Download Royal Academy of Music Aural Skills Symposium 7-4

Aural Skills Pedagogy: What is to be done?
Royal Academy of Music
7 April 2017
Admission Free
Timetable
9.15-9.45
9.45-10.15
10.15-10.45
10.45-11.15
11.15-11.30
11.30-12.00
12.00-12.30
12.30-1.45
1.45-2.15
2.15-2.45
2.45-3.15
3.15-3.30
3.30-4.30
4.30
Registration & welcome
1. Anna Wolf (Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien Hannover)
2. Kent Cleland (Baldwin Wallace University, Berea, Ohio)
3. Peter Lee (Rising Software, publishers of Auralia Ear Training and Musition
Music Theory software)
Coffee/Tea (free)
4. Chris Atkinson (Royal Academy of Music)
5. Gary S. Karpinski (University of Massachusetts Amherst)
Lunch (available from the canteen)
6. Jena Root (Dana School of Music, Youngstown State University, Ohio)
7. Robin Harrison
8. Simon Parkin (Royal Northern College of Music)
Coffee/Tea (free)
Roundtable ‘What is to be done’
End
If you would like to attend and haven’t already done so, please email Dr Chris Atkinson (Aural Skills
Coordinator - Royal Academy of Music): [email protected]
This address may also be used for any other enquiries about the event.
Abstracts
1. Anna Wolf (Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien Hannover)
Can we measure aural skills? Development and evidence from the Musical Ear Training
Assessment (META)
The testing of musicality has been in effect for 100 years. So far, most tests have focused on the
aspect of musical talent and applied the paradigm of detecting small discriminations and differences
in musical stimuli.
Less research has been conducted on the assessment of musical skills primarily influenced by an
individual’s practice. Up to the present day, there has been no comprehensive set of tests to
objectively measure musical skills, which has rendered it impossible to measure the long-term
development of musicians or to conduct studies on the characteristics and constituents of musical
skill.
The following study has, for the first time, developed an assessment instrument for analytical
hearing following a strict test theoretical validation, resulting in the Musical Ear Training Assessment
(META). By means of three pre-studies, a developmental study (n = 33) and a validation study
(n = 393), we verified a one-dimensional test model using sophisticated methods of Item Response
Theory identifying the best 53 items to measure a person’s aural skills. For better application, two
test versions with 10 and 25 items have been compiled (META-10 and META-25).
Aside from psychometric test development, it was possible to investigate a variety of moderator
variables assumed to influence the ear training skill. To our surprise, the participants’ main
instrument did not influence the META score (d = 0.10), nor did whether the participant had learnt
some method of solmisation (d = 0.11). However, the most-played genre (d = 0.20) and, unforeseen
by us, the participant’s gender (d = 0.23; males outperforming females) had significant impacts on
the test score (p < .05).
Future studies will investigate the mentioned effects, especially the hard-to-explain gender effect,
and focus on a comprehensive view of the musician’s ear, including notation-evoked sound imagery
to explore a general model of musical hearing mechanisms, their influences and educational
implications.
2. Kent Cleland (Baldwin Wallace University, Berea Ohio USA)
Techniques for Teaching the Reading of Atonal Melodies
One of the more challenging skills that students and teachers alike face in the aural skills classroom
is the reading of atonal melodies. While one may be tempted to omit this topic from the curriculum,
atonally structured music does appear in the literature, and it remains a musical texture from which
modern composers draw when creating certain sonic landscapes. As a result, it is important to teach
students how to effectively read, hear and understand sounds composed using this musical
language. The challenge arises because, unlike tonal literature, atonal music lacks intuitively
recognizable points of reference from which a student can re-orient himself or herself as melodic
material progresses. Furthermore, atonal musical languages are organized and structured in ways
that run counter to the ways that the human mind biologically, culturally and socially understands
music.
This presentation offers strategies for the teaching of atonal music reading, as well as a suggested
pacing of the introduction of these strategies within the context of a comprehensive aural skills
curriculum. These include 1) singing and improvising symmetrical scale structures, 2) identifying and
singing intervallic context, 3) identifying identical or closely located pitches across spans of melodic
material, and 4) identifying and utilizing rapidly shifting tonal centers in the music. The presentation
will conclude with a demonstration of how these techniques may be used to read an atonal melody.
3. Peter Lee (Rising Software – publishers of Auralia Ear Training and Musition Music Theory
software)
Successful integration of technology in aural courses - Auralia case study
Auralia is used in universities around the world to successfully assist instructors with student
assessment and practise, with a comprehensive set of administration tools and high quality content.
In the past, many instructors have found integration of technology into aural and theory courses
problematic; inadequate content, poor reporting, and often, a lack of flexibility.
Auralia allows instructors to create their own syllabus or curriculum, mapping content to suit their
course and student requirements. These syllabi can be used by students for practise, or, they can be
used in quizzes, tests and exams.
The included content library contains hundreds of audio recordings and notation excerpts, providing
students and instructors with an almost endless number of high quality questions.
Instructors can import their own audio and notation examples, allowing content to be mapped to
course curriculum. Any item created by an instructor can be included in aural and theory
worksheets, in combination with any of the existing Auralia and Musition drills.
This rich feature set ensures that instructors using Auralia do not have to change their way of
teaching, or stop using their preferred textbook; Auralia is easily be customised to suit individual
teaching requirements.
The Cloud edition of Auralia allows students and instructors to use the software both on and off
campus, with all results being stored in the Cloud. Any quizzes or assessment tasks that an
instructor assigns is automatically available to students, regardless of their location.
Within this session we will briefly demonstrate some of the features mentioned, as well as discuss
issues around integration - curriculum, student engagement and instructor usage.
4. Chris Atkinson (Aural Skills Coordinator, Royal Academy of Music)
Re-thinking the dictation exercise
We have maybe all at some point experienced the stress of the dictation test. An examiner at a
keyboard, or maybe just a machine, produces a string of (in my worst experience, apparently
random) notes and somehow we have to write it down. The music (if that is what it is) usually
proceeds more rapidly than we can notate and so we struggle somehow to recall what we’ve heard
after the event in order to put it onto paper. It can seem to be more of a test of memory than
musicianship and a disproportionately pressurised task: the stress involved seems to outweigh the
usefulness of the exercise. Dictation seems to have long been central to Aural Skills training but why
do we do it and does it need to be such a painful experience?
A central tenet for performers (but concerning Aural Skills) might be that they ideally perform a
piece of music which is retained as sound in their head – their musical inner ear – rather than by
quasi-mechanical (and hence unmusical) conversion of symbols on a score into muscle movements.
This provides a possible focus for Aural training as the acquisition of skills necessary to receive,
process, understand, organise, and fully apprehend, as conceived musical sound, the music we wish
to perform.
Developing from this, a dictation exercise should be a means to this end and not the end in itself.
This paper looks at ways in which dictation or related exercises might be better geared towards
promoting an understanding of the music heard, rather than merely proving a circus-act ability to
recall it amongst those who succeed (even if they too are utilising their musical understanding). A
number of exercises are presented suggesting ways in which this may be achieved, but also with
some thought given to reducing the sense of stress experienced by students performing a dictation
test. For example, exercises seek to promote recognