorists on faculty. The majority of respondents (69%) do use sing-and-play assignments, though the input of those who do not (31%) provided valuable information. Given the voluntary nature of the survey and the fact that not all theory instructors are affiliated with one of the professional organizations used for the survey’s distribution, these percentages do not accurately measure the prevalence of sing-and-plays in music institutions. Nevertheless, the results of the survey uncover variation in concerns, rationales, and approaches to these activities. Many of the benefits and challenges that respondents mentioned align with those identified by Graybill (2018, 194–195). Figure 7.5 summarizes the significant benefits. Some of these involve improvement of a single specific skill, such as intonation or score reading. Many of them, however, pertain to the integration of multiple skills. Sing-and-play assignments develop multitasking necessary to become an effective educator, conductor, or ensemble member. Figure 7.6 summarizes what respondents noted as the greatest challenges of sing-and-plays, most of which can be mitigated through strategic integration into the curriculum. Not surprisingly, one of the biggest concerns is time: time to teach, time to practice, and especially time to grade. Another cluster of concerns cited in Figure 7.6 involve the students’ lack of skills. Particularly if the main issue is a lack of keyboard

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The Sing-and-Play Builds confidence and independence of hand, eye, mind, and ear. Contextualizes rhythm, melody, counterpoint, and harmony. Holistically develops musicianship and theory skills. Improves practice strategies. Improves score reading. Improves tuning and intonation. Integrates reading, thinking, singing, playing, and listening. Singing and playing is both fun and practical (especially for conductors, educators, and vocalists). • Teaches how to hear independent lines simultaneously (including those in different timbres). • • • • • • • •

Figure 7.5 Summary of reported Sing-and-Play benefits. Source: Author.

• • • • • • • •

Time to teach, practice, and grade. Poor skills in keyboard, singing, and score reading. Reluctant students. Access to keyboards. Difficulty in coordination. Finding or creating appropriate materials. Integrating into curriculum. Large class size.

Figure 7.6 Summary of reported Sing-and-Play challenges. Source: Author.

skills, minimizing the difficulty level of the played component might increase accessibility while still reaping tremendous benefits. Class size provides a more significant barrier, as assigning sing-and-plays is far more feasible in a class of fifteen students than in a class of one hundred. Student reluctance is easier to overcome. When asked to list the greatest challenge in incorporating sing-and-play activities, one respondent wrote ‘Nothing. They’ll do it if you start it the first day.’ Respondents also differ in where, how, and how often they implement sing-and-plays into the curriculum. Figure 7.7 indicates that sing-and-play exercises are most often assigned in aural skills courses, likely due not only to the singing component but also to their small section enrollment at most schools. However, some instructors assign sing-and-plays in other courses as well, including upper-level classes such as counterpoint (as does Schubert, as discussed previously). While the frequency of sing-and-play assignments range from once to over ten times per semester, the vast majority of instructors include two to seven assignments per semester, as shown in Figure 7.8. While a few assess sing-and-play assignments during class, far more have moved grading outside of class as shown in Figure 7.9. Many follow the traditional route of grading these in private meetings with individual students, but a significant number instead require students to submit a video or audio recording. A few specifically mentioned the software SmartMusic, which instructors can use to create assignments and students can use to record performances. (For examples of various types of exercises that involve this software, see Jones et al., 2014; Callahan, 2015; Mariner & Schubert, 2017.) All forms of recording allow the instructor to assess performances by all students in the least possible time while reserving class time for other activities. This also circumvents concerns regarding the number of keyboards in a given classroom, as students can use pianos readily available in most practice rooms. Respondents use a variety of textures and resources in creating sing-and-play assignments. Figure 7.10 lists some of the possible textures. Two-part textures range from homophony to more florid duets, usually singing the line with greater rhythmic activity. Denser textures include both four-part

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Figure 7.7 Courses with Sing-and-Plays. Source: Author.

Figure 7.8 Assignments per semester. Source: Author.

• Outside of class in an individual meeting with the student. (41) • Outside of class by watching a video the student has pre-recorded and submitted. (24) • During class. My classroom has a single keyboard. (11) • During class. My classroom has multiple keyboards. (7) • I do not grade sing-and-play assignments, preferring to use them as in-class activities or outside-of-class enrichment only. (6) • Outside of class via SmartMusic or other audio recording. (4)

Figure 7.9 Modes of Sing-and-Play assessment used Source: Author.

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       

1:1 counterpoint. (1 sung note to 1 played note in homorhythm.) (35) Sung melody + 1 played melody. Not homorhythmic, but the parts are of roughly equal difficulty. (35) Sung melody + 1 played melody. The sung line is noticeably more rhythmically active than the played line. (31) Sung melody + 1 played melody. The sung line is noticeably less rhythmically active than the played line. (13) Sung melody + 2-part played accompaniment. (16) Chorale (or keyboard) texture. Play all four voices while singing one (doubling a played line). (19) Chorale (or keyboard) texture. Play three voices while singing the fourth. (13) Sung melody + other accompanimental texture involving two hands. (30)

Figure 7.10 Sing-and-Play textures used. Source: Author.

Figure 7.11 Sing-and-Play sources. Source: Author.

harmony and more elaborate accompaniments involving two hands. While most assignments provided to the students are fully notated, three respondents specifically mentioned asking their students to sing while realizing lead sheets. Figure 7.11 shows that many instructors devise their own singand-play materials, often selecting repertoire excerpts and sometimes writing custom exercises not based on repertoire. Many respondents use materials from one or more of the textbooks listed in the bibliography. These include both exercises designated as sing-and-plays in the textbook and other materials such as duets and chorales that can easily be adapted for this purpose. As the survey results indicate, current sing-and-play practices vary widely. Some instructors use them in multiple courses, while others use them in few or none. Other variables include number of assignments, means of assessment, preferred textures, and type of source materials. Adjusting these elements can minimize challenges and maximize benefits to suit the needs of a particular student population.

III. Further Considerations While Part II surveyed the broad practices of how a variety of instructors have (or have not) included sing-and-plays into the theory curriculum, Part III focuses on aspects of my aural skills courses. While I occasionally assign duets from my students’ textbook (Rogers & Ottman, 2018) as sing-and-plays,

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I, like many of the instructors surveyed, also develop additional materials, including the samples provided later. This section illustrates one possibility (among many) for navigating considerations of the student body, assignment mechanics, and assignment content in a particular type of course. For context, the school of music at which I currently work is a public, regional university with about 440 undergraduates and 50 master’s students. The vast majority of the undergraduates are music education students, followed by sound recording technology majors, and then by a small number of performers and composers. Piano primaries constitute a tiny fraction of the student body, with most students specializing in a wind instrument or voice. Most of our students enter with little to no grasp of fundamentals, meaning that by necessity most of the first semester of our curriculum is devoted to basics. Given the widespread lack of piano skills, I favor sing-and-plays that require minimal technical facility. I most often have students sing the melody and play a bass accompaniment, though in light of Elizabeth Sayrs’ (2019) recent work demonstrating the unique challenges of singing bass lines, I intend to develop more activities involving singing the bass in coming semesters. Assigning sing-and-plays regularly yields far better results than assigning them only once or twice per semester. On the surface, this seems obvious: more practice at a particular skill naturally will improve that skill. However, the reasons for this are threefold. First, some students struggle specifically with the physical coordination required to play and sing simultaneously. This group benefits from introductory assignments with extremely simple keyboard parts before working toward more challenging assignments. Even the easiest assignments can have pedagogical value, particularly when reinforcing a specific topic under study. For instance, the setting of the traditional Scottish folk tune shown in Figure 7.12 works well in a unit focusing on tonic and dominant. The steady half notes in the bottom stave are easy to play yet still provide a strong harmonic framework for the melody sung above. Second, while some students find it easier to sing in tune with an accompaniment (even when not doubling the sung melody), others find singing with piano to be considerably harder than singing an assigned melody a cappella. Including both types of assignments throughout the semester addresses the strengths and weaknesses of both populations, allowing for the development of crucial skills. Third, fully integrating sing-and-plays into a course minimizes student pushback. I know from experience that a single sing-and-play task assigned in the latter half of the course elicits far more complaints about difficulty level than a comparable task introduced as one of a series of assignments. (In this, I wholeheartedly agree with the respondent mentioned earlier who recommends starting sing-andplays on the first day of the course.)

Figure 7.12 ‘She Rose, and Let Me In,’ (Traditional Scottish). Source: Author.

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Requiring students to record assignments on video makes it much more feasible to increase the number of sing-and-plays in a course. This eliminates much of the time lost in grading sing-andplays live (whether privately or in the classroom), which requires the student to move to the piano and often features more hesitations, apologies, and restarts than other types of activities. I divide my aural skills courses into three five-week units. Week one has no assignments while the students acclimate to new material. Weeks two through four each have a video assignment, which combines one or two sing-and-plays with one or two other activities (melodies, rhythms, chordal arpeggiation exercises, etc.). These activities are challenging, but the students have a week to work on them. Furthermore, not all tasks have to be recorded on the same day, providing the students flexibility. Week five is devoted to tests, focusing the skills portion on sight singing (the only performance skill impractical to assess via video). Students are responsible for submitting a link to their videos to a dropbox on the school’s learning management system. I insist on a link since video files are generally too large to upload directly, though it is up to the student whether that link leads to the cloud of Zoom (a video-conferencing software program with recording capabilities), their cloud drive on the school network, their Dropbox account, or an unlisted video on YouTube. Moving most assessment to video assignments allows valuable class time to instead be used for teaching and practicing sightsinging techniques and dictation strategies. I typically devote one sing-and-play in each of the three units to short harmonic progressions drawn from vocabulary concurrently used in harmonic dictation. Asking students to play and sing paradigms is hardly a new concept; both the vocabulary and approach advocated here are indebted to Laitz and William Marvin, among others. For each assignment, I provide the students with four progressions of about four to six chords notated in keyboard style (three pitches in the right hand and one in the left) in C major or A minor. For the sing-and-play video, students are instructed to play each progression twice as written, once singing on movable-do solfège along with the bass and once singing along with the soprano. (One could easily perform the same activity using scale-degree numbers.) This prepares students for a follow-up assignment that drops the singing component but asks students to transpose the short progressions into several specified keys. I find it necessary to write out each progression in four voices for my current students to ensure they practice with correct voice leading, but formatting options suitable for stronger classes include figured bass or outer-voice scale degrees. In any event, such assignments use singing as an aid to learning transposition, all the while reinforcing the connection between lines and harmonic vocabulary. When devising sing-and-play assignments from repertoire, strategic editing can be useful. Taking the time to set a passage in notation software allows precise control over content and presentation. This enables attractive formatting of the exact lines and measures to be studied, aiding in clarity. Middle voices might be removed and difficult lines slightly simplified while still preserving the character of the passage. For instance, Figure 7.13 contains just the melody and bass line that opens the last movement of François Devienne’s Flute Sonata, Op. 68. Figure 7.14 goes one step further, showing an adaptation from Mendelssohn’s Song without Words, Op. 30/3 that both omits the inner voices and adjusts the bass line. Furthermore, modern software makes short work of transposition. I often offer a passage in two keys, asking students to pick the version that fits their vocal range most comfortably. However, simply copying unedited scores also has practical and pedagogical advantages. Particularly if the passage is long, simply printing a page from a (public-domain) score takes far less time than setting it in notation software would. This approach has the advantage of avoiding the look of an exercise, hinting at the transferability of the skills being developed. Some selections need no modification for student performance, as illustrated in Figure 7.15 with an excerpt from Ignaz Pleyel’s Duo for Viola and Cello, Op. 39, a piece useful for working on C-clefs. For other passages, students might be directed to perform only part of the texture. Learning to extract select lines from even a relatively

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Figure 7.13 François Devienne, Flute Sonata Op. 68/1/III. Source: Author.

Figure 7.14 Mendelssohn, Song Without Words Op. 30/3. Source: Author.

simple score is a valuable skill that requires practice for many students. Furthermore, working from a full score also provides flexibility in scaling difficulty, particularly if the instructor wishes to require more from piano majors or from particularly strong students. For example, four-part choral works like John Dowland’s ‘Now, O Now, I Needs Must Part’ allow for variation in the number of voices

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Figure 7.15 Ignaz Pleyel, Duo for Viola and Cello, Op. 39, Movement II, Variation 9. Source: Author.

played against the sung voice. For songs such as Robert Schumann’s ‘Morgens steh’ ich auf ’ from Liederkreis Op. 24/1, pianists might be asked to sing the vocal line and play the complete piano part while non-pianists are offered the option of singing while playing only the bass line. Overall, I have found that regularly incorporating a mixture of harmonic paradigms, adapted excerpts, and repertoire in a series of video assignments adds significant value to my aural skills classes. Carefully limiting the difficulty level of the played part allows students to focus on the aural component of the activity rather than primarily struggle with physical coordination. Streamlining grading by having students submit video links to a learning management system keeps the grading process organized and manageable. Overall, the approach described here works for my students and contains elements that could be transferred and adapted for other classrooms.

Conclusion Sing-and-play exercises provide an effective means for developing and consolidating many skills central to theory curricula. These include hearing, singing, playing, tuning, grouping, harmonizing, and multitasking. The overview of publications in Part I demonstrates the disparate priorities and difficulty of available materials, ranging from fully notated to fully improvised, and from abstract to repertoire-based. The survey results in Part II demonstrate the breadth of ways instructors incorporate sing-and-plays, pairing particular strategies and selections and formats with specific schools, courses, and students. The strategies examined in further detail in Part III are flexible enough to be adapted to particular contexts. Though benefiting from careful handling of format, content, and execution, sing-and-play assignments serve as a valuable tool for improving musicianship.

Bibliography Textbooks Benjamin, T., Horvit, M., & Nelson, R. (2012). Music for Sight Singing (6th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. Berkowitz, S., Fontrier, G., Kraft, L., Godstein, P., & Smaldone, E. (2017). A New Approach to Sight Singing (6th ed.). New York: Norton. Carr, M., Benward, B., Greer, T., McKee, E., & Torbert, P. (2015). Sight-Singing Complete (8th ed.). New York: McGraw Hill. Cleland, K.D., & Dobrea-Grindahl, M. (2015). Developing Musicianship through Aural Skills: A Holistic Approach to Sight Singing and Ear Training (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge.

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Samantha M. Inman Clendinning, J.P., Marvin, E.W., & Phillips, J. (2014). The Musician’s Guide to Fundamentals (2nd ed.). New York: London. Franceschina, J. (2015). Music Theory through Musical Theater. New York: Oxford University Press. Fux, J.J. (1965). The Study of Counterpoint. Alfred Mann (Trans. & Ed.). Revised edition. New York: W. W. Norton & Co. Jones, E., Shaftel, M.R., & Chattah, J. (2014). Aural Skills in Context: A Comprehensive Approach to Sight Singing, Ear Training, Keyboard Harmony, and Improvisation. New York: Oxford University Press. Karpinski, G.S. (2017). Manual for Ear Training and Sight Singing (2nd ed.). New York: W. W. Norton. Karpinski, G.S., & Kram, R. (2017). Anthology for Sight Singing (2nd ed.). New York: W. W. Norton. Krueger, Carol. (2017). Progressive Sight Singing (3rd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. Laitz, S.G. (2016). Workbook 2: Skills & Musicianship to Accompany The Complete Musician (4th ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. Marcozzi, R.T. (2016). Strategies and Patterns for Ear Training. New York: Routledge. Merritt, J., & Castro, D. (2016). Comprehensive Aural Skills: A Flexible Approach to Rhythm, Melody, and Harmony. New York: Routledge. Morris, R.O., & Ferguson, H. (1968). Preparatory Exercises in Score Reading. New York: Oxford University Press. Murphy, P., Phillips, J., Marvin, E.W., & Clendinning, J.P. (2016). The Musician’s Guide to Aural Skills: SightSinging (3rd ed.). New York: W. W. Norton & Co. Rogers, N., & Ottman, R. W. (2018). Music for Sight Singing (10th ed.). New York: Pearson. Schubert, P. (2008). Modal Counterpoint, Renaissance Style (2nd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Schubert, P., & Neidhöfer, C. (2006). Baroque Counterpoint. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Snodgrass, J.S. (2016). Contemporary Musicianship: Analysis and the Artist. New York: Oxford University Press.

Other Sources Callahan, M.R. (2015). Teaching and Learning Undergraduate Music Theory at the Keyboard: Challenges, Solutions, and Impacts. Music Theory Online, 21(3). http://mtosmt.org/ Graybill, R. (2018). Activating Aural Imagery through Keyboard Harmony. In R. Lumsden & J. Swinkin (Eds.), The Norton Guide to Teaching Music Theory (pp. 182–197). New York: W. W. Norton & Co. Mariner, J., & Schubert, P. (2017). New Frontiers in SmartMusicianship. Engaging Students: Essays in Music Pedagogy, 5. http://flipcamp.org/engagingstudents/ Sayrs, E. (2019). The Case for More Bass in the Aural Skills Curriculum, presented at Pedagogy into Practice, Santa Barbara, CA, 23 May. Schubert, P. (2017). Teaching theory through improvisation. In M. Guido (Ed.), Studies in Historical Improvisation: From Cantare Super Librum to Partimenti. New York: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315611136 Schubert, P. (2018). Teaching Historical Counterpoint. In R. Lumsden & J. Swinkin (Eds.), The Norton Guide to Teaching Music Theory (pp. 13–25). New York: W. W. Norton & Co.

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8 PERFORMING WITH MEANING A Case Study in Aural-Skills Curriculum Design Aimed at Improving Undergraduate-Performer Understanding of Pitch Function in Tonal Music Christopher Atkinson

Introduction This chapter addresses an age-old issue by revisiting a hypothesis that has underpinned much academic study of, and training in, Western classical music for probably centuries: (in general terms) that performers are able to perform better the greater their understanding of the music they are performing. The discussion here is limited to understanding of the functions of pitches within tonal music from what is often (for example, in Cook, 1998, p. 3) called the ‘common-practice’ period (roughly, J.S. Bach to Mahler). The context further limits the discussion as a case study in aural-skills training curriculum design within a first degree (Bachelor of Music) program for music performance students. The study assesses evidence that undergraduate performers lack sufficient understanding of pitch function in tonal common-practice-period music, gathered through observation of performances, of conversations and interviews with students, and of the aural-skills training process. Rigorously scientific conclusions are prevented by the subjective nature of many of the assessments and judgements involved – what counts as ‘sufficient’? – and the difficulty of apprehending and measuring ‘understanding.’ But these difficulties do not prevent meaningful engagement with and reflections on the issues, evidence, and data. I therefore conclude that there is a sufficient case to be made for regarding understanding of pitch function as something that can and should be addressed (perhaps even primarily) through aural-skills training, and I then look at some ways in which this can be tackled in the classroom within an undergraduate degree program.

Background The origin of this study lies in subjective personal opinions on performance. I write from the perspective of a performing musician, and an educator with responsibility for coordinating the auralskills training for undergraduates in a conservatoire, including responsibility for curriculum design. It’s entirely typical for someone in this kind of position to want and be expected to make improvements to the curriculum where they can, and to make such improvements based at least in part on their own opinions. However, such opinions can usefully and importantly be subjected to some critical reflection and scrutiny, and an account of this process is what constitutes much of what follows.

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The desire to improve aural-skills training leads immediately to the need to define ‘Aural Skills.’ Given that almost all the students in the conservatoire are performers (a very small minority are composers), it is obviously necessary to look at this from the performance perspective. So the first of my personal opinions is that, in an ideal world, a performer performs a piece of music that is retained as sound in their head – their musical inner ear – rather than simply, and unmusically, converting symbols on a score into muscle movements that almost incidentally produce sounds. Pragmatism, the fact that most musicians cannot memorize everything they perform, and the practical need even occasionally to sight-read in performance, need not detract from holding this up as a useful ideal.1 It can also lead to a possible definition of aural skills for this purpose as: skills necessary to receive, process, organize, understand, and hence fully apprehend, as conceived musical sound, the music we wish to perform. I have also gradually come to the view that all those verbs can be regarded as a single integrated process or set of processes, unique in the detail in every individual, and yet in all individuals very much bound together particularly by the process of ‘understanding’ as I will come gradually to define it in this context. So, in the ideal situation already suggested, performers need to ‘understand’ the music they perform. The pretext for my inquiry then depends on establishing a solid basis for the belief that our undergraduate performers on the whole ‘understand’ less well than they should.

Evidence for a Deficit of Understanding of Pitch Function in Tonal Music i) Judgments of Performances Practically every musician I have ever met has or makes subjective opinions or judgments of performance, however widely actual individual judgments may vary. One of the judgments I have found myself repeatedly making, not only of undergraduate performers but also often of professionals (and occasionally established and celebrated international figures), is that some or all of their performances, to me, to whatever extent, lack sufficient ‘meaning’ (as this will be defined later). The failure of a performer to communicate meaning may not necessarily be due to a lack of ‘understanding.’ However (turning that around), better understanding, given the absence of any technical constraints, would better enable performers to communicate meaning, and I am concerned here with cases in which I do not detect technical constraints or difficulties. I can recall any number of performances in which technical execution – control of sound quality, sheer beauty of sound, accuracy of tuning, cleanliness of attack, precision of ensemble, evenness of fast notes, and in extreme cases the sheer ability to play them all – has been superb, but meaning has in my view to some extent been missing. I am demonstrably far from alone in such perceptions. Commonly enough, listeners may voice negative comments on performances that they feel lack communicative power, are perhaps even dull or uninteresting, or are too mechanistic (and therefore lacking in communication of human feeling). But also there are all the positive comments such as ‘that performance really said something,’ or ‘that was really moving,’ that imply that significant expressive potential within the piece was realized and communicated to the listener, but also necessarily imply that in other performances this wasn’t the case, or at least not to the same extent. So some performances undoubtedly convey more meaning than others, and we may want to try to explore this so as to enable students to convey more rather than less, regardless of any rather pointless measure of ‘sufficient’ meaning. Musical meaning is an extensive topic that cannot be adequately explored here, and so I am confining the discussion to meaning that derives from pitch relationships in tonal music of the ‘common-practice’ period.2 From this point on, I will use the term ‘pitch function’ to refer to the grammatical function of any note in music of this period, possessed through its pitch relationship to the other notes that surround it: its relationship to the chord or harmony of which it is a consonant member, or against which it is dissonant; the wider relationship that it or its accompanying harmony

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has with the local tonal center and wider prevailing tonality, and so on. So, without wanting to enter the discussion on whether this music has any semantic meaning, I use ‘pitch function’ effectively to denote the means by which notes in the context of larger grammatical structures such as chords, phrases, cadences, progressions, periods, sentences, themes, or larger structures, in various combinations acquire at least a syntactic ‘meaning.’ Composers of the period of course use these syntaxes to prolong tension or resolve it, deny or gratify expectation, and so on, thus manipulating the emotions of, and hence communicating to the listener. Because the musical language can bestow these functions and abilities on notes and groups of notes purely by virtue of their pitch, one might argue that the composer has done it all for us through how he or she has ordered those pitches, regardless of any interpretational contribution of the performer. And yet a musically untrained listener is still capable of being moved more by one performance of a given piece than another. Performers have the capacity and opportunity to enhance the communicative power that the composer has already bestowed in the music, and it might therefore seem almost axiomatic that if one performer understands pitch functions better than another, he or she is in this respect better equipped to achieve a more expressive or strongly communicative performance (at least according to the composer’s intentions). I am deliberately avoiding any detailed discussion of precisely how, through performance, we might enhance the contribution of the composer. Obvious general principles are widely acknowledged, for example: a dissonance such as an appoggiatura is generally thought to be a more expressive note than the one to which it resolves and so a performer might somehow give it some sort of relative accent. But I want to promote the idea that there isn’t necessarily a ‘right’ way to do things and pitch functions can be ambiguous, or some notes may simultaneously have more than one function.3 The important point is that the performer can (and in my view should) do something. And so, returning to judgments of undergraduate performances, it is actually the impression that some of our students don’t know what to do – don’t know what meaning it is that they are trying to express – that I find most persuasive as an indicator of the need for greater understanding. In the absence of understanding, they do not do enough, or possibly do too much of the wrong thing (such as bulging on a series of successive notes where there is no apparent reason in the score). And even though technical execution may achieve at least professional standards, and in many cases the interpretation too is impressive, an educator might still justifiably want to explore the issue of how they could be even better.

ii) Personal Experience of Performance Part of why I observe all this so keenly is that I have experience of performing without sufficient meaning myself, and even of thinking to myself, mid-performance, ‘I don’t know what to do with this phrase.’ As a clarinetist I naturally learned and performed the Brahms Op. 120 sonatas from relatively early in my studies. In the first movement of the F-minor Sonata Op. 120/1, I remember grappling with the recapitulation and the approach to the return of the home key at bar 138 (see Figure 8.1). Brahms doesn’t actually help the young clarinetist with limited understanding of pitch function at this point by placing the double bar-line and change of key signature two bars before. I can recall playing measures 134–137, thinking that some great punctuating moment should come with the double bar-line between 135 and 136, and then not knowing what to do with 136–137, which then just seemed like an unnecessary filling in or extension before the return of the theme at 138. The performers can possibly punctuate before 136 if they wish – there’s a change of texture in the piano that anticipates 138. But they also need to be able to think of 134–137 as a unit with various functions. First, it reiterates, augments, and extends the final three notes (133–134) of the movement’s opening theme (stated in F♯ minor from 130). But in so doing, it then reinvents the final F♯ minor

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Figure 8.1 Brahms Sonata Op. 120/1 in F minor, first movement, mm. 133–138. Source: Author.

dominant (C♯ major) chord (134) of the imperfect cadence, first enharmonically as a first inversion D♭ major chord in 136 and then, adding B-natural in the clarinet and left hand in 137, as a German augmented sixth chord (inverted) that leads to F minor in 138. Realization of the significance of my D♭ and B-natural in 136–137, pulling inexorably to C and the recapitulation at 138, and how the previous bars set this up, transformed my interpretation and at last I knew what I was doing in terms of playing-out the functions of the notes in my line. Over many years, I have heard many performances of this piece by students and professionals (also including violists) and it is to me as plain as anything, whether or not the performers know what they are doing (however they actually do it). I find this a particularly good example as, when they don’t, they are at severe risk of depriving one of the most important pivotal moments in the movement of its meaning.4 Even in instances that are much less structurally critical, and in fact usually throughout entire performances, the attuned ear can detect how well a performer understands pitch function in what they are playing. But however clear this may be to me or others with similar opinions on performance, there is probably no way of getting around the fact that these judgments are still based on ultimately subjective premises.

iii) More Objective Measures of Understanding in Performance – Intonation There are, however, more objectively measurable aspects of a performance than the nuances of phrasing, and one in particular – intonation – can be a good indicator of whether a performer understands pitch function in what they are playing. Many orchestral and chamber-music players are aware of numerous issues that arise from the compromises they face in trying to reconcile equal temperament (or what passes for it) with what actually sounds in tune due to the physics of musical sound. For example, slightly flattening the third in a major triad (such as the E in a C-major chord), from equally tempered tuning, results in the chord sounding more blended and satisfyingly in tune. This requires the players to understand pitch function at least to the extent that they are able to identify the root of the harmony they are playing within, and hence the scale degree of their note in relation to it. But even this is not a clear-cut case: if the E in the C-major chord happens to be the leading note in an F-major context, and particularly if in the melodic line it then rises to F, it may sound more in tune in the melodic context if it is slightly raised.

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There are many reasons why intonation in performance may be compromised (technical issues, environmental or atmospheric conditions, equipment failure, etc.). But occasionally an instance of mis-tuning can relatively safely be blamed on misunderstanding of pitch function. Music with rapidly changing tonal center, particularly involving enharmonic modulations such as in later Romanticperiod music (very characteristically, for example, in music by Richard Strauss) presents particular challenges. Expert performers will frequently develop (often automatically) the ability to make adjustments such as those outlined in the previous paragraph. But even experts can be wrong-footed in a Strauss tone poem, if they don’t know it very well, when the center of gravity rapidly shifts and roots and tonal centers change suddenly, perhaps while a performer is still on the same note. The E, that was a moment previously the third of a tonic C-major harmony, suddenly becomes itself the new tonic root in E major, and may therefore, without the performer having done anything, suddenly sound out of tune. The giveaway concerning such a tuning discrepancy comes when the player (too late, the damage is done) then successfully corrects the tuning – automatically, or consciously, perhaps in response to others playing in unison. We then know that the tuning error was not due to factors outside the player’s control. It could be a failure of memory on the player’s part, but, if the piece was practiced and rehearsed, it is as likely as not that the error arose from lack of understanding of the shifting pitch functions.

Preliminary Conclusions on the Evidence From Performance Over years of listening, it is possible, I believe, that such aspects of micro-tuning become an integral part of the quality of all performed notes, integrally bound up with nuances of sound color, dynamic, accent, articulation, rhythmic placing – all the parameters of a note functioning in accordance with its pitch. These can be matters of extreme subtlety, and yet a listener can still sense, often without articulating what is or isn’t quite right, whether the performer is expressing pitch function. Once again, this is an ideal, subjectively held. The question arises: when a performance seems to satisfy criteria for technical excellence, as perhaps evidenced by a measure of commercial success, might we not be satisfied and assume that the performances, as well as technically excellent, are expressive enough? But I pursue this argument from the point of view of an educator and would therefore stress the following point: that even if one’s students are excellent in so many respects (and many are), an educator still has the responsibility to probe into how they could become even better, and this requires aiming at a point currently beyond their reach. A hypothetical ideal is valid and useful as such a point, even if it isn’t ever fully reached. We also have to consider the phenomenon of the naturally exceptionally gifted or talented musician: one whose performance speaks with all the meaning inherent in the pitch structure, through all the desired nuances of expression (or is completely surprising and original, yet still ‘right’) but seems entirely unconscious of any basis, in analytical or traditional theoretical understanding, of their interpretation, and arrives without any specific training in such issues. Such people exist, but in 13 years of teaching aural skills and analysis at conservatoire level, I have encountered remarkably few and I do not believe one designs a degree curriculum around them. Far more common are those that are both excellent performers and highly intelligent, articulate, and analytically aware musicians who would nevertheless still benefit from aiming yet higher. Most common of all are those who are less excellent but still very promising; usually with some ‘natural gift’ for musical interpretation; and a range of general musical and intellectual capabilities but in every case sufficient to make significant leaps of understanding if they choose. So the conclusion that I draw – that, on the basis of how they perform, undergraduate performers need to improve their understanding of pitch function – is, although subjective, relatively easy to make. From the previous discussion emerge various indicators that understanding is arguably

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insufficient in many cases. This is open to debate, depending on preferences about performance, but the observations and reflections referred to here can inform such a debate, even occasionally with some precision. However, it is hard to refute the assertion simply that, in most cases among undergraduate performers, understanding could be better.

iv) Anecdotal Evidence – Conversations With Students; Evidence From Interviews So far in this chapter I have looked at effects on performance that I have attributed to the cause of lack of understanding of pitch function. But the proposed cause can be examined independently of the performance situation, both to further ascertain that it exists and to begin considering how to tackle it. The most obvious initial way is simply through conversations with students. The closest I have come to doing this formally has been in interviews as part of the selection process for entry into the conservatoire. Such interviews aren’t meant to be scientific, and for many obvious reasons we do not conduct them all the same way. But over 12 years, interviewing very approximately in the region of 50 people during each annual round, I have frequently shown candidates excerpts from scores and asked them how they might approach shaping a particular phrase, and to explain the rationale for their phrasing choices. There seems to be a wide acceptance that the phrase might swell and decay in terms of dynamics, usually in response to the contours of the melodic line that rises and falls. But mention of harmonic tension and resolution, consonance and dissonance, or indeed anything to do with pitch relationships, harmony, and so on, is almost always absent. More informal conversations a year or two into the degree program may indicate a growing awareness of such ways of thinking, but there’s always more to be done.

v) Evidence From Sight-Singing Exercises and Tests Perhaps the situation that best illustrates how these undergraduates think about and approach such matters is in sight-singing exercises and tests. All of our classical performers are trained in sight singing tonal music as part of their aural training in their first year and are then required to perform a sight-singing test as part of the end-of-year assessment. Sight singing obviously requires the students to be able to determine the pitch of the notes from (in this case) no other resource than a given starting pitch in relation to which other pitches are internally heard and hence sung. We might suggest that (unless the singer has absolute pitch, about which more will be said later) there are two main ways to do this. First, the ‘interval-from-previousnote’ method: the singer proceeds from one note to the next simply by measuring the interval of each upcoming note from its predecessor. Second, what might be termed the ‘scale-degree’ method: the pitch is determined according to scale degree or its interval from the currently prevailing tonal center (see Karpinski, 2007, especially p. 56). This latter is clearly close to synonymous with its pitch function and, although it might be possible to separate the functional aspect away from the sheer pitch distance of a note from a given center, this serves no useful purpose, and I prefer to use the term ‘pitch function’ to refer to this second method. I frequently ask students how they are determining pitch in sight singing and also melodydictation exercises, but one can also tell, from the points where they make mistakes and the kinds of those mistakes, that they are finding pitches overwhelmingly by interval from the previous or possibly other very recent note, rather than by its pitch function. It is possible to bring some objectivity to this by examining performance and results from the sight-singing test undertaken at the end of this first year of undergraduate study. Here, for example (see Figure 8.2), is the test that around 100 first-year undergraduates did as part of an assessment toward the end of the 2015–2016 academic year.

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Figure 8.2 Sight-singing test from an aural-skills first-year practical examination, March 2018. Source: Author.

The marking criteria are not scientifically rigorous – in the end a holistic score is given – but the sheer percentage of correctly pitched notes and/or intervals is used as a starting point. The average score in this case was 60.1% (pretty much on the borderline between an upper and lower second-class grade in the UK). The test was deliberately written to start easy and then get gradually harder (while remaining strictly tonal). Using the ‘interval-from-previous-note’ method, it starts to get noticeably more difficult in bar 5 and is pretty challenging from 7 to the end. Obviously concerning for me is the observation that, although the final bars are strictly limited to the harmonic pitches of a simple V7-I, these were probably the least well-performed notes. Even if the candidate got a bit lost in bars 7–8, they would have been given full credit for performing the last two bars correctly in relation to whatever they ended up designating as B♭. But it was clear that in too many cases they were not thinking of these notes in relation to their underlying harmonic function.

Response to the Evidence, Rationale for Addressing the Issue Through Aural-Skills Training, and Consideration of Psychology It should almost be self-evident, also not least in the light of the earlier discussion, that understanding pitch function is an issue that might be addressed substantially through aural-skills training. Even so, the ability to look at notes on a score and assign Roman numeral labels to them is one normally associated with analysis training, and I would support a substantial amount of classroom time being devoted to looking at scores and learning how to do this. But music is sound and not a score, and so working out quasi-mathematical relationships between elements on a score does not amount to an understanding of the music if you are unable to hear them. Returning momentarily to the proposed performance ideal near the start of this chapter and the connected definition of aural skills, we should now examine what this entails in more detail. I proposed that in an ideal performance we convert into physical sound music conceived as sound in the inner musical ear, but it should be a sound that is conceived after thorough training, practice, and preparation that involves understanding. While we obviously don’t want to be consciously thinking analytically during performance, there is some evidence that the understanding can be there at a deeper level beneath conscious awareness and can emerge through the performance. The real-life experience of this may sound esoteric, but I believe it to be real enough, even if the imagery suggests otherwise. I studied clarinet as a post-graduate in Hannover with Hans Deinzer, who instructed me to ‘think the sound I wish to play,’ in response to which, my body and instrument automatically (after a few thousand hours of practice) produces that sound in all its conceived details – pitch, attack, tuning, dynamic gradation, color – and, potentially, with an understanding of its function. (Artistic disciplines in Japan, linked to Zen Buddhist practice and belief, spring to mind, and Deinzer was a Zen practitioner.) It might sound far-fetched, but that is how I was occasionally

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able to experience it, when I got it right, which was a small minority of the time. A performance is of course a sequence of such conceived sounds or notes, retrieved from memory, that includes a greater or lesser understanding of how they all function in relation to each other. Looking briefly into the psychology, the encoding, of any musical component in and retrieval of it from long-term memory involves and entails understanding on some level (and we can choose how deep this understanding becomes). Retrieval is enabled by finding the right cue. The context of musical elements is also encoded in the complex web of neural traces that preserves them in our memory, so recognition of melodic or harmonic context of a note may be part of the cueing process. We also process music in ‘chunks’ (Miller, 1956) of notes, that may further be grouped into larger chunks, in order not to overload our working memory, that is thought to be able to deal with only around seven items at once (Miller, 1956; Baddeley, 1986). Also involved are ‘schemas’ (Snyder, 2009) or previously stored melodic configurations or harmonic combinations or progressions, cadences, and so on. Correlation of groups of notes to schemas facilitates encoding them in longterm memory and retrieving them from it as chunks (Levitin, 2006) – see Figure 8.3. The details of neural processing of music information are beyond the scope of this discussion, but we can at least extract the principle from the preceding discussion that skills for encoding and retrieving pitches in and from our memory are integrated with the pitch recognition skills discussed under sight singing earlier: either interval recognition or more preferably recognition by pitch function: our understanding. For example, as the performer seeks to conceive their next note or chunk of notes by retrieving them from long-term memory, the current performance context of a partially complete musical structure bound by certain pitch interrelationships, previously understood through the various functions of these pitches, acts as the memory-retrieval cue. So when we conceive a sound for performance, there can be a great deal of previous understanding involved in forming that sound concept that, in the moment of performance, need not engage at the conscious level. I’ve already stated a preference for pitch recognition using wider pitch function, rather than just the intervallic relation to neighboring melody notes, because of what it may contribute to meaning in performance, but there are studies that begin to suggest that the sheer process of recognition alone works better where relation of pitch to tonal/harmonic context is more developed (see Brattico et al, 2001; Potter, 1990 [cited in Sisley (2008)]; Sloboda et al, 1985).

Encoding

Environmental Stimulus: Music: Sound/Score

Attention

Sensory Memory

Working Memory

Cuing

Long-term Memory

Retrieval Chunking, recognition and correlation with schemas

Response: Performance

Figure 8.3 A simplified model of music information processing. Source: Adapted from the Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968).5

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Strategies and Possible Activities for Improving Pitch-Function Understanding in an Aural-Skills Curriculum i) Singing Exercises So how do we specifically promote the processing of musical elements in terms of their pitch function? Around 2016, I developed an exercise that is a kind of vocal figured-bass realization but made more explicitly or exclusively functional on the various levels by replacing the pitch-specific bass line with chord labels. In other words, it’s the inverse of chord labeling, in which one sings, for example, the following, using any pitch as I1: I5 1 3 1 IV4 3 3 ii1 3 1 V4 3 I1 23 which translates as:

Figure 8.4 Mozart, Clarinet Quintet K.581, ii) Larghetto (opening). Source: Author.

Or, at a more advanced level: I1 2 3 5 3 5 6 5 3 V5 IV3 4 vi3 4 5 ii(i3 viio5) ♭-II5 ii(V 1 1 1 7 6 5 1 i3 2 1 ) V1 1 1 7 6 iii(V3 5 i1) which translates as:

Figure 8.5 Berlioz, Les Nuits d’Été, i) Villanelle (opening). Source: Author.

This extends from various fairly widely used ideas (singing Roman numerals – Karpinski, 2007) and notation systems (such as movable-‘do’ solfège), although I haven’t seen it done precisely like this with figuring, effectively to notate a full melody in functional terms. We have to make slight adaptations to normal chord labeling and figured bass, but it’s hopefully self-evident why we need to use, for example, I1. Students quickly get used to reading and understanding the code, and some quickly become more fluent than I am. You can start by just singing the Roman numerals, then maybe select out the quicker ones in the class to sing the figures while the others sing the numerals; then swap. You can add rhythm by traditional notation once they’ve got the pitch. You could conceivably add a second line or a bass line with another set of parallel figures. Coincidentally, I then attended a presentation on teaching improvisation by Jena Root at the 2017 Aural Skills Pedagogy Symposium at the Royal Academy of Music, UK, in which she proposed using

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a simple sequence of chords identified with Roman numerals (such as the ‘doo-wop (fifties) progression’ – I-vi-IV-V) as the basis for sung improvisations (Root, 2017). I adopted the idea and used it for progressively more difficult harmonies such as: I – V6/5/ii – V7/V – V4/3 I – ii – viio4/2/V – V4/3 I – viio4/2 – Ger6+ – V6/4 – V7/5/3 For each of these, proceed through the following steps, repeating as necessary, then ultimately finishing on I: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Sing through the roots. Sing the bass line (as indicated by the figuring). Sing the notes of each chord in turn upward from the bass. Sing the notes of each chord in turn downward from the top note. Sing in 4/4 time, improvising four crotchets in each bar to fit the chords – one chord per bar. Repeat step 5 but adding passing notes or auxiliaries ad libitum on off-beat quavers.

A rendition of step 6 might therefore be as follows:

Figure 8.6 Possible improvised melody based on I-viio4/2-Ger6+-V6/4-V7/5/3 in D major. Source: Author.

It’s unlikely that any two or more individual lines will make inspired counterpoint, but with a class of up to 12 students improvising such lines, a complex improvised texture results, probably with some parallels, but with an overall sound that is appropriately concordant and that the students (often to their pleasant surprise) generally find satisfying. Just parenthetically at this point, I should mention those students with absolute pitch, of whom we have a good number. I find they are just as guilty on the whole of neglecting the tonal/harmonic context of the music (again from classroom conversations and micro-tuning and expression in sight singing and performance). Many (though not all) simply recognize pitch in sight singing (and dictation – see later discussion) exercises in relation to their internal absolute pitch set and so once again avoid consideration of pitch function. Even if I make them transpose (which many hate) they tend to recognize each note and transpose it individually rather than using pitch function and relation to context. Crucially, in these exercises with singing from Roman numerals, we are now forcing students (whether or not equipped with absolute pitch) to use an understanding of function within tonal/ harmonic context at the very first hurdle to determine pitch. They have to understand it as a part of being able to hear and sing it. Such an understanding also begins to make suggestions about possible performance. Taking the fifth note of the Mozart Clarinet Quintet melody (see Figure 8.4), they must first relate it from chord IV. Already it starts to acquire some gravity – even the relatively common chord IV in Mozart is a relatively expressive harmony. Then they must work out that this is the dissonant augmented 4th

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degree above the root of IV, falling and resolving to the 3rd, and the expressive potential of this note is revealed by the time they can actually get to sing it. One might often hear this phrase performed with a beautifully crafted sound, perfectly in tune, and yet, for all that, I would also like in an ideal world to hear some apparent awareness or communication of the significance of that fifth note. Once again, I’m not saying there’s a ‘right’ way to play it (it doesn’t need to be unsubtly accented) but if we were waltzing to this music, we would take a bigger step on that downbeat and Mozart has chosen to add a gesture to that step that somehow I think a performer needs to make.

ii) Dictation Exercises It’s also highly desirable, I think, to relate such understanding to the real context of a real performance with real ensembles (even if we use a recording in class). We can do dictation-type exercises, listening to such performances, in which we ask students to write down the functions of what they hear rather than just the notes. In other words, write down Roman-numeral chord labels in exercises such as in Figure 8.7. There are lots of variations on this principle, of course, and many are widely used in various aural training books and computer software ( Jones et al, 2013; ‘Auralia’ software). Using a well-known performance of mainstream repertoire relates and connects the skills and understanding to a situation in which students could find themselves in their professional future. One could also do this exercise alongside more traditional dictation elements – write down the melody and/or the bass line first, and then add the chords. Even though that can still encourage recognition of notes in absolute pitch terms before their function (and they could still end up initially doing an interval-by-interval transcription), I believe the general aim of understanding of the music through functional relationships is still ultimately promoted.

Conclusion Remembering the earlier discussion on the psychology of music processing, because dictation tasks (whether writing down chord labels or melodies or whole textures) are very largely about memory, they are therefore also largely about understanding. If a student is able to analyze what he or she hears, to identify and understand its underlying or implied harmony as well as its melodic patterning, then he or she will do better at such tasks. This is arguably the main reason why, even from relatively simple call and response exercises, the broad category of dictation lies right at the heart of aural skills training and has traditionally done so for centuries. That it aims at musical understanding gives it a purpose and a focus, and these can inform our pedagogy. Dictation in any shape or form need not be just one of those terrifying tasks that seem like a pointless circus act – a vehicle for the privileged few who do it easily to show off a rarefied and apparently irrelevant skill. The experience and reflection that have led to the argument here have also encouraged me to try to structure instruction in dictation skills in a way that leads to insight and understanding about how musical language works and how music is put together. And with that understanding, promoted by not only dictation tasks but all the activities and exercises suggested in this chapter, we have a basis for thinking about how as performers we might best express (in at least one respect) music’s meaning. Reaching this conclusion is important in affirming the place of aural skills right at the center of training for performing musicians. In a conservatoire setting, training these skills shouldn’t merely aim at learning outcomes with some vague incidental connection to perhaps an academic or historical notion of a musical skill set. It’s a task that instead seeks to help equip young musicians, who often arrive with already formidable technical skill on their instrument, with the means to put that skill to vital expressive and communicative use.

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Figure 8.7 Worksheet on recitative ‘Folie, Folie’ from Verdi, La Traviata, used in first-year aural-skills classroom training. Source: Author.

Notes 1. The Aurora Orchestra has explicitly tried to demonstrate this in recent performances (since 2014) from memory, notably of Mozart’s 40th and 41st, Beethoven’s 3rd, 5th, and 6th, Brahms’s 1st, and Shostakovich’s 9th symphonies and Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique. 2. Numerous authors have written extensively and often relatively famously on the subject of meaning in music, from Schenker and Schöoenberg to Leonard B. Meyer and Deryck Cooke, and, more recently, a whole new generation of writers concerned with musical hermeneutics and semiotics.

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References Atkinson, R., & Shiffrin, R. (1968). Human memory: A proposed system and its control processes. In K. Spence & J. Spence (Eds.), The psychology of learning and motivation (Volume 2, pp. 89–195). New York: Academic Press. Auralia [Aural skills training computer software]. Retrieved 2019, December 12, www.risingsoftware.com/ auralia Baddeley, A. (1986). Working memory. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Brattico, E., Näätänen, R., & Tervaniemi, M. (2001). Context effects on pitch perception in musicians and nonmusicians: Evidence from event-related-potential recordings. Music Perception: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 19(2), 199–222. (This article contains a useful review of other related studies). By Heart – Aurora Orchestra [webpage]. Retrieved 2019, December 12, www.auroraorchestra.com/our-work/ by-heart/ Cone, E.T. (1968). Musical form and musical performance. New York: W. W. Norton and Co. Cook, N. (1998). Music: A very short introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jones, E., Shaftel, M., & Chattah, J. (2013) Aural skills in context. Cary, NC: Oxford University Press USA. Karpinski, G.S. (2007). Manual for ear training and sight singing. New York: W. W. Norton and Co. Levitin, D.J. (2006). This is Your Brain on Music: The science of a human obsession. New York: Dutton/Penguin Books. Miller, G.A. (1956). The magical number seven, plus or minus two: Some limits on our capacity for processing information. The Psychological Review, 63(2). Potter, G. (1990). Identifying successful dictation strategies. Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy, 4(1), 68–69. Root, J. (2017). Teaching improvisation: Starting points [presentation slides]. Retrieved 2019, December 13, www.ram.ac.uk/public/uploads/documents/ecabaa_teaching-improvisation-presentation.pdf Sisley, B.A. (2008). A comparative study of approaches to teaching melodic dictation [MA thesis]. Kent, OH: Kent State University. Sloboda, J.A., Hermelin, B., & O’Connor, N. (1985) An exceptional musical memory. Music Perception: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 3(2), 155–169. Smith, P. (1998). Brahms and the Neapolitan complex: bII, bVI, and their multiple functions in the first movement of the F-minor Clarinet Sonata. In D. Brodbeck (Ed.), Brahms studies, 2 (pp. 169–208). Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Snyder, B. (2009). Memory for music. In S. Hallam, I. Cross, & M. Thaut (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of music psychology (pp. 107–117). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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INTERMEZZO 3

Teaching Activities Within the Learning Space

If you are reading this book, you almost certainly place the development of the craft of teaching at the heart of what you do. Teaching is, ultimately, the facilitation of learning. It is at once the motivation of, psychological empathy with, and direction for the student. While it consists on a very basic level of knowing one’s subject and being able to communicate it, more importantly, it involves the creation of an environment of safety, where taking risks is encouraged and celebrated, and where one learns to bring out the best in one’s students – often at a level the student, and sometimes the teacher, didn’t know was possible. This section focuses on many different aspects of creating that successful learning environment. Justin Mariner and Peter Schubert examine the possibilities for using the keyboard as a tool not only for remediating poorly prepared music students, but also for supporting and building skills for all students. They begin by discussing ways to get beyond some of the more acute challenges for the university-level music student who has limited keyboard facility, and then proceed to describe and explain how the keyboard can be used to support, enhance, and strengthen many of the skills typically required in the aural-skills classroom. In a similar vein, Jennifer Beavers and Susan Olson explore how vocal production issues act as a barrier to progress in the aural-skills classroom. They offer ways to diagnose and remediate common vocal problems that may inhibit a student’s ability to express music vocally. Chi Ying Lam describes an experiment undertaken in the music programs of Hong Kong primary schools, where dramatic warm-up exercises were used to promote and enhance musical understanding and comprehension. Bryden Stillie and Zack Moir examine the unique skill sets needed by students studying popular music. Rather than deriving an aural-skills experience out of traditional pedagogies, they critically examine the skills that are most important to the musician working in the popular music field and suggest activities and a curricular design that not only focuses on these skills but could also inform traditional pedagogies. This chapter can then be compared with Price’s position as he laments the lack of music reading ability and the acceptance of this condition among popular music education students. Anri Herbst also approaches the use of nontraditional art music literature as the basis for a pedagogy of aural skills. She describes how one may use folk music to develop a Gestalt methodology for learning to hear and understand music through the use of ‘ghost texts,’ or skeletal music maps (incomplete scores) that students can ‘fill in’ through combining their intellectual and intuitive understanding of music. She demonstrates this using transcriptions of African folk songs.

Intermezzo 3: Teaching

Continuing with the topic of critically reexamining traditional methodologies and pedagogies, Miranda Francis describes the development of a literature-based aural-skills class at the Royal College of Music, London, that was originally conceived to build relative-pitch listening skills among students with absolute pitch. The lessons learned from this course demonstrate how traditional aural skills can be placed in a more professional context, increasing the perceived relevance among students. Christopher Price critically examines the idea of ‘aural competence’ and suggests another literature-based method for achieving it through the tradition of English Catch Singing. He argues that this tradition requires development and awareness of one’s harmonic and melodic intuition and uses a ‘hint of competition’ to encourage students to employ these in real-time, practical music making. This chapter can also be related to Harrison, who advocates the sound-to-symbol approach. Finally, Colin Wright critically examines the place of aural skills in the teaching of a music undergraduate curriculum, the nature of these skills, and their relevance to the development of the professional musician. He further discusses assessment: how one can know whether the activities that many teachers use in the aural-skills classroom are effective and whether they lead to increased competence for the professional musician. The underlying theme of this collection of chapters is one of not only the teaching of aural skills but also the connection of aural training with its practice. As the Theory and Curriculum section promoted the value of ear training when it integrates (the verb form is important here, as it promotes action rather than the noun that indicates a thing), this section promotes the value of ear training when it connects to the musical material. Mariner and Schubert, and Beavers and Olson, take this to mean the connection with an instrument (the keyboard and voice respectively), Lam connects the skill to warm-up exercises, Stillie and Moir, Herbst, Francis, Price, and Wright all connect the value of ear training to professional contexts whether it be popular music, ghost texts in African folk songs, instrumental performance, English Glee, or to assessment. While there is a subtle difference between integrate and connect (when we integrate we place the two elements within each other and on an equal footing, while when we connect we place the two elements alongside each other and on an equal footing) it is one that marks the difference between these first two sections. It reveals the similar way of looking at what we do but from the different actions of the design of theory/curriculum and the practice of teaching of aural skills.

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9 THE KEYBOARD, A CONSTANT COMPANION Justin Mariner and Peter Schubert

Introduction Much recent work in music pedagogy acknowledges the reality that students are entering university/ college with little background in aural training and theory and the consequent need to find ways to help them catch up quickly (see, for example, Callahan, 2015). We have concluded that the keyboard is the answer. Its value is that it lies in between aural skills and theory. With its visual, aural, and tactile dimensions, it makes concepts physical and sounds visual. Whether you are dealing with a chord progression, a pop song, or a Christmas carol, if you know the notes (from a score) you can find out what they sound like, and if you know what they sound like (from your memory) you can find out what they are. This makes the keyboard an indispensable tool for promoting rapid growth in fundamentals, aural skills, and theory. It might be argued that any instrument could serve this function, but there are good reasons that the keyboard has served as a fundamental model of pitch space since the sixteenth century. On the keyboard, the materials of music are laid out as they are in our minds: the difference between skip and step, for instance, is a palpable reality: you really ‘step’ to the adjacent key, or you ‘skip over’ one or more keys. Likewise with diatonic transposition of intervals or triads: you hold your fingers in one position and move your entire hand up and down the keyboard. This is not true of any other instrument because on most other instruments, the physical manipulation bears no relation to the theoretical reality. The guitar seems to come close, if we consider sliding a chord or interval shape up the fretboard to produce an exact transposition. But the guitar does not offer an equally systematic way of visualizing diatonic transposition, or transposition across the strings. Many of our students already rely on the keyboard, drumming their fingers on the desk as they take dictation, or drawing a picture of the keyboard in the margins of their theory exams. In the following pages we propose a wide variety of activities designed to help students start to use the keyboard as a tool early in their training, without learning to ‘play the piano.’ By ‘play the piano’ we mean the usual drill of scales and arpeggios leading up to playing minuets and sonatinas. It is possible, before they have gained much technical ability at the piano, for students to play melodies, sequences, cadences, chord progressions, and so on at the keyboard. Such a solution is ideal for schools that aren’t able to offer extensive keyboard training in ‘piano as a second instrument.’ However, even in schools with such programs, getting started as we propose provides a different kind of engagement: it replaces the dubious satisfaction of playing a minuet with the pleasure of

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exploring, figuring stuff out, noodling around creatively, solving a harmonic problem, or playing ‘Happy Birthday.’ The activities we propose are applicable to an autonomous keyboard course, but many could actually be integrated into aural skills or theory courses. In fact, we feel strongly that students should be playing piano not just in keyboard class but in aural skills and theory too. Such multimodal overlap is good, since all these courses should be helping students improve at hearing, thinking, and playing.

Keeping It Simple Students who come to college with little musical background other than their instrument must, even at age 18, start using the keyboard as children do at age five. This seems humiliating, but actually going back to early childhood can be fun (see Pike, 2017, 39–41). The secret is for the teacher not to be too demanding – not to enforce rigorous standards that, in another subject, would be appropriate for an 18-year-old. This may even mean letting students plunk out tunes with one or two fingers; it’s not playing the piano, but it’s using it as a tool – at this stage it doesn’t matter much what the students do with their fingers. It’s possible to find quite a few fun ways for students to start using the keyboard right away, with very little piano technique. The key to designing easy starter activities is identifying one main goal of each activity, and limiting the other simultaneous challenges. An activity that requires a beginner to work by ear should not require much manual dexterity, and an example for sight reading should not make great demands on coordination. Throughout this chapter, we will propose easy ways to get started on many of the basic aspects of keyboard musicianship, with explanations of how we keep each one simple. There are many ways of limiting challenges in a given exercise, but two with the broadest applicability are limiting the number of voices used and limiting the amount of hand movement.

Limiting the Number of Voices Two-voice music plays an important role in piano instruction as an entry point into good repertoire from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. We also like doing harmony work in two voices, so students can focus on the salient and harmonically essential melodic elements of soprano and bass before they worry about details of inner parts. This is especially the case any time students are making up at least one of the parts on the spot (harmonizing a melody, improvising a tune over a ground bass). In fact, some of the first meaningful activities we recommend, such as echoing a melodic fragment by ear, are done in only one voice. Two voices and four voices tend to be treated as the two standard textures of harmony pedagogy, but at the keyboard, spending some time in three voices can help students adapt more quickly to playing chords, moving two fingers on the same hand at once, and reading more than two parts at a time. Three-part work can also be an important stepping stone in score reading.

Limiting the Amount of Movement The classic pedagogical convention of beginning in five-finger position – with each hand playing only five adjacent scale steps – is important to retain. Fluency in the five-finger position can be built with or without notation, by learning simple repertoire from scores and by learning bits of music by ear as described in the next section. Many valuable activities (sight reading, melody harmonization, transposition) can be begun in five-finger position early in a course, before students become comfortable extending the fingers or crossing over.

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Figure 9.1 An example by Vivaldi that can be used to practice crossing over: the beginning of Concerto No. 8 from L’estro armonico, Op. 3. Source: Vivaldi (1711).

While extending the hand to span more than a fifth is not physically challenging for the majority of students, there are some advantages to staying within a fifth for a while, to build an association between five digits and five adjacent scale steps, and to learn the feeling of the size of the intervals inside this framework. Strengthening these associations is beneficial to reading and playing by ear. Moving from one five-finger position to another by crossing over can be taught with scales, or with repertoire that features scale passages. Figure 9.1, the opening of the eighth concerto from Vivaldi’s L’estro armonico, has more rhythmic and melodic shape than a plain scale. The second measure invites an easy way of switching to a different position, simply extending to reach the octave leap, and then letting the rest of the hand follow behind. This excerpt can be transposed to B minor, E minor, D minor, G minor, and C minor using the same fingering. A bit of time learning scales has a role to play even in a course that doesn’t emphasize technique. Many students like to quickly run up and down a scale they will use in an example they’re preparing to sight-read at the piano or to sight sing.

Supporting Regular Practice Part of keeping things simple is making sure the demands of any given test or assignment are modest. This means favoring frequent low-stakes tests over big exams (Pike, 2017, 75). Performing often during class or for the instructor helps students become comfortable at the instrument and creates frequent opportunities for feedback. It also provides goals to encourage regular practice. Performance-assessment software provides an additional way of establishing a regular practice routine through frequent assignments. Software such as SmartMusic (smartmusic.com) and PracticeFirst (musicfirst.com) can record students performing and give them a score for their level of accuracy. SmartMusic currently assesses keyboard via MIDI, while PracticeFirst uses audio recording. The software records along with a metronome and requires the students to keep going, but they may re-attempt an example as many times as they want before they submit it. Some students enjoy the challenge of going over an example and improving their score (Mariner & Schubert, 2017, para. 12).

The Keyboard in Aural Skills Sing and Play The importance of singing and playing simultaneously has been recognized ( Jones, Shaftel, & Chattah, 2014, 3; Schubert 2017, 181). Sing and play is a particular form of accompanied singing (whether prepared or at sight) in which the student is their own accompanist. This activity provides an occasion to: read the piano and vocal notes; sing one and play the other; check the vertical interval; read the next vocal note; move melodically; check the melodic interval; hear and check the new

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vertical interval; and so forth. Being responsible for the piano part as well as the sung part means the student is in charge of a polyphonic whole. Sometimes the piano part makes the singing easier, even helping the singer to anticipate the next melody note. However, it can also throw the singer a curve, in the form of dissonance or an unexpected chromatic alteration (for this reason we prefer for the sing and play to be prepared). Students are often surprised, when they perform correctly, at the resulting sound; this ‘tasting the ingredients as they cook’ is an important step toward eventual inner hearing. Other forms of sing and play, demanding more harmonic thinking, are discussed later (Recitative and Ground Bass Improvisation). Under these circumstances, the keyboard is indispensable as a reliable partner that will always be in tune, but when the focus is on hearing and singing, the difficulty of the piano part and the complexity of rhythmic coordination must be kept to a minimum. Figure 9.2 shows some examples. The first two (see Figures 9.2 a–b) show the hand using few fingers and never moving. The piano ‘accompaniment’ can be in the top or bottom line, which is important because we want to emphasize the melodic-ness of bass lines (this focus is useful in preparing students to take dictation). When sopranos and altos have to sing the bass line, and when tenors and basses have to sing the treble line, we insist that they transpose both voices so the relationship between the voices is maintained, even though the registers are extreme. The next examples (see Figures 9.2 c–d), for a more advanced student, use a five-finger position with one octave skip. Here the vocal part is quite challenging, so the piano part is still pretty easy. It’s a challenge to come up with examples that are in singable keys, have such restricted piano parts, limited coordination problems, and sound like music!

Echoing Playing by ear means thinking directly at the keyboard, an important first stage for any further music theory study: it means giving names to notes, objectifying music, and laying it out in space. We begin with simple echoing activities using short melodic snippets in a five-finger position (see Figure 9.3).

Figure 9.2 Play and Sing exercises, for students with beginner (a–b) to intermediate (c–d) keyboard ability. Source: Authors.

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Figure 9.3 A representation of an echoing activity in five-finger position. The figure shows the portions that would be played by the instructor or software. The student does not see any notation. Source: Authors.

Echoing can be done as a quick warm-up activity in class or in software with the answers hidden. Randomly generated examples on teoria.com are also good, and can be automatically assessed with MIDI keyboard input. Learning music by ear demonstrates basic understanding of the material; knowing the names of the notes is a type of active analysis.

Figuring Out Real Repertoire Once students can echo a short melodic fragment, they can begin to use the piano to deal with actual pieces of music, ‘transcribing’ it without actually writing it down. Figuring out melodies at the keyboard reveals what the mysterious notes of a beloved melody are. At first, the instructor can play simple two-voice music, portioning it out in segments of memorable length. Students may figure out how to play one voice at a time, even while listening to both parts. This activity has some similarities to dictation in an aural skills class. However, there is one major difference when using the keyboard instead of pencil and paper: the keyboard provides immediate feedback, so it encourages students to experiment and test alternatives if they are unsure of an answer. This testing is a valuable step toward a successful outcome that is not available in pencil-and-paper dictation. The class can also listen to recordings in various styles and learn bits by ear. In one eight-minute activity, they listen to Justin Timberlake’s ‘Can’t Stop the Feeling’ on YouTube and learn to play the harmonic progression of the first verse. They use headphones and fool around with it on their own as they get ready to play it for the class. At first they may just plunk it out with one or two fingers; once they know how it goes they may figure out how to make it lie comfortably under the hand (the bass line fits in a five-finger position, with pedal harmonies above providing interest). In another exercise, they learn the bass line of Little Richard’s ‘Good Golly Miss Molly’ by first learning the boogiewoogie motive and then figuring out how it was repeated and transposed to fill out a twelve-bar blues format. Figuring out the chords to a pop song has long been an early step toward harmony study.

Melodic Transposition Transposition at the keyboard improves melodic analysis skills, especially real-time analysis of scale degrees, which is an essential part of sight singing. The game in aural transposition at the keyboard is figuring out the location of the half- and whole-steps among all those white and black notes. This can easily be done by matching scale degrees with the remembered tune, and then mapping the scale degrees onto the notes of the new key. This is an important activity because it provides tangible proof that D major actually needs those two sharps, and yet it doesn’t require playing scales (boring) and crossing over fingers (distracting). We give the students tunes on pieces of paper, they play them to find out what they sound like, then they play them (either in software or for the teacher) transposed. They can accomplish this in several ways: by trial-and-error, having learned what the tune sounds like; by singing the original tune on scale degrees and then recreating those scale degrees in the new key; or by interval, like many brass players, each note individually transposed the same distance. Melodic transposition is a good warm-up for transposing more than one part at a time, a useful exercise we discuss later in the section ‘Building Harmonic Fluency.’

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Figure 9.4 A melodic sequence continuation activity with optional accompaniment. Source: Authors.

Melodic Sequence Continuation Sequences, an important element of many repertoires, are sometimes neglected in both aural skills and theory courses. In aural skills classes, singing melodic sequence continuations is valuable, especially when recited on scale degrees or solfège syllables (Mariner & Schubert, 2020, 188). Doing them at the keyboard reinforces understanding through visual and aural and tactile input, and builds on diatonic transposition exercises. A simple example is shown in Figure 9.4, where students see the model and the first note(s) of the first repetition (bass part); they must fill in the missing notes by continuing the pattern, finally linking up with the given cadence. Here they use ‘cut-and-paste’ fingering to cover a large range without crossing over as one would do in a scale. They can do it unaccompanied or accompanied by the teacher or by the software (accompaniment is shown in small notes in the top staff ). The accompaniment adds a bit of harmonic richness, making the exercise more interesting without posing additional challenges for the student. Sequences in other keys can be contrived that avoid the thumb on the black keys, stretches, and finger crossing. Sequences will show up again later in the section ‘Building Harmonic Fluency,’ where they are three- and four-part chord progressions.

Building Reading Ability Sight Reading at the Keyboard Frequent practice is required to build skill in sight reading. Here it is especially important to keep coordination demands modest, as overcoming coordination challenges tends to require repeated practice. Examples with simple accompanimental left-hand parts (such as the ones in Figure 9.5, from a book of pedagogical pieces by D.G. Türk) are more approachable at first. The degree of independence of the left hand can be increased gradually. For independent practice outside class, performance-assessment software can be used in sightreading mode, in which the user has a designated amount of time to look at the score before the first read-through is recorded and automatically submitted without do-overs. Since this mode of working gives students absolutely no opportunity to slow down, to stop and fix something, or to start over again, it is a useful way to help them practice getting in the zone before they start and continuing if they make a mistake.

The Role of Repeated Practice Student progress also hinges on spending more time with difficult examples. Examples that pose more coordination challenges have to be prepared outside of class. This preparation is a good way to gradually build skills that may come in handy the next time students encounter a similar situation at sight.

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Figure 9.5 Two selections that are ideal for sight reading, from Daniel Gottlob Türk’s 120 Handstücke für angehende Klavierspieler: (a) ‘Aller Anfang ist schwer’ and (b) ‘O geschwinder, geschwinder! Rund herum, wie die Kinder!’ Source: Türk (1797).

Practice outside of class would be appropriate for an example like ‘Staccato and Legato,’ No. 39 from Bartók’s Mikrokosmos Sz. 107, which is a little study in melodic independence between the two hands. Learning to play independent parts is closely related to learning to hear independent parts, and we believe these important skills grow together in a reciprocal way.

Clef Reading Once learners are comfortable in treble and bass clef, C-clefs can be introduced gradually, especially if the activity in other parts is limited. The keyboard is a good medium for basic clef reading, because there is a one-to-one correspondence between identifying the note and putting your finger on the right key. By comparison, reading an unfamiliar clef in solfège requires the student to solve two problems: audiating the correct pitch and identifying it in solfège. This can be frustrating for a student who hears the correct pitch via its melodic motion, and then stumbles to add the correct solfège syllable as an afterthought. For students who have difficulty finding the right pitches when sight singing, the piano can be an easier way to learn a clef, since the instrument teaches them what it should sound like as long as they know what note it is. Clef reading at the keyboard is often combined with score reading, but again, this combines several difficulties into one example, requiring students to cope with a new clef while also reading in multiple staves. It can be more effective to start out with two parts in two staves, a format that is already familiar from keyboard music, but with one part in a C clef. If need be, sight reading in a C clef can even be done with the student playing only one voice, but we have found that having students learn to play music in two clefs at once is good because it requires them to build a higher degree of fluency in each clef.

Proto-Score-Reading Reading two lines is a helpful stepping stone to true score reading with many staves, but this does not mean that all material must be drawn from duo repertoire. A student can read two selected parts from a full texture while the instructor or other students accompany the individual who is sight reading. This opens up the possibility of using repertoire that would be too difficult otherwise and makes it relatively easy to find suitable examples.

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Figure 9.6 Clef reading from repertoire: Monteverdi, ‘Giovinetta ritrosetta’ (excerpt) from Scherzi musicali. This example has been transposed to make the upper parts fit in the alto clef. Source: Monteverdi (1607).

Vocal scores are a good starting point since they tend to use more conjunct lines and longer note values. A basic example is shown in Figure 9.6, from Scherzi musicali by Monteverdi, where the beginner plays the second soprano line and the bass, and the first soprano line is played by the teacher or the performance-assessment software. This means the student is using the piano as an ensemble instrument, fostering the values of intelligibility, continuity, and social interaction. The result is more interesting than what the student could play alone. Students with a little more piano technique can be asked to play all three parts of Figure 9.6. Polyphonic examples are enjoyable to learn when each part has melodic interest. In Figure 9.7, a cute contrapuntal movement from a Mozart string quintet, the student plays the viola and cello parts while the two violin parts are played by the software or by the teacher at a different piano. The first half is quite accessible on the keyboard, since viola and cello tend not to both be active at the same time. More advanced students can play the entire movement. Overall, the use of accompaniment for score reading allows students to work in a satisfying musical and social context even if they’re playing a middle part that is less interesting on its own.

Building Harmonic Fluency Preparing to Play in Four Voices A common obstacle to teaching harmony at the keyboard is that it can be difficult for students to play four parts at once. The danger is that students lose all sense of line and rhythmic continuity. They approach each chord as an entirely new hand position, independent from the previous chord. They do not take advantage of basic voice leading patterns that connect one chord to the next. This problem can be hard for teachers to understand, if these are abilities we take for granted. Three-part music is a useful intermediate step toward the Holy Grail of four parts. Progressing from two parts in the smallest increment possible makes students less likely to get overwhelmed, and

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Figure 9.7 A selection for proto-score-reading: the trio from Mozart’s String Quintet K. 406 (Viola 2 is tacet during this movement). Students play the viola and cello parts, accompanied by the instructor or software. Source: Mozarts Werke (1883).

more likely to discover efficient ways of connecting chords together. Careful selection of examples helps students focus on voice leading. The repeated pedal-note in Figure 9.8a doesn’t require much attention so it is easy to combine with the stepwise motion in the outer parts. Figure 9.8b helps students get comfortable with fingered parallel thirds in the right hand, in the context of a perfectly good progression (somewhat in the manner of the Monteverdi trio earlier). Figure 9.8c inverts the parallel thirds of Figure 9.8a to parallel sixths, creating a situation that is more complex pianistically in that the soprano line uses fingered legato while the thumb must jump to play the alto. Taken in combination, these little three-part examples present the main pianistic and voice-leading ingredients of one simple four-part example. Having students play each chord for two beats rather than just one makes working in a steady tempo more attainable, essentially requiring students to subdivide. Assigning a specific tempo and checking it with a metronome (in class or online) ensures that performance is continuous enough to hear the connections between chords.

Transposition in Several Voices Transposing chord progressions at the keyboard is a good way of getting students to think harmonically. By ‘think harmonically’ we mean many things, some mental, some physical, some aural. The student might note mentally that the first chord is a tonic chord and the second a subdominant chord; that the soprano goes from scale degree three to scale degree four, that it rises a semitone,

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Figure 9.8 Three-part progressions that focus on specific motions needed for four-part playing: oblique motion (a), parallel thirds (b), and parallel sixths (c). Source: Authors.

and that it goes from the third chord factor to the root; that the bass goes from the root of I to the root of IV. All of those elements are what Michael Callahan (2012) might mean by thinking ‘schematically’ (79–80). On the physical side, the position of the right hand is more or less the same in all transpositions. This means that the player doesn’t have to think about the scale degrees of the inner voices – rather, those are taken over by the physical pattern of the thumb and first finger of the right hand. This is another side to ‘harmonic’ thinking, a physical one: the fourth finger of the right hand is followed by the fifth finger, the first finger stays in place, and the thumb pops up a step. Transposing down a fourth might mean just moving the fourth finger down a fourth and keeping the hand position more or less in place. The problem is the black keys. Here is where hearing comes in, to check the sound; if something has gone awry, hearing will alert us and lead to a correction. All of those things, the mental ones, the physical ones, and the aural ones, remain the same in transposing the progression. Which one is the student actually thinking about, since one can’t really keep track of all of them? Probably some combination of scale degrees in the key and closeposition finger memory for the right hand and making sure the right and left hands are matched. After that comes the memory of the sound, which is how the student will know if a mistake has been made. Abstract labels, fingers, and sound are all in play, the student scanning quickly between them. We have students transpose little progressions like the ones in Figure 9.8 into several different keys, so they’re not just learning the specific notes of a little piece of music but thinking more broadly of chord progressions that they can use in different keys for various purposes (melody harmonization, sequences, theory homework, etc.). Like melodic transposition, transposition of entire harmonies prompts students to use the most efficient and simple voice-leading motions.

Melody Harmonization The primary challenge here is deciding which harmonies work, so we don’t immediately combine this with challenges of voice leading in inner parts. Working in two voices, students use bass notes as stand-ins for complete chords. This approach emphasizes the composition of a good soprano/ bass duo that can be played with fluency. We start with a narrow list of chords to choose from, and impose a regular harmonic rhythm such as one chord per bar (see Figure 9.9a). Figure 9.9b shows one possible solution. Students with more technical ability can add figuration such as a waltz pattern (see Figure 9.9c) or Alberti bass, once they have found a good bass line – whatever works in two

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Figure 9.9 A simple melody harmonization exercise. Students harmonize the given melody (a), using only the following chords: I, I6, IV, V and V7, one chord per measure. Non-keyboardists play only their chosen bass notes in the left hand; (b) shows a sample solution. Students whose main instrument is piano must use a waltz pattern in the left hand (c). They must all play their harmonizations from memory in the original key, and transposed into B♭ major and A major. Source: Authors.

voices is usually ideal for filling in. We find this approach better than fast-tracking four-part texture by using simplified chord voicings, an approach that can sacrifice the bass line and produce unidiomatic results.

Harmonic Sequences Figure 9.10a shows a circle-of-fifths progression with alternating inverted chords in three parts. As in Figure 9.4 (shown earlier), the student is given the model and the beginning of the first transposed repetition and has to continue the sequence, eventually linking up with the cadence. More harmonically adventurous is the example shown in Figure 9.10b, where the student continues to transpose the model down by successive whole steps, through chromatically related keys, before linking up with the cadence. This example can be performed in two, three, or four parts, like the next example (Figure 9.10c), which closes the circle of major thirds.

Promoting Creativity Many students respond positively and are more engaged when they have something personal at stake, like playing a tune that they made up, either on the spot (Campbell et al., 2016, 16–19; Covington, 1997) or with some forethought (Cook, 1996). Here are some techniques we have used.

Variations Making up variations is a fun way to get into figuration in a harmonic context (Cook, 1996, 81; Callahan, 2012). Students are given a chord progression as a framework, and they are to prepare an elaboration on the upper parts while playing the bass, to be performed from memory in class. As in melody harmonization, they may be hearing or imagining the harmonic progression even if they’re only playing two notes at a time. Beginners make up a melody to play in the right hand, using the chord tones as raw materials, while advanced students can be asked to rhythmically activate the left hand part as well (e.g., Alberti bass). We favor sequences for this exercise because they are repetitious

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Figure 9.10 Three harmonic sequence continuation activities: a diatonic circle of fifths (a), and two chromatic sequences (b) and (c). Source: Authors.

and easy to memorize, but other chord progressions can be used as well. Figure 9.11a shows a sample chord progression, with suggested rhythmic cells in Figure 9.11b. One student might choose to stick with chordal skips, but another will introduce passing and neighbor tones, and so on. To get them started we often provide models from standard repertoire (Figure 9.11c–d). You will be surprised at the inventiveness and musicality this brings out in your students.

Ground Bass Improvisation Here students are given a bass line and all the possible notes that express the harmony over it (root position mostly), and they are to invent a path through the thicket of treble notes (see also Mariner & Schubert, 2017). Figure 9.12 shows a sample of what the student sees. To hear the responses of two different students, go to music.mcgill.ca/~mariner/auralcompanion/. This exercise can be done in aural skills classes with the teacher playing the bass, or with the software playing the bass, or, better yet, with the student both singing and playing the bass.

Recitative Improvisation Students also enjoy inventing a recitative melody over a typically chromatic chord progression such as one finds in Bach cantatas. Because of the interest in finding a text (we have heard everything from

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Figure 9.11 A variation activity. After students get to know the given progression (a), they make up a melody to play in the right hand, using their own rhythmic motive or a given one (b). Students also see examples from repertoire to show a range of possibilities. An example by Riepel (c) adds 7ths and suspensions (taken from Gjerdingen, 2007, 92). An excerpt by Leclair (d) implies three parts in the left hand (Sonata in C major for flute and continuo Op. 1 No. 2, Corrente, mm. 94–101). Source: (a) Authors. (b) Gjerdingen, 2007. (c) Leclair (1723).

Figure 9.12 A progression for melody improvisation over a ground bass, with available chord tones shown in the top staff. Source: Authors.

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Figure 9.13 A chromatic progression for recitative improvisation. Source: Authors.

psalms to cooking instructions for ramen noodles), declaiming it in a natural rhythm, and finding an appropriate melody over the given chords, the difficulty of playing the dense harmonies recedes into the background! They prepare this to sing in class or to be recorded and submitted. Figure 9.13 shows such a progression, with the instructions; to hear one student’s humorous response, go to music.mcgill.ca/~mariner/auralcompanion/. This exercise is perhaps more suitable for aural skills and theory classes than keyboard classes.

Conclusion Keyboard proficiency is often viewed as an adjunct to theory (particularly harmony) courses. What we propose, by contrast, is a much broader application – broader and more basic at the same time. In our scheme, realizing figured bass is still in the future. Not that what we have written in the foregoing pages will not be useful in theory courses: letting students get started with easy compositional or improvisatory activities will help them advance more quickly in their theory courses, with good habits of hearing what they write and trying things out at the keyboard if they’re not sure. Score reading is also still in the future, but after two semesters of the basic keyboard study we have proposed, beginners will be able to begin reading examples in open score and making adaptations for playability. For now they should read whatever they can with fluency, to cultivate good performance habits from the outset. We have suggested ways keyboard can support progress in different subjects. But since it straddles the boundaries between subjects (hearing, understanding, performing), keyboard is the most valuable single tool in one’s overall musical development.

References Bartók, B. (1940). Mikrokosmos, Vol. 2. London: Boosey & Hawkes. Callahan, M. R. (2012). Teaching Baroque Counterpoint Through Improvisation – An Introductory Curriculum in Stylistic Fluency. Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy 26, 61–99. Callahan, M. R. (2015). Teaching and Learning Undergraduate Music Theory at the Keyboard: Challenges, Solutions, and Impacts. Music Theory Online 21(3). https://mtosmt.org/issues/mto.15.21.3/mto.15.21.3.callahan. html. Campbell, P. S., Myers, D., Sarath, E., Chattah, J., Higgins, L., Levine, V. L., Rudge, D., & Rice, T. (2016). Transforming Music Study from its Foundations: A Manifesto for Progressive Change in the Undergraduate Preparation of Music Majors. The College Music Society. https://www.music.org/pdf/pubs/tfumm/TFUMM.pdf. Cook, N. (1996). Analysis through Composition: Principles of the Classical Style. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Covington, K. (1997). Improvisation in the Aural Curriculum: An Imperative. College Music Symposium 37, 49–64. Gjerdingen, R. (2007). Music in the Galant Style. New York: Oxford University Press. Jones, E., Shaftel, M., & Chattah, J. (2014). Aural Skills in Context: A Comprehensive Approach to Sight Singing, Ear Training, Harmony, and Improvisation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Leclair, J-M. (1723). 12 Violin Sonatas. Paris: le Sr. Boivin.

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The Keyboard, a Constant Companion Mariner, J., & Schubert, P. (2017). New Frontiers in SmartMusicianship. Engaging Students: Essays in Music Pedagogy 5. http://flipcamp.org/engagingstudents5/essays/mariner_schubert.html. Mariner, J., & Schubert, P. (2020). Speaking Music. In L. VanHandel (Ed.), The Routledge Companion to Music Theory Pedagogy (187–199). New York: Routledge. Monteverdi, C. (1607). Scherzi musicali, SV 230-245. Venetia: Ricciardo Amadino. Mozarts Werke. (1883). Serie XIII: Quintette für streichinstrumente, No. 2. Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel. Pike, P. (2017). Dynamic Group-Piano Teaching: Transforming Group Theory into Teaching Practice. New York: Routledge. Schubert, P. (2017). Teaching Theory Through Improvisation. In M. Guido (Ed.), Studies in Historical Improvisation from Cantare Super Librum to Partimenti (175–184). New York: Routledge. Türk, D. G. (1797). 120 Handstücke für angehende Klavierspieler, 2nd ed. Leipzig: Schwickert. Vivaldi, A. (1711). L’estro armonico, Op. 3, Libro secondo. Amsterdam: Estienne Roger.

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10 PITCH-MATCHING ISSUES IN THE AURAL-SKILLS CLASSROOM Jennifer Beavers and Susan Olson

I. Defining Poor Pitch Matching A person with ‘poor pitch-matching skills’ can be defined as an individual who has difficulty matching a single pitch, step-wise contours, or intervals, as well as the inability to sing a basic melody with accuracy and good intonation. Whether a person can accurately match pitch or not has been widely researched in the fields of music education, vocal pedagogy, and cognitive psychology, but has largely been neglected in aural-skills pedagogy. Most literature surrounding ‘poor pitch’ or ‘inaccurate singing’ in music education is predominantly centered around developmental stages of childhood and adolescence (Welch et al., 2009; Demorest & Clements, 2007). Vocal pedagogy research describes motor planning and the vocal mechanism when addressing reasons for pitch inaccuracies (LarrouyMaestri et al., 2013; Estis et al., 2010; Bradshaw & McHenry, 2005; Watts, Murphy, & BarnesBurroughs, 2003). Cognitive psychology research examines how auditory and motor systems are affected by impairments (Hutchins & Peretz, 2012; Berkowska & Dalla Bella 2009; Loui et al., 2008; Pfordresher & Brown, 2007). Aural-skills pedagogy research assesses how people acquire and teach aural skills (the Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy is the flagship journal for this type of research). One of the issues surrounding pitch-matching problems is that these fields – especially music education and cognitive psychology – seem to be doing separate work on similar issues without a shared approach or terminology. These competing methodologies result in a vast body of research approached from many angles, practices, and measurements that overlap in sometimes unproductive ways. The following discussion will build off pitch-matching research in order to find a practicum that can relate to aural-skills pedagogy and offer solutions grounded in empirical and quantitative research. Most of the pitch-matching research in music education investigates development sequences involved with singing accurately or in tune. Researchers determine how sociocultural (gender, education, opportunity, language), physical/biological (age, maturation, hormones) and psychological (self-perception, self-labeling, motivation) circumstances affect an individual’s singing ability. Populations are broadly categorized as accurate/inaccurate, certain/uncertain, or trained/untrained singers in order to assess skill levels. Research focuses on variables that affect performance such as vocal models (Yarbrough et al., 1995; Price et al., 1994; Yarbrough, Bowers, & Benson, 1992; Green, 1990; Sims, Moore & Kuhn, 1982), timbre (Price, 2000; Yarbrough et al., 1995), register/range (Yarbrough et al., 1995; Price et al., 1994; Green, 1990; Sims, Moore, & Kuhn, 1982), language, audiation, perception, and production issues (Demorest & Clements, 2007; Watts, Moore, & McCaghren, 2005; Demorest, 2001; Phillips & Aitchison, 1997; Apfelstadt, 1984; Geringer, 1983; Welch, 1979;

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Joyner, 1969), and self-image (Demorest & Clements, 2007; Sloboda, Wise, & Peretz, 2005; Goetz, Cooper, & Brown, 1990). As much of music education research aims to assess developing musical skills, the bulk of this research is focused on children in elementary school, with some focus on the changing voice in students in middle school and high school and even less focus on adult populations. Of importance, research points to how stages in pitch-matching ability develop over time, noting that the separate processes of perception and production can develop at different times, in which case perception tends to develop first (Demorest & Clements, 2007). In cognitive psychology, research defines what is considered poor pitch matching in different populations (e.g., musicians/nonmusicians, professional singers/occasional singers, certain/uncertain singers) and what causes the deficiency (perception or production issues). In order to understand what causes the pitch-matching deficiency, each step of the task is examined: from external input to perception, auditory-motor mapping, short- and long-term memory, motor planning and implementation, vocal output, and auditory feedback (Dalla Bella, 2015). This model is referred to as the Vocal Sensorimotor Loop, or VSL (Dalla Bella, Berkowska, & Sowiński, 2011; Dalla Bella, Giguère, & Peretz, 2009). Figure 10.1 provides a visual mapping of how processes within the VSL interrelate. Understanding the VSL is helpful in pinpointing issues a student may have with matching pitch and will be discussed in more detail later. In isolating various tasks involved in pitch matching, such as to compare pitch accuracy with and without auditory feedback or how varying the external output affects accuracy, hearing scientists can determine whether the deficiency is functional, neuronal, or production based.1 While there is no agreed upon consensus as to what metric constitutes the difference between accurate and inaccurate pitch matching, most researchers indicate that the difference is in between a quarter-tone (50 cents) and a semitone (100 cents or 1/12 of an octave) (Berkowska & Dalla Bella, 2013; Pfordresher et al., 2010; Pfordresher & Brown, 2007). The distance above or below the target pitch is referred to as a cut-off. For assessing pitch accuracy with regard to different tasks – i.e., from matching a single pitch to singing a song from memory – the quarter-tone cut-off seems too stringent, thereby not identifying many poor pitch matchers, and the semitone too broad, in which too many singers are identified as poor pitch matchers. Variable cut-offs provide a solution for measuring deviations of target pitches according to population and through control/comparison group analysis (Dalla Bella, 2015).

Figure 10.1 Vocal Sensorimotor Loop (VSL) Source: Berkowska and Dalla Bella (2009).

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Vocal pedagogy research overlaps with many studies found in music education and cognitive psychology with a central focus on vocal production. This research connects various sensory systems involved in pitch matching with motor coordination – such as respiration, phonation, and resonance required in motor planning and execution. Singers of differing backgrounds and abilities, such as trained or untrained, those with expressed singing talent or those without, and ‘monotonal’ singers – those with inflexible or uncontrollable vocal mechanisms (production issues) and poor pitch discrimination or memory (perception issues) – are studied in order to draw conclusions about how various processes work. There is quite a bit of overlap with cognitive psychology, particularly in how a singer’s ability to perceive or produce a pitch are affected when there is interference, delay, or stimuli of different timbres (Estis et al., 2009, 2010; Moore, Keaton, & Watts, 2007; Watts, Moore, & McCaghren, 2005). Of significance here are how poor pitch matchers benefit from biological models over synthetic ones (Lévèque, 2011) and improve when there is no interference. Some interesting conclusions regarding how internal and external auditory feedback is used in the singing process reinforce the importance of pre-motor planning. For instance, when untrained singers without expressed music talent were withheld from hearing auditory feedback when they produced a sound, their pitch-matching accuracy greatly diminished, suggesting that their prephonatory abilities rely heavily on the ability to hear and adjust pitch based on what is heard. Trained singers and untrained singers with expressed musical talent rely less on this ability, which suggests they ‘accurately perceive the pitch of a tone and coordinate that perception with motor planning, programming, and execution needed to reproduce it accurately at the onset of phonation’ (Watts, Murphy, & BarnesBurroughs, 2003, p. 191). This is also explored in cognitive psychology research on auditory imagery (Pfordresher et al., 2015). This research engages with trained and untrained voices, with more emphasis on adolescent and adult populations, and is significant for its potential impact on vocal instruction encountered in the aural-skills classroom. The assertion with this course of study is that the student, regardless of age or skill, should learn how these processes work together. Because most of this is involuntary work of the body, it is essential that the student understands the various facets of the work of the voice and how it affects aural-skills competencies. While we cannot expect that the aural-skills student is informed about pedagogy of the voice, the educator’s awareness of the concepts of vocal pedagogy will aid in their work with poor pitch-matching students. Aural-skills pedagogy is a much younger field than cognitive psychology, music education, or vocal pedagogy. While most agree that aural-skills pedagogical activities would benefit from interdisciplinary research from these fields, connections remain rather individualistic and limited in scope. Most research in aural-skills pedagogy addresses two areas: (1) how college-aged students acquire aural skills; and (2) how to teach the core curriculum – namely melodic and harmonic dictation, sight singing, rhythmic reading, and error detection; there is a great emphasis on best practices in the second category. However, research-supported methods in both the acquisition and teaching of aural skills have strong ties to music cognition, music education, and vocal pedagogy. For instance, cognitive psychology research shows that amusic individuals struggle more with pitch-matching if the aural stimulus is too short (Albouy et al., 2013) or if there is too much space between the note and the attempt to match the pitch (Williamson et al., 2010), or if there is an interfering noise between stimulus and replication of the stimulus (Estis et al., 2010). All of these have strong implications for improving teaching aural skills to students who struggle with matching pitch. Consider how an inclass scenario might play out in which the educator provides verbal instructions between playing a note and asking the student to match that pitch, or if the educator plays a note and then scans the class to call on an individual to sing, allowing too much time to elapse before the student attempts to sing it back.2 Nevertheless, evidence from experimental science is rarely integrated into aural-skills pedagogy. Further complicating this is that relatively little has been little written on pitch matching in aural-skills pedagogy. Perhaps this is in part because the ability to match pitch is considered a preliminary skill that is outside the scope of the core aural-skills curricula.

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Karpinski (2000), provides one of the most comprehensive attempts to connect experimental research into practice. He refers to empirical research and provides pedagogical solutions on how to implement them in classroom teaching. For instance, to circumvent issues with memory for a pitch-matching exercise, he suggests having the student sing while the sound is playing. He notes that the complex timbres of the voice and piano make the task of pitch matching difficult, which is complicated by the rapid decay of the piano that presents challenges for feedback-loop comparisons. He lists problems that could contribute to students struggling to match pitch as they relate to vocal production (posture, support, breathing, and range), inexperience from never attempting the exercise before, and psychological factors, such as those who negatively suffer from being considered non-singers or bad singers. Other pedagogical contributions include listening for beats to improve intonation, ‘cross-gender’ matching that involves issues of octave replication, allowing students to put their faces close to the vibrating source, and using visual feedback technology such as a tuner (34–36). These pedagogical suggestions are based in music cognition research and will be incorporated with other findings in this discussion. Music education, cognitive psychology, vocal pedagogy, and aural-skills pedagogy research highlight various sociological, physiological, and perceptual issues surrounding the complicated processes involved in pitch matching. Before moving on to how to assess pitch-matching issues, it is important to understand the complicated processes involved. To sing accurately, an individual must perform various interrelated tasks. Any deficiency with matching pitch can thus reveal a disruption within the VSL (refer to Figure 10.1, presented previously). Consider the amount of work that must happen in order to match pitch: Successful singing requires perceptual skills (pitch matching, interval reproduction, and fine-grained pitch discrimination ability), cognitive abilities (working memory, attention, and learning processes), and motor skills (motor planning, motor selection, and motor execution). Difficulty singing in tune may reflect impairment in any or all of these abilities. (Loui, 2015, p. 263) Put simply, to identify the cause, one must identify if the issue is a vocal or perception deficiency. For an actual depiction of the cause behind inaccurate singing, any of these skills should be evaluated, and unfortunately, as Dalla Bella (2015, p. 275) explains, ‘poor-pitch singing is far from a monolithic disorder.’ Variable cut-offs can help in assessing individual abilities, but often the underlying reason for not matching pitch is complicated and typically involves a battery of tests. For the aural-skills educator, understanding the various types of deficiencies a student may have related to pitch matching can help him or her develop strategies for improving his or her ability, particularly once it is determined that there is a production, rather than perception, issue. Furthermore, studies have shown that overall, students’ level of confidence in their ability to match pitch or sing a melody back through imitation has diminished in recent years. This could be linked to reports about how young people are exposed less and less to singing in casual and formal situations (Demorest & Pfordresher, 2015). Moreover, students who struggle to match pitch during their formative years often create a negative self-image in which they equate their poor pitch matching as poor musical ability (Sloboda, Wise, & Peretz, 2005). Self-labeling such as this has proven to be detrimental to a student’s participation in musical activities outside of elementary school (Demorest, 2001), which has obvious ramifications for the ways in which such individuals choose to engage or not with music in their personal lives. The ability to match pitch may be taken for granted by people who perform this task with relative ease. However, it should not be assumed that all musicians or students entering college music programs possess this ability. Studies show that as many as ‘15% of the normal [adult] population self-identifies as tone deaf ’ although most are likely poor pitch matchers (Loui et al., 2015, p. 263). Moreover, many college students today express anxiety about their ability

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to imitate a melody through singing (Pfordresher & Brown, 2007). There are no current studies that survey the music-major population on their ability to match pitch, a common phenomenon encountered in college-level sight-singing classes.3 In order to improve upon a student’s ability to match pitch, it is important for the aural-skills educator to be able to identify the cause of his or her challenge. Although there are technologies that can test this accuracy (discussed later), oftentimes the aural-skills educator must rely on his or her ability to determine a student’s proficiency with matching pitch. And, as the previous discussion highlights, there are many causes as to why an individual may have difficulty matching pitch. For instance, a student may have a hearing disability, which has thus far been undiagnosed. Examples of this might include a percussionist who practiced for years without proper hearing protection, or a student who was born with a genetic disorder in which they were unaware of its effect on hearing and replicating pitch. Other examples that could inhibit a student’s success with pitch matching may be inadvertently imposed by the educator in which they provide a stimulus that is outside his or her vocal range, utilize a stimulus or timbre that is difficult for them to imitate, or create a task that is too difficult for his or her skill level. It could also be as simple as the student has not frequently sung by him- or herself since before his or her voice changed in adolescence, and is therefore not familiar or comfortable with singing. As noted by Dalla Bella (2015, p. 274) ‘poor-pitch singing is often treated as the outcome of perceptual deficits.’ However, there are a number of pitch-matching issues related to vocal production. The following discussion will address strategies for assessment and three mostcommon issues and then provide corrective exercises and resources.

II. Assessment of Pitch-Matching Issues The aural-skills educator can come from any number of backgrounds, many of which require little or no formal vocal training. This can put the educator at a disadvantage when encountering problems in the aural-skills classroom. The ability to diagnose possible issues is assuredly more difficult if the educator has no training in how the voice works. While the educator may easily be able to hear that there is a problem, he or she may not be able to identify the cause of the problem and thus may not know how to address the problem. For the educator who does not have formal vocal training, listening and looking for cues may help guide him or her to beneficial answers for his or her students. In the aural-skills classroom, a student may exhibit more than one issue with matching pitch. In order to quickly assess a student’s challenge, it is beneficial to classify indicators of poor pitch matching into broad categories based on initial observations. A series of questions is provided in the following flowchart (see Figure 10.2). The educator might start with a series of questions related to his or her observations, starting with ‘Can the student match pitch?’ If the answer is ‘No,’ then a follow-up question such as ‘Is the given pitch too high or too low?’ is asked to determine if there is a simple explanation regarding register. Providing a stimulus that is outside a student’s comfortable singing register, especially for weak singers, may give the impression that a singer is poor at matching pitch. These singers can sound as if they drift when singing a single pitch or modulate when singing a melody, and therefore lose the starting pitch/key of the song. Pitch drift represents a production issue rather than a perception deficiency and will be addressed later (Price, 2000; Flowers & Dunne-Sousa, 1990). If register is not the cause of the problem, then the next question might pertain to whether the student can match your voice better than the piano (or a similar voice in class, such as male-to-male or female-to-female matching). Timbral research has shown that weak singers experience better success if they respond to a biological response, rather than an acoustic one; likewise, cross-gender matching is particularly challenging for weak singers and might be easily fixed by allowing students to match voices more like their own (Lévèque, Giovanni, & Schön, 2011; Bradshaw & McHenry, 2005; Karpinski, 2000).

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No

Can they match pitch?

Yes

Is the note too high/low?

Yes. Encourage them to find their range

No. Could have contour perception issues, “amusic,” memory/recall issues

Can they match your voice?

Yes. Has difficulties with matching timbre of stimulus

No. Could have contour perception issues, “amusic”

Can they tell which is higher or lower?

Yes. Has difficulties with matching cross-gender timbre/octave

No. Possible memory issue

Can they match a melodic sequence?

Can they match pitch if they touch or get closer to the vibrating source?

Yes. Possible hearing deficiency

No. Possible production issue. See Exercises Figures 10.8–10.10.

Do they have good intonation?

Can they generate a musical sound (without a given stimulus)?

Yes. Could be a hearing or memory issue

Can they match a similar voice?

Can they match two pitches?

Keep working on improving singing skills

No. Could be a production issue that requires vocal coaching. Consider having hearing evaluated. Possible perceptual deficiency.

Figure 10.2 VSL flowchart Source: Authors.

This flowchart will be referenced throughout the following discussion to assist the instructor with identification of the underlying cause or causes for pitch-matching difficulties. In the next section, three general categories of pitch matching causes will be discussed: audible (intonation, timbre, range), physical/visible (tension, nerves, posture), and invisible (memory difficulties, hearing/singing disabilities). While it would be wonderful if the general categories were neatly bundled and exclusive to one another, that will not always be the case: audible issues may be

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invisible, visible issues may not be perceived in audible ways, and vice versa. These categories are fluid, which is part of the difficulty in identifiers for poor pitch matching.

Audible Cues Audible cues of poor pitch matching are often the educator’s first indication that a student has a vocal production or hearing/perception deficiency. In a common classroom scenario, a group is singing in unison and one or more voices stand out as not blending with the others. Audible cues can help the educator realize something in the vocal process is not being approached properly. This can include breathiness of tone, extreme dynamic (too loud or too soft), instability of the vibrato (either too slow/fast or nonexistent), or nasality; these audible cues present more of a problem because they are usually caused by perception issues as well, which will be discussed later. The initial observation that a student is not matching pitch can offer a lot of information, which may lead to several immediate questions, such as: is the student singing close to the pitch?; does the pitch sound within a comfortable range in his or her voice?; and does the student seem to recognize he or she is not matching pitch? One of the first things that an educator should identify is whether the student’s singing is classified as inaccurate or imprecise. Imprecise singing refers to a student who sings an accurate pitch with minimal higher or lower intonation. Inaccurate singing is when a student sings more than a half step above or below a pitch; as mentioned earlier, the consensus within cognitive psychology and vocal pedagogy research limits the cut-off to between a quarter-tone and half-tone. In general, an imprecise singer may have physical challenges related to vocal production that might be addressed easily through physical/visible corrections. An inaccurate singer, however, exhibits more challenges with pitch matching. We will return to ways to assess and correct issues for imprecise and inaccurate singing later, but first, let’s consider other physical and nonphysical cues the student may possess. There are many visible cues the educator can observe that may have a direct impact on the student’s ability to match pitch. Physical characteristics, such as slouching, casting the head down toward the desk, closed mouth position, and a rigid stance are easy to spot. Slouching will cause the breath intake to be high in the lung and the student will not have proper support for the sung tone because the diaphragm has not been properly engaged. The larynx will be impeded from performing well if the head is bent down toward the chest. Any tightening of muscle groups, anywhere in the body, will cause radial tension issues that will impede the function of the voice. McKinney (2005, pp. 33–34) dedicates an entire chapter to the importance and achievement of good posture. He summarizes that ‘ [G]ood posture allows the skeletal framework and muscular components of the body to fulfill their basic functions efficiently . . . the breathing mechanism – the actuator – to fulfill its basic functions . . . and facilitates the function of the vibrator and resonators.’ (2005, pp. 33–34) Psychologically, good posture ‘can create good confidence and a feeling of well-being’ especially in stressful situations, like singing in public – or in an aural-skills class. In his words, ‘the person who seeks to establish habitual good posture has everything to gain and virtually nothing to lose’ (2005, pp. 33–34). Other physical cues include a visible vein in the neck while singing, which often indicates that there is too much subglottal pressure from breath or muscle strain. This strain often is the result of a couple of interconnected issues: the hyperfunction of the breath and the lack of opening of the mouth, which leaves the breath no easy way to escape the body. Opening the mouth often presents a problem for both trained and untrained singers because the internal feeling is deceptive: the student believes the mouth is sufficiently open while the hinge of the jaw has not released. In this situation,

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the jaw not been released (or dropped) and the breath cannot flow freely. This exacerbates any tension the student may be experiencing and may affect his or her ability to match pitch. Students may also be self-conscious about the aperture opening, causing them to sing through a small space. These visible cues may seem insignificant to the student and/or educator but have a direct impact on a student’s ability to match pitch. Not addressing issues may affect the student’s ability to attain any measure of accuracy in their pitch matching. Many times, fixing one (or more) of these issues will quickly help the student produce a better sound. Recognizing these visible cues may provide the educator with opportunities to not only improve the student’s success with pitch-matching but also to elevate his or her singing ability.

Invisible Cues Invisible cues are more complicated to detect and often overlap with one or more other issues. The designation ‘invisible’ here refers to symptoms related to perception and memory deficiencies, audio-motor production/ability, and hearing disabilities, which are internal processes that may also present audibly. An educator may deduce that a student exhibits one of these deficiencies if he or she demonstrates inconsistent skills. For instance, if a student is able to produce a single pitch but cannot replicate two pitches, he or she may have contour perception issues (Loui et al., 2008), whereas if a student can sing but cannot recognize if the second pitch in an interval is higher or lower than the first, he or she may be classified as amusic: an individual with a pitch perception impairment in which abilities between perception and production are mismatched.4 Aside from production issues that can be remediated with practice, a student may have difficulty producing an accurate pitch due to a hearing or memory issue. For the aural-skills educator, the VSL flowchart may help to identify where the student’s challenge lies. While it is important to rule out hearing or neurological deficiencies, cognitive psychology research mostly pertains to identifying, rather improving, these impairments. We will focus on non-perceptual issues, such as those concerned with production, rather than cognitive issues. An example of symptoms that present themselves as audible but invisible is a singer who exhibits breathiness of tone or bad intonation. In these situations, the student does not present any of the symptoms from the visible category, but he or she audibly presents an issue that is happening internally. Breathiness of tone often is the result of hypofunction of the breath, meaning there is not enough breath pressure under the vocal folds to allow them to properly vibrate against one another. This allows excess air to escape through the folds, creating a breathy sound. The hypofunction of the breath may also be a root cause of vibrato being too slow or the dynamic being too soft. Hypofunction may also cause the pitch to be imprecise, hovering on the low side of the given pitch. Conversely, if there is hyperfunction (too much breath pressure) of the breath, the vibrato may be too fast or, if the breath pressure is extreme, nonexistent. This hyperfunction may also cause the pitch to be sharp because of the pressure below the vocal folds. When a student exhibits nasality in his or her singing, this generally supports the notion that the soft palate is not elevated in the mouth. An easy check of this is to ask the student to sing a neutral vowel with his or her index finger inserted into the center of the mouth, not touching lips or tongue. When this is done the soft palate will involuntarily raise and the nasality should lessen. With these cues in hand, the educator is able to enter the aural-skills classroom with more confidence and will be able to be proactive in the implementation of standards for student success.

How to Assess There are a variety of ways to assess pitch matching, from simple in-class exercises to online resources. We recommend you begin assessing students’ abilities from day one – even during auditions.

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Assessment begins with the first singing exercises. At the start of the semester, it is beneficial to get people singing right away, not only to set the tone for the rest of the semester, but to also enable the educator to get to know individual voices and identify potential pitch-matching issues. Depending on the educator’s personality and level of comfort, you could consider walking around and checking pitch through sung questions on a single pitch, such as, Educator: ‘Can you match my pitch?,’ Student: ‘Yes, I can match your pitch,’ or Educator: ‘Hi there, how are you?,’ Student: ‘Hello, I’m very sleep-y.’ If students respond without issue, you can progress to singing two notes. A simple singing example could include the educator singing a question on two pitches (like a descending minor third) that the student answering back on similar pitches, such as, Educator: ‘Ni-kki,’ Student: ‘Present.’ Elongating the question is another option. Educator: ‘Nikki, do you play the vio-lin?,’ Student: ‘No, I play the tu-ba.’ An exercise like this will also help the educator to identify other audible issues (student sings gruffly, too low, etc.). If there are issues with the student matching these two pitches, several things should be considered, such as range (is it a female educator singing too high for a male voice or vice versa?) and instrument (if matching your voice is an issue, have them match the piano instead or a similar sounding voice in class). Sometimes, inaccurate singers struggle to match one or two pitches, but succeed if the notes are placed in a tonal context (Demorest & Clements, 2007). Consider singing descending stepwise melodies and ask the student to then imitate one of the pitches (a similar example is provided in Figure 10.5). Many students enter college with very little singing experience and may not have ever been evaluated on their ability to sing accurately. They may audition well on their instruments and not be able to sing or match pitch accurately. As many schools do not conduct a pitch-matching assessment, it is possible for a student to be accepted into a music degree with a poor level of pitch-matching ability. Failure to develop this ability can be discouraging to a student, as he or she can quickly fall behind required learning objectives. While there are many exercises that can help strengthen accuracy for matching pitch, explained in more detail later, it is helpful for the student to understand his or her ability to match pitch so that he or she can begin working on improving this vital skill. For these reasons, schools should consider adding a pitch-matching component to the audition process. This will help you and the student understand where he or she needs to focus his or her energies in preparing for the rigorous two-year sight-singing core curriculum offered by most schools. Pitch-matching assessment during an audition is a relatively easy skill to check. For instance, if your school has a scale requirement for instrumentalists to perform, this is a great time to ask the student to sing back the last note of the scale. Students may find this to be an easy task, but if the range of the instrument is outside the range of his or her voice, it may be more challenging. Finding a more comfortable pitch within the student’s vocal range should alleviate this problem. Figure 10.3 provides a chart of typical vocal ranges, with the notes in brackets providing the most comfortable register for most people. If a student can match pitch, you may then choose to increase the difficulty by having him or her match a short melodic sequence of two notes in close proximity; this can be sung back on a neutral syllable like ‘la-la’ or ‘doo-doo.’ Another tactic is to assess the student’s ability to carry a tune without first being provided with a pitch to match. To do this, have the student sing a simple folk-like melody in a range that is comfortable. Some song recommendations include ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb,’ ‘Hot Crossed Buns,’ or ‘Twinkle, Twinkle.’ Often, students are nervous in the audition, and the anxiety of singing in front of a jury may be uncomfortable enough to impair their ability to match pitch effectively. In an observed audition at our university, the head band director evaluated a French hornist’s pitch-matching ability by asking her to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to her instrument. This unexpected and funny request helped the nervous auditioner to relax and perform more naturally.5 An audition pitch-matching checklist similar to the one we use at our university is provided in Figure 10.4. Consider having a conversation with colleagues during a faculty meeting to discuss your department’s priorities. If they are willing, instrumental faculty might adopt a similar checklist

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Figure 10.3 Vocal ranges.6 Source: O’Connor (2020).

Figure 10.4 Audition pitch-matching checklist. Source: Authors.

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Figure 10.5 Fill-in-the-tonic exercise. Source: Authors.

to assist in evaluating incoming students. If the student is unable to perform one or any of these tasks, this is helpful information in determining his or her ability to perform the basic objectives of a first semester aural-skills class. Whether you are assisting with auditions or teaching the first or fourth semester of aural skills, it is beneficial to test pitch-matching right away. As an alternative to the first box, a jury member could play or sing (on a neutral syllable) a descending five-note scale where the student is instructed to sing the last note, shown in Figure 10.5.

Setting Up the Classroom How the classroom is configured can aid the educator in his or her quest to identify cues to auralskills issues with particular students. Creating physical standards in the classroom at the beginning of each new semester will ensure that students have a strong foundation for the learning process. It is imperative that the educator continue to remind students of classroom standards so that old habits are not supported. From the first day of classes, students should be expected to sing and follow guidelines of proper singing in order to create a foundation for aural-skills success. For instrumentalists, students may not have been introduced to proper singing techniques. For vocalists, some may not engage with proper singing because they think of aural skills as a non-specialized singing class. In an aural-skills class, adopting the mantra that everyone is a singer will help support high standards and create a supported and balanced environment that destigmatizes labels such as ‘singers’ and ‘non-singers.’ Singing properly may include: sitting tall at the desk (not allowing the back to rest on the back of the chair), having both feet flat on the ground, taking low (belly) breaths, and holding the head level whenever singing. More specifically, directions can stipulate that, when standing, the knees are aligned with the ankles, hips are aligned with the knees, shoulders are aligned with the hips, and the ears aligned with the shoulders. If in the seated position this can be separated into ankles/knees and hips/shoulders/ears. It is important to inform students as to why these standards are important. Sitting with tall posture at the desk allows the ribcage to remain expanded and will help in energy and breath flow. Having the feet flat on the ground helps the student feel grounded and often results in a stronger vocal production. Practicing a low breath, a breath that keeps the ribcage stationary and requires the stomach to move, fills the lungs better and lowers blood pressure. This may also help to calm the student’s nerves before singing for an aural-skills grade and is beneficial well beyond the aural-skills classroom. It is critically important for sound production that the student keep his or her head level while singing. If the head is elevated or depressed, the larynx is compromised and it will be more difficult to produce a good sound. Alternatively, students can stand while singing, holding their singing materials at chin level. Encouraging students to follow these guidelines daily will enforce good habits that will aid them throughout their aural-skills sequence. Consider posting these guidelines in your syllabus or having a checklist like the one provided next displayed in your classroom. It should also be modeled by the educator and fellow classmates.

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Set your class up for success! Everyone is a singer! Classroom is a safe, learning place Sitting straight (no slouching!) or standing (if space allows) Looking up when singing – holding book up heart-level Deep belly breaths Open mouth and tongue relaxed Visible assessments

Figure 10.6 Class checklist. Source: Authors.

Visible Assessments Alignment – Head, neck, chest (ribs), hips, knees, feet  Head should neither be looking up nor looking down  Neck should be elongated in the back  Chest should be high but not rigid; sternum up and ribcage moving in and out  Hips should be pliable and help the butt tuck under a slight bit  Knees should not be locked; pliable but not bent  If sitting, feet should be flat on the floor; if standing, feet should have equal weight shared between them (no sitting on hip) Posture – is the student sitting back, standing on his/her heels or up on his/her toes? Breathing – Shallow or full; is it being released?  Shallow breath usually is a high breath (runner’s breath)  Full breath sees expansion of the ribcage, the release of the ab muscles (belly comes out a little bit), and the calmness of the upper body Mouth – Open or closed Tongue – Forward or back Tension – Protruding muscles or shaking? Vibrato – Too fast or wide?  Too fast indicates over-pressurization  Too wide indicates under-pressurization Nervous or anxious?

Figure 10.7 Visible assessments. Source: Authors.

Educators can create vocal warm-ups at the beginning of class that incorporate learning objectives of the daily lesson plan. The use of a regular warm-up period in the classroom will aid the student in developing comfort with his or her own voice as well as help the educator assess the students that may need additional work. Just as one would not expect an orchestral player to jump into the middle of a challenging excerpt without first warming up, a singer should not be expected to sing didactic solfège exercises without the opportunity to warm up his or her voice, especially if it is a typical early-morning class. In this setting, the educator can ask smaller groups of students to sing together and offer feedback that they might not receive when the larger group is singing together. Incorporate warm-up exercises that require singers to use legato or staccato articulations and crescendo and descrescendo on stepwise patterns, or perform with messa di voce, a singing technique in which the singer crescendos or descrescendos on a single pitch. If space allows for the students to stand and move about, warming up while including kinesthetic movement can be extremely beneficial to the musician. Educators may build upon any of a number of music learning methods – Dalcroze Eurythmics, Orff Schulwerk, Kodály – which will allow the student to internalize musical feeling.

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For example, if the students are using the Kodály hand gestures, have them also mimic the contour of the sung line; if no hand signs are used, students can raise and lower their arms with the contour of the sung melody. This will help develop the students’ awareness of the connection between mind and body as well as basic musical gestures and how those shapes feel in the body. Incorporating time to properly warm up and practice these techniques will not only improve control over vocal mechanisms in a more relaxed group environment (that is not being evaluated for a grade) but will encourage the student to think musically, which may increase the success of the aural-skills student and his or her musicianship and enable the educator to evaluate audible and visible signs in a more casual environment.

Four Common Problems and Solutions In this section, we will address four of the most common problems encountered in the aural skills classroom: (1) register issues; (2) timbre issues; (3) intonation issues, including modulating singers; and (4) wrong-note or overtone issues.

Pitch-Matching Issues Related to Register Register issues are common problems for untrained singers. It is documented that most people’s habitual speech pitch sits either too high or too low from their optimal pitch. Helping the students find their optimal pitch levels will allow their singing to be of the best quality for the least amount of effort (McKinney, 2005, p. 168). If a pitch is given that is outside the student’s comfortable register, an inaccurate singer may not know where to begin. Pre-motor planning and auditory imagery – that is, mapping pitch height to breath pressure needed to achieve phonation of a particular pitch – may come instinctually to a strong singer but may be deficient in an untrained singer, especially when asked to perform an already complex task in an uncomfortable range. Finding a student’s optimal singing range should be one of the first steps within the pitch-matching sequence. Refer to Figure 10.3 for ideal registers for different voices. There are numerous techniques for determining a student’s comfortable range. One technique that works especially well in a group is to warm up by singing with sirens. To do this, students start singing on the lowest non-vocal fry pitch and slowly slide as high as possible without screaming, and return to the bottom range; this can be coordinated with body movements such as raising and lowering the arm or swaying forward when the siren ascends and backward when the siren returns to the starting pitch.7 An exercise that is effective for individuals that struggle to find their comfortable range is to have the student count backwards from 10 in a normal voice; for a fun variation, you might suggest they do it with an accent, up-talk, or as if talking to a kindergartner. Usually about halfway through counting, the student will gravitate toward a comfortable pitch suitable for singing. When you feel he or she has reached that point, encourage them to elongate that number by singing a musical sounding drone on the pitch they are chanting. You can then help them locate this on the piano and tell them that they ‘sing well around A3,’ for example. You can then provide a stimulus within that range to see if they can perform the task of matching it. If, after determining the student’s register, he or she cannot match the pitch you provide, eliminate the stimulus and flip the question by asking the student to sing a note that is comfortable in their established register. This is especially beneficial if you notice the student is embarrassed or frustrated by his or her inability to perform a pitch-matching task. You can then match the pitch the student provides and even invite others to participate. If the struggling student has never practiced pitch-matching before, providing a less-stressful approach to matching pitch, wherein the task is modeled by others before he or she is being evaluated, may increase his or her confidence in attempting the exercise. Like many issues in

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the aural-skills classroom, intimidation and nerves play a large part in the student’s inability to produce a great-sounding tone. Creating examples that are fun and productive will help relieve nerves in tense singers, but it is also important to do what is comfortable to you as the educator by choosing exercises that suit your personality and the personality of your class. Help weak singers in your class by pairing them with stronger singers close in singing range. You can encourage the pair to help each other when they notice a discrepancy in pitch matching. For instance, if you are able to pair two females together, you might begin by asking them, in private, if the weaker-female singer feels comfortable having the stronger-female singer provide feedback in class, such as leaning over and singing closer/louder to her ear so she might be able to recognize she is off-pitch. Allowing all students in your class to have this sort of interaction is, in fact, a great way to encourage support and critical listening. If you choose to do this, make it known that students will not be called out for talking to a classmate during singing exercise, so long as it is related to improving singing. Another beneficial exercise involves touching part of the vibrating source. Allow weaker singers to sit closer to the acoustic piano and place their hand on it whenever he or she feels like they are drifting. For students who are paired up, ask each student individually if he or she would be comfortable touching or being touched on the back during singing. If both students express consent, the weaker student can place his or her hand on the back of the stronger singer when phonating. Feeling the vibrating source can sometimes effortlessly correct issues of poor pitch matching. Be frank with the students and encourage open communication as much as possible. If you choose to do this pairing exercise, it is critical that consent is given at the beginning of each class, and that either of them are encouraged to decline at any point. If you still cannot help the student find a good register to sing in, refer to the flowchart (Figure 10.2). The issue they are experiencing may be compounded by other hindrances related to production, timbre, hearing, or perception.

Timbre There is a vast amount of research on how timbre affects imitation, intonation, and perception of pitch. As Loui et al. (2015, p. 266) state, discrepancy between approaches taken to assess poor pitch matching between fields, especially with regard to timbre, reveals a ‘lack of standard procedures’ and feels like ‘each study “reinvents the wheel” regarding measurement.’ While populations and procedures may vary between disciplines, research on the timbre effect, that is, the notion that people tend to perform more accurately when timbres have a similar spectral center to their own, reveals that timbre plays a more significant role in young, weak, or inexperienced singers than it does in more experienced singers. For the purposes of helping students who struggle to match pitch in the auralskills classroom, this research encourages us as educators to be sensitive to the types of stimuli we provide in class. If you encounter a student unable to match a pitch given from the piano, switch to singing instead. Neuroscientific research shows that a biological model can yield better intonation in strong singers and more accurate pitch matching in weaker singers, which is in part explained by the mirror system – a neuron network that translates actions of others into an internal representation of that action. Students may respond more accurately to your voice; in that case, they should be offered this type of stimulus frequently to help develop skill and confidence. The hope is that by providing a stimulus that the student can more accurately match, he or she will develop stronger pitch-matching abilities that will eventually be adapted to other timbres. There is evidence that inaccurate or inexperienced singers may benefit more if the sung stimulus is one that is similar to the timbre of their own voice. Research is inconsistent about whether, for example, an inexperienced male singer responds better to other male voices, even if they do not match in register, perhaps due to the inconsistent measurements taken by different fields. However,

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it stands to reason that if an inaccurate male student is unable to match a female educator’s voice, he may benefit from another male voice more like his own. Having students within the class model singing is an integral course objective in an aural-skills class and should be an easy exercise to implement. Exploring how the timbre effect increases a student’s success at matching pitch can extend to providing a stimulus on a student’s primary instrument, acoustic or synthetic models, or other student voices within the class.

Intonation Singers who have intonation issues often receive severe point deductions on sight-singing exams by slowly modulating up or down from their starting pitches. Look for visible cues for breath control (such as heaving shoulders, out-of-breath singing, slouching, head hanging, or laid-back posture) or audible cues (such as noisy intake, slam entrances, glottal attack, or vocal fry). An easy way for the teacher to help students understand what the release of air should feel like while singing is to ask them to, while seated and relaxed, vocalize every time they exhale. Instruct the student to observe his or her breathing for a few breaths. On the third or fourth exhale, have him or her sing on a comfortable pitch. The motion from inhaling to exhaling while phonating should be fluid and unlabored. This will give the student a baseline assessment for how he or she should practice breathing when singing. There are three common types of issues surrounding intonation: students who swoop up or down to the correct pitch, those that use exaggerated dynamics (such as too loud, or less commonly, too soft), and those who drift (sometimes referred to as modulating singers) (Price, 2000; Flowers & Dunne-Sousa, 1990). For singers who swoop up or down to a pitch, you should encourage them to listen and imagine producing that pitch before singing. It is possible that they are starting to sing too fast and may be initiating sound before their articulators (lips, tongue, soft palate) are stable. This ‘fishing’ for a pitch results in an inaccurate start to the sung line, while they may be correct after the initial pitch is achieved. Figures 10.8 and 10.9 provide examples for how to practice this skill. Instructions for the student for Figure 10.8: Sing the exercise starting near the upper quadrant of your range. Continue moving up by half steps until it becomes difficult. Breath intake on the vowel and pitch you want to begin with. Keep your breath easy and relaxed (low and slow). First, try it on ‘Ah’ making sure to start and stop each note without glottal attack. Ensure that your mouth is open and your soft palate is raised (you can put your index finger between your teeth on the ‘Ah’ syllable to ensure both are happening). Sing two measures on one breath. Try singing it again with different vowel sounds.

Figure 10.8 Intonation corrective exercise. Source: Authors.

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Figure 10.9 Intonation corrective exercise with minor thirds. Source: Authors.

Figure 10.10 Dynamic control exercise. Source: Authors.

Instructions for the student for Figure 10.9: For this exercise, use the same techniques as for Figure 10.8 to set your articulators. Sing the following exercise with a legato line and ensure that you are singing both pitches without sliding or glissando technique. Keep your jaw stable and allow your tongue to do most of the work. For students who sing at a dynamic that is too loud or too soft, their intonation may be affected, such as sounding too sharp or too flat. In these situations, the student maintains an accurate pitch and pitch contour when singing a melody but is considered imprecise, as his or her intonation may inflect within the acceptable range of a quarter tone and half tone. The exercise here may help the student to better understand the limits of his or her dynamic range. While the singer has the ability to sing both louder and softer than the exercise asks, it will set some boundaries as to how little or much to give to achieve a stable, desired, and accurate phonation. Instructions for the student for Figure 10.10: Sing the line in one breath. Start with your softest ‘pretty’ sound that is connected to the breath and go to your loudest ‘pretty’ sound. For more pronounced issues involving intonation, a student can move from being imprecise to seeming to modulate. Evidence from music education and vocal pedagogy research supports that this is a common tactic that young or untrained singers sometimes use in order to find a more comfortable register. This is often referred to as drift. For these students, you can begin by finding his or her comfortable singing register for the pitch or song (see Figure 10.3). It is also critical that this student be encouraged to sing more frequently, as one of the reasons his or her vocal range and production are substandard is inexperience and therefore a weak vocal mechanism. Finding warm-up exercises and simple songs he or she can regularly practice will increase his or her proficiency over time. Another way to assist students with weak vocal mechanisms is to have them record themselves

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singing a short song and listen for moments when they modulate. It is likely that they can perceive the difference in pitch even if they cannot yet control it with their voices.

Overtone Singers Another common issue in the aural-skills classroom is the student who believes he or she is singing the correct pitch, but is, in fact, singing the wrong note. Typically, this student is singing at the fifth, which sounds consonant and therefore correct to him or her. For this reason, these students will be referred to as overtone singers. These students often play loud instruments such as percussion, brass, or piccolo, and can exhibit signs of a mild hearing deficiency. If you suspect a hearing issue, you should encourage them to have their hearing tested. For proficiency in an aural-skills classroom, a documented disability can help you provide the tools they need to succeed. For these students, there could also be a combination of issues, such as a register/timbre matching problem, memory or cognitive issues, or simply weak production abilities. If they are under-practiced in listening, vocal onset, and vocal production, they can benefit from reminders, encouragements, and steps to practice. For practice, there are several exercises you can try with the student. Encourage the student to partner with a strong singer with a similar vocal timbre. Consider using the partner exercise mentioned earlier, where partners can lean closer together to hear each other more accurately, alert each other when there is an issue, and, if they are willing, touch the back or neck of the other person to feel the vibration. An exercise you can quickly practice either in class or in person begins with having the student sing a pitch that is in a comfortable range. You or someone else in the class then matches his note. You can then have him hold the starting pitch while you sing a fifth above, then return to unison with the singing student; refer to Figure 10.9, which can also be transposed to the student’s comfortable pitch. You can then have a conversation with him or her, asking if he or she felt like changing pitch when your voice moved. If the student had a hard time staying on pitch, practice this exercise a few more times. Sometimes the skip of a fifth makes the student feel as if he or she should leap with you. If the student is unable to sustain tonic easily, begin by singing tonic together, then slowly ascend and descend scalar patterns. Once this is mastered, you can have him or her sing tonic, while you sing perfect consonances above and below his pitch. For another exercise, you or another (similarly voiced) student can perform exercises where both voices begin on a unison and then one voice sings up a perfect fifth, while the other sings down a perfect fourth – thus, beginning with unison tonic and expanding outward to an octave on the dominant – then returning to a unison tonic (see Figure 10.11). If the student can sing a full octave, you can extend this exercise to tonic, fifth below, tonic below (see Figure 10.12). In practicing this exercise, encourage the student to feel similarities in the unison pitch even if the timbres are different – how even though the perfect intervals at the octave are still consonant, they are different in sound, feel, and vibration.

Figure 10.11 Overtone exercise 1. Source: Authors.

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Figure 10.12 Overtone exercise 2. Source: Authors.

Pitch-Matching Technology In-class assessments are an integral part of teaching aural skills, but students can benefit from using technology when they practice alone. While technology can help assess pitch-matching ability and even provide analysis of how to improve one’s singing voice and pitch retention, diagnosing pitchmatching deficiencies often requires a battery of tests. Two such assessments include the Seattle Singing Accuracy Protocol (SSAP), developed by Pfordresher and Demorest and the Montreal Battery for the Evaluation of Amusia (MBEA), developed by Peretz, Champod, and Hyde. Some popular singing applications also include exercises to improve and test pitch-matching abilities. Sing True, for instance, treats these tasks as a game where you can earn points as your skills improve. This application allows you to sing while viewing a slider that shows how accurate your voice maintains or matches a pitch. There are also exercises aimed at improving breath control, and a set of two-pitched intervals asks you to identify which is higher or lower. Pitch-matching applications and software will provide new and ever-changing tools for improving one’s voice with regard to tone quality, intonation, and pitch accuracy, such as Pitch Perfect, Tunable, Theta Music Trainer, SmartMusic, Vocal Lab, Clear Tune, EarMaster, Perfect Ear, Tone Deaf Test, Soundcheck, Tonal Energy, insTuner, and Singscope. This is a small sampling of the resources available through a simple search. Adding a visual component to the singing process can aid singers in determining if their voices are above or below a target pitch, which, for some, will improve pitch production.

Conclusion The ability to match pitch accurately is vital to a student’s success in aural-skills classes and the achievement of music degrees. A bias exists within college-level aural-skills pedagogy that assumes music majors enter college with the ability to accurately and effortless match pitch. The reality is, however, much different. Students are less exposed to singing throughout their primary education, with drastic drops in required music classes around the time the voice changes in adolescence. The effects of this are evident in the number of students entering music programs with little to no experience generating musical sounds with their voice, which is in direct relationship to students’ low confidence in singing ability. As educators, it is our responsibility to provide students who have poor pitch-matching ability the tools to achieve proficiency. There are no current studies that indicate how many music majors struggle to match pitch upon entering college. Looking to fields of cognitive psychology, music education, and vocal pedagogy provides valuable insights into the processes

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related to the complicated task of perceiving and producing pitch. For aural-skills pedagogy, this research creates constructive applications that one can adapt to improve a student’s achievement of pitch-matching accuracy. Research into developmental stages, types of stimuli, problems experienced within the vocal-sensorimotor translation, the role of interference, feedback, and memory, and prephonation and production process reveals the complexity pitch matching requires and provides us with information to improve assessment, sequencing, activities, and objectives. For ear-training pedagogues, these findings support the importance of offering a variety of teaching strategies for inaccurate pitch-matching students rather than adhering to a more traditional piano-dominated approach. Aural-skills teachers who have not had vocal training can seek information from the sources provided in this chapter but should also consider collaborating with vocal specialists within their departments to get assistance with vocal coaching for their students. Creating a collaborative and holistic approach to pitch matching in your classroom will also inspire peer collaborations from which everyone will benefit.

Notes 1. Functional processes involve sensory, motor, and auditory-motor integration. Production refers to physical mechanisms such as respiratory, vocal folds, and vocal tracts. Neuronal processes refer to a network of neurons in the brain, in this case associated with activity involving the auditory cortex. For a review of these processes, see Dalla Bella, Berkowska, & Sowiński (2011). 2. There is much need for more research in disability and pitch matching. For instance, research reveals that language disorders (such as dyslexia and SLI) show deficits in pitch processing (Zeigler et al., 2012), while those with autism have better pitch perception and memory (Ouimet et al., 2012). Extending these studies to college-age subjects would help create valuable tools for making the study of music more accessible. 3. In 2017, we conducted a panel on pitch matching at the College Music Society national conference for several educators who have had students unable to match pitch in their classes. 4. Studies suggest that amusic individuals have a neural disconnection between regions in the brain (arcuate fasciculus, right fronto-temporal pathways (Loui et al., 2008; Loui, 2008; Dalla Bella, Giguère, & Peretz, 2009). 5. I would like to thank Ron Ellis for this audition exercise. The ‘Happy Birthday’ song is frequently used as an exemplar of well-known, simple songs for such activities. However, one might choose to eliminate this song from his or her list based on the level of complexity (triple meter, begins on an anacrusis on scale-degree 5, and features large leaps) and the likelihood that the song is often sung poorly. 6. Range chart provided by Karyn O’Connor, www.singwise.com/articles/understanding-vocal-range-vocalregisters-and-voice-type-a-glossary-of-vocal-terms (Permission has been granted). 7. Vocal fry is the lowest phonational register, occupying the frequency range below the modal or normal register. It has a characteristic popping, frying, or rattling sound which is capable of very little variation of timbre (McKinney, 2005, p. 96)

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Pitch-Matching Issues in the Classroom Dalla Bella, S., Giguère, J.F., & Peretz, I. (2009). Singing in congential amusia. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 126, 414–424. Demorest, S. (2001). Pitch-matching performance of junior high boys: a comparison of perception and production. Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education, 151, 63–70. Demorest, S., & Clements, A. (2007). Factors influencing the pitch-matching of junior high boys. Journal of Research in Music Research, 55(3), 190–203. https://doi.org/10.1177/002242940705500302. Demorest, S., & Pfordresher, P. (2015). Singing accuracy development from k-adult: a comparative study. Music Perception: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 32(3), 293–302. https://doi.org/10.1525/mp.2015.32.3.293. Estis, J., Coblentz, J., & Moore, E. (2009). Effects of increasing time delays on pitch-matching accuracy in trained singers and untrained individuals. Journal of Voice, 23(4), 439–445. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. jvoice.2007.10.001. Estis, J., Dean-Claytor, A., Moore, R., & Rowell, T. (2010). Pitch-matching accuracy in trained singers and untrained individuals: the impact of musical interference and noise. Journal of Voice, 25(2), 173–180. https:// doi.org/10.1016/j.jvoice.20010.10.010. Flowers, P., & Dunne-Sousa, D. (1990). Pitch-pattern accuracy, tonality, and vocal range in preschool children’s singing. Journal of Research in Music Education, 38(2), 102–114. Geringer, J. (1983). The relationship of pitch-matching and pitch discrimination abilities of preschool and fourth-grade students. Journal of Research in Music Education, 31, 93–910. Goetz, M., Cooper, N., & Brown, C. (1990). Recent research on singing in the general music classroom. Bulletin on the Council for Research in Music Education, 104, 16–37. Green, G. (1990). The effect of vocal modeling on pitch-matching accuracy of elementary school children. Journal of Research in Music Education, 38, 225–231. Hutchins, S., & Peretz, I. (2012). Amusics can imitate what they cannot discriminate. Brain and Language, 123(3), 234–2310. Joyner, D. (1969). The monotone problem. Journal of Research in Music Education, 17, 115–124. https://doi. org/10.2307/3344198. Karpinski, G. (2000). Aural skills acquisition: the development of listening, reading, and performing skills in college-level musicians. Oxford University Press. Larrouy-Maestri, P., Lévèque, Y., Schön, D., Giovanni, A., & Morsomme, D. (2013). The evaluation of singing voice accuracy: a comparison between subjective and objective methods. Journal of Voice, 27(2), 2510. e1–2510.e5. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvoice.2012.11.003. Lévèque, Y., Giovanni, A., & Schön, D. (2011). Pitch-matching in poor singes: human model advantage. Journal of Voice, 26(3), 292–298. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.voice.2011.04.001. Loui, P. (2015). A dual-stream neuroanatomy of singing. Music Perception: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 32(3), 232–241. https://doi.org/10.1525/mp.2015.32.3.232. Loui, P., Demorest, S., Pfordresher, P., & Iyer, J. (2015). Neurological and developmental approaches to poor pitch perception and production. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1337(1), 263–271. Loui, P., Guenther, F., Mathys, C., & Schlaug, G. (2008). Action-perception mismatch in tone-deafness. Current Biology, 18, R331–R332. McKinney, J. (2005). The diagnosis & correction of vocal faults: a manual for teachers of singing and for choir directors. Waveland Press. Moore, R., Keaton, C., & Watts, C. (2007). The role of pitch memory in pitch discrimination and pitch matching. Journal of Voice, 31, 560–567. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.voice.2006.04.004. O’Connor, K. (2020). Understanding vocal range, vocal registers, and voice type: a glossary of vocal terms. www.singwise. com/articles/understanding-vocal-range-vocal-registers-and-voice-type-a-glossary-of-vocal-terms. Ouimet, T., Foster, N., Tryfon, A., & Hyde, K. (2012). Auditory-musical processing in autism spectrum disorders: a review of behavioral and brain imaging studies. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1252(1), 325–331. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-6632.2012.06453. Pfordresher, P., & Brown, S. (2007). Poor-pitch singing in the absence of ‘tone deafness’. Music Perception: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 25(2), 95–115. www.jstor.org/stable/9.1525/mp.2007.25.2.95. Pfordresher, P., Brown, S., Meier, K., Belyk, M., & Liotti, M. (2010). Imprecise singing is widespread. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 128, 2182–2190. Pfordresher, P., Demorest, S., Dalla Bella, S., Hutchins, S., Loui, P., Rutkowski, J., & Welch, G. (2015). Theoretical perspectives on singing accuracy: an introduction to the special issue on singing accuracy (Part 1). Music Perception: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 32(3), 227–231. https://doi.org/10.1525/mp.2015.32.3.227. Phillips, K., & Aitchison, R. (1997). The relationship on singing accuracy to pitch discrimination and tonal aptitude among third-grade students. Contributions in Music Education, 24, 7–22. Price, H. (2000). Interval matching by undergraduate nonmusic majors. Journal of Research in Music Education, 48(4), 360–372.

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Jennifer Beavers and Susan Olson Price, H., Yarbrough, C., Jones, M., & Moore, R. (1994). Effects of male timbre, falsetto, and sine-wave models on interval matching by inaccurate singers. Journal of Research in Music Education, 42, 269–284. Sims, W., Moore, R., & Kuhn, T. (1982). Effects of female and male vocal stimuli, tonal pattern length, and age on vocal pitch-matching abilities of young children from England and the United States. Psychology of Music, 104–108. Sloboda, J., Wise, K., & Peretz, I. (2005). Quantifying tone deafness in the general population. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1660, 255–261. Watts, C., Moore, R., & McCaghren, K. (2005). The relationship between vocal pitch-matching skills and pitch discrimination skills in untrained accurate and inaccurate singers. Journal of Voice, 19, 534–543. Watts, C., Murphy, J., & Barnes-Burroughs, K. (2003). Pitch matching accuracy of trained singers, untrained subjects with talented singing voices and untrained subjects with nontalented singing voices in conditions of varying feedback. Journal of Voice, 17(2), 185–194. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0892-1997(03)00023-7. Welch, G. (1979). Poor pitch singing: a review of the literature. Psychology of Music, 7, 50–58. Welch, G., Himonides, E., Papageorgi, I., Saunders, J., Rinta, T., Stewart, C., Preti, C., Lani, J., Vraka, M., & Hill, J. (2009). The national singing programme for primary schools in England: an initial baseline study. Music Education Research, 11, 1–22. Williamson, V., McDonald, C., Deutsch, D., Griffiths, T., & Stewart, L. (2010). Faster decline of pitch memory over time in congenital amusia. Advances in Cognitive Psychology, 6, 15–22. Yarbrough, C., Bowers, J., & Benson, W. (1992). The effect of vibrato on pitch-matching accuracy of certain and uncertain singers. Journal of Research in Music Education, 40, 30–38. Yarbrough, C., Morrison, S., Karrick, B., & Dunn, D. (1995). The effect of male falsetto on pitch-matching accuracy of certain boy singers grades K-8. Update: Applications of Research in Music Education, 14(1), 4–10. Zeigler, J., Pech-Georgel, C., George, F., & Foxton, J. (2012). Global and local pitch perception in children with developmental dyslexia. Brain and Language, 120(3), 265–270. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bandl.2011.12.002.

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11 TEACHING AURAL AWARENESS IN HONG KONG PRIMARY SCHOOLS Use of Drama Exercises Chi Ying Lam

Introduction Aural awareness – the ability to identify pitch or harmonies – is highly valued in the field of music learning. The understanding of Western music inevitably calls for the ability to learn to listen melodically and harmonically (Karpinski, 2000). It is considered to be one of the most challenging (Rogers, 2004) and one of the strongest determinants of musical ability (Costa-Giomi, Gilmour, & Lefebvre, 2001) during musical training. Karpinski (2000) also claims that certain aural skills (i.e., the ability to aurally identify single and multiple parts) is often neglected and underdeveloped even in musicians’ training. Despite the value placed on aural awareness, I have found that it is not often included in school music lessons in Hong Kong, nor is it seen as an essential indicator of in-school musical achievement. I can still remember my initial attempts in teaching aural awareness in lesson design and implementation as a student teacher and how excited both my supervisors and students were when they attended the lesson. A commonly recognizable approach to aural-skills classes often includes singing prepared and at-sight exercises as well as melodic and harmonic dictation. Typical classes rely heavily on developing auditory recognition and the skills of internal hearing or, in other words, ear training. However, the process of music reading involves multiple skills: the reading of notation, the conversion of the notated symbols into musical understanding, and the demonstration of that understanding through vocal performance. As a result, aural training can more accurately be described as ear, eye, and voice training instead of just ear training. If musical understanding is the goal, then the sight singing and dictation that we use as aural training exercises are indeed a means for assessing all three of these components (Root, 2017). The reason I undertook this study was that in my teaching, I realized that I had come to understand, teach, and assess these elements separately. I began to seek a means through which I could seek greater integration. I believed educational theorists outside the field of music education could provide suggestions for creating an environment that employs all the senses, while actively fostering aural awareness. I began to consider how to develop classroom activities that engaged the total eye-ear-voice framework so that students could better synthesize these elements of their aural training.

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Theoretical Perspective Brief Background of the Hong Kong School Music Education System Musical training became a component of the curriculum in Hong Kong schools just after the Second World War. The British colonial government of Hong Kong set up the Education Department of Music section and appointed Pastor Lee Shou-Ching to be its leader. He was later succeeded by Scottish educator, D.J. Fraser, who instituted a curricular structure based on the British music education system that used Curwen’s system of tonic sol-fa, and that stressed choral training and music appreciation as its essential components. (Liu & Mason, 2010). In 2017, Hong Kong’s Curriculum Development Council published an Arts Curriculum Guideline (Curriculum Development Council, 2017). It recommended that schools develop the music curriculum with four learning goals supported by three integrated music activities. The four learning goals were: (1) developing creativity and imagination; (2) developing music skills and processes; (3) cultivating critical responses in music; and (4) understanding music in context. The three integrated musical activities were: (1) creating; (2) listening; and (3) performing activities. Aural awareness was not a highlighted component of the curriculum guidelines, therefore not many schoolteachers were aware of aural-skills training.

The Fragmentation in Training Fragmentation is a concept that holds that, in an effort to ‘fix’ individual elements of a system, one might miss the underlying cause of the systemic weakness. Balk (1991) used the example of the concept of disease and health to illustrate the issue of fragmentation. In the past, there was an overemphasis on treating illness only to ‘cure’ the sick part, with a lack of attention to the whole, including mental processes, habits, and the conditioning of the person, the environment, and so on. This focus may have strengthened an obviously weak part of the system, but it was impossible to develop a higher degree of wellness in the system because one had not altered the interactive weakness that allowed the illness to develop in the first place. Recognition of attempts to mitigate fragmentation have led to a beneficial view of the interconnectedness of the various systems that comprise health, which in turn has led to enormous progress in medicine and science. Christopher Small’s (1998) idea of musicking suggested that all participation in a musical performance matters. However, aural training often isolates one part of the total music-making experience. Like Small, I believe, in an ideal world, that a performer performs a piece of music that is retained as sounds in his or her head – the musical inner ear – rather than simply, and unmusically, converting symbols on a score into muscle movements or a fragmented order of action. The perception of sound, in other words, aural awareness, is in need of a synergistic, comprehensive way of exercising the learning process to provide an integrative view for the purpose of producing a musical performance.

Drama Meets Music It is a truth widely acknowledged in the literature cited here that incorporating dramatic elements – which can be conceptualized as a multisensory and multimodal endeavors imbued with aural, visual, spatial, and linguistic elements – into formal curricula has been empirically proven to bring various benefits, which has led to a series of reforms that require schools to promote the use of theater techniques in formal education (Lin, 2010; Hui, Chow, Chan, Chui, & Sam, 2015) as well as government-funded research initiatives to probe the potential of harnessing performing arts as a pedagogical means. Theater as pedagogy, or drama as pedagogy, as some scholars have preferred to call it, has been found to foster learners’ creativity (Yeh & Li, 2008); boost motivation to learn (Dicks & Le

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Blanc, 2009; Darlington, 2010); enhance perspective-taking and empathic abilities among learners (Yassa, 1999); support language learning (Brice Heath, 1993; Cremin, Goouch, Blakemore, Goff, & Macdonald, 2006; Chien, 2014); and facilitate the learning of other subjects (Sloman & Thompson, 2010). O’Day (2001) describes drama as being similar to music in terms of voice, rhythm, and mood. Drama also shows how children express their understanding of themselves and the world (9). Students can learn listening and comprehension skills as well as how to use their voices to create their own interpretations of their experiences (30). Barbe and Swassing (1979) claimed that all students used one of three channels (modalities) as their most efficient way to process information when learning: visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. When discussing modalities in relation to music instruction, Campbell and Scott-Kassner (2005) state, ‘While music classroom environments must be rich in stimulation for all the senses, knowing the modality strengths of individual students would be helpful. The best teaching involves the stimulation of all modalities’ (29). The use of improvisation, such as improvising a melody over a given chord progression, is an eye-ear-voice-mind activity which, even at its most basic level, fosters harmonic awareness. By learning to create logical melodic ideas while moving about in a prescribed harmonic space, the student can go on to make more informed choices in related activities such as counterpoint, voice leading, and composition. Activities range from foundational (melodic and rhythmic improvisation over a single chord and basic diatonic progression models) to advanced (working with figuration and chromatic harmony) and include both vocal and instrumental performance. Drama exercises encourage improvisation. The improvisational ethos in drama exercises in the classroom can cultivate the connectivity of a group, welcome differences, and allow learning to move beyond predetermined outcomes (Tanner, 2019). Spolin (1986) also suggests drama exercises can provide space for creative output. It has much to offer education.

The Exercise The following terms are operationally defined in order to clarify and avoid ambiguity in their use in this study: Drama Exercise: Including drama games that may be used for ice-breaking, physical warm-ups, group dynamics, and encouraging creativity. These activities are drawn from a wide range of sources, including traditional games and exercises developed by directors, actors, and teachers. According to Stoate (1984), drama exercises can be classified into four categories according to their purposes: (1) Games and physical exercises to enliven the participants. These games serve as warm-ups at the beginning of classes. (2) Quiet and concentration exercises to focus the group’s attention and sharpen group awareness. These exercises can also be used at the end of class for relaxation. (3) Speech activities to involve even the shyest, most reluctant members of the group in speech work. (4) Improvisation work to help participants realize their potential in communicating and cooperating with others, in expressing their feelings and thoughts, and in gaining confidence in a variety of contexts. In this study, the following exercises were applied in the lesson design to focus on pitch awareness (see Appendix I): Statues and Visual Dramaturgy. Both exercises focus on a sound-before-symbol approach. While much traditional instrumental teaching starts with reading as the prime aim rather

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than sound, because music is a form of an aural art, we focused on the sound, and accordingly used space to promote an understanding of sound that is more creative and holistic. Drama exercises incorporated in this study were selected for three reasons: (1) to develop creativity and expression, all leading to improvisation skill; (2) to support coordination between different body parts and eliminate fragmentation; and (3) to use different learning modalities to enhance learning. Improvisation exercises, entitled ‘living machine’ and ‘conscience alley,’ were carried out in the testing group (see Appendix I). These exercises aimed to help develop ways for students to express their understanding of the functions of notes. The functions of notes could mean a variety of things: for example, they can be a pitch function in tonal music or pitch functions of the various elements of a phrase of tonal music that helps give a better idea of how to express that phrase. Many music educators find that incorporating musical improvisation into their teaching is a challenge. Understandably, they are reluctant to teach skills in which they have had little prior experience or success. The suggested drama exercises emancipate teachers from their ‘musical burden’ and encourage experimentation by providing teachers with techniques and new tools for creating a classroom environment that lends itself to risk taking and improvising on a regular basis.

Method A pre-test/post-test control group study was designed to examine the improvement of the students’ aural accuracy in the assessment before and after the set exercise. Students were divided into three groups with different exercises. Table 11.1 shows the groups and set exercises for the experimental design. It was a between-subject design (Allen, 2017) with one dependent variable with three groups: Group 1 (Gp1) took no drama exercises in lessons. Group 2 (Gp2) took drama exercises in learning to recognize a single absolute pitch.1 Group 3 (Gp3) took drama exercises to facilitate identifying single absolute pitch and chord.2

Participants All participating students were from the same schools and are co-taught by the same two music teachers. The sample of the experiment contained 81 students with complete data for the statistical Table 11.1 Design of the experiment  

Group 1 Control Group

Group 2 Experimental Group

Group 3 Experimental Group

Set exercise/Treatment

No drama exercise

Pre-test Post-test Total number of students Number without pre-test score Number without post-test score Number of subjects whose data were used for this study

✓ ✓ 25 2

Only drama exercise in relation to one pitch ✓ ✓ 28 0

Drama exercise in relation to pitch and perception of chords ✓ ✓ 24 1

4 N = 21

2

2

N = 26

Source: Author.

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N = 22

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analysis. Some students were eliminated from the study as it progressed. The eliminated students included those who failed to complete all aspects of the testing (see details in Table 11.1). Participants in the study were protected by strict ethical protocols as agreed upon with the schools.3

Measurements A listening track was prepared consisting of five questions. In this case, in order to ensure the reliability, we kept the paper short and made sure students had enough time to rest between the questions (Liao, 2008).4 The schoolteachers were asked to rate the suitability of these five questions as well. In the test, students were required to aurally identify all notes between A4 and C5. To focus on testing the pitch recognition accuracy of the students, there were no questions about chord identification. The test was comprised of three questions that used a single pitch and two questions in which a three-note sequence was played. Each recording was played twice and a reference note was given at the beginning of the test. Each individual was tested on all five questions, both for pre-test and post-test. Q4 was the only question that appeared in both pre- and post-tests. In order to validate this instrument, music teachers and two composers from teaching establishments, such as music schools and universities, were asked to collaborate. The analysis of the data obtained from a questionnaire was completed by the incorporation of the observations suggested by the teachers who validated the instruments. Video recordings were made during the session and the teachers were invited to provide feedback on the exercise.

Result 1 RQ1: Pitch Identification Table 11.3 presents the number of correct pitch-identification answers before (Pre) and after (Post) the group set exercise. The Change of assessment score is an important indicator of the impact of set exercise. The difference between scores reflects the effectiveness of the exercises. Through simple descriptive statistics, the results suggest the greatest improvement in performance pre- to post-test was for those students who had been trained with a drama exercise, especially those focusing on both pitch accuracy and chord perceptions for almost all questions. The exception is Question 4 (Q4) where the control group had the highest score improvement, although by only 1. Per design, Q4 is a repeated question and therefore is also impacted by how well the student is able to remember the correct answer from pre-exercise. Table 11.2 Summary statistics on pitch accuracy test (A4-C5)

66

Post

Change

Pre 11

26

37

22

5

14

22

11

4

57

20

29

Source: Author.

169

Change

40

17

Post

69

8 13

11

Pre

Total

26 21

4

Change

8

13

Post

18

22

9

Pre

26

3

5

Q5

Change

2

19

Q4

Post

14

Pre

Pre

21

Q3 Change

No.of Students

1

Q2 Post

Group

Assessment Score Q1

12

1

2

3

   1

3

5

2

23

9

16

13

−3

7

16

9

16

12

10

8

−2

1

8

7

51

22

28

24

−4

11

29

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Chi Ying Lam

15 10 5 0 –5

Q1

Q2

Q3 Group 1

Group 2

Q4

Q5

Group 3

Figure 11.1 Difference in total score of tests. Source: Author.

Figure 11.1 shows the mean scores of test results on each question and overall by different groups. It can be seen that Group 3 made greater improvements in Q2, Q3 and Q5. Group 2 made greater improvements in Q1 and Q5. In Q4, there were no differences in the same group, probably because the question remained the same in both pre- and post-test as a control for the questions. It was more difficult for Group 1, the control group that received the traditional approach, to make progress. Table 11.3 shows a summary of the analysis of variance (this is abbreviated as one-way ANOVA: ANalysis Of VAriance) results on pitch accuracy improvement. This analysis tool is used to determine whether there are statistically significant differences between the groups. In order to compare in detail how students made progress in pitch accuracy among these three groups, an analysis of variance (one-way ANOVA) was carried out to compare the group effect for five questions. The analyses, as shown in Table 11.3, revealed a significant effect for all pitch tests [p 0.05]. Following the lesson plans, Group 3 experienced two types of drama exercises while Group 2 experienced only one type. The results reveal that there might not have been a direct positive relationship between the number of exercises and an improvement in aural skills. Scheffe’s method for post hoc analysis confirmed that the pitch accuracy improvement between Groups 2 and 3 were less significant (p = 0.085). The analysis was also carried out with a separate focus on Q1 – Q3, single pitch listening, and Q4 and Q5, multiple pitches listening tests. In Q1 – Q3, both Group 2 [F = 22.690, p < 0.001] and Group 3 [F = 48.408, p < 0.001] show improvement in their scores. In Q4 and Q5, Group 2 [F = 3.669, p > 0.05] reveals that, without any chord-focused drama exercises, there wasn’t any significant improvement in the result, while Group 3, the class that had engaged in a chord-focused drama exercise, achieved a significant greater improvement [F = 2.467, p < 0.05]. To conclude, it showed that the pitch accuracy improvement of Group 3 was significantly higher than that of Group 2 for Q4 and Q5. In other words, the students who received both chord and pitch drama exercises made greater improvements in pitch exercises than those who did not. This supports the assumption that students trained with drama exercises will reach a significantly higher pitch achievement that those trained without. In addition, linear regression was carried out using score change (the difference of post-test score and pre-test score) as a dependent variable, two binary variables were used to indicate whether the students belong to Gp2 or Gp3 as independent variables, respectively. The formula is as follows: ScoreChangei = β0+ β1 IsGroup2i+β2 IsGroup3i+ 170

Teaching Aural Awareness in Primary School Table 11.3 Summary table of ANOVA test for pitch accuracy score change Groups 1 & 2 Overall Between groups Within groups Total

Sum of Squares 27.692 59.796 87.498

df

Mean Square

F

1 45 46

27.692 1.328

20.840

Groups 1 & 3 Overall

Sum of Squares

df

Mean Square

F

Between groups Within groups Total

54.235 54.415 108.651

1 41 42

54.235 1.327

40.864

Groups 2 & 3 Overall

Sum of Squares

df

Mean Square

F

Between groups Within groups Total

5.8859 87.926 93.812

1 46 47

5.885 1.911

3.079

p .000***

p .000***

p 0.085

Source: Author.

Table 11.4 Result of linear regression analysis Regression Statistics Multiple R R Square Adjusted R Square Standard Error Observations

β0 β1 β2

0.5997 0.3596 0.3402 1.2375 69

Coefficients

Standard Error

t Stat

P-value

-0.4286 1.5440 2.2468

0.2700 0.3631 0.3775

-1.5871 4.2525 5.9512

0.1173 0.0001 0.0000

Source: Author.

The result can be found in Table 11.4. The analysis reflects a significant result p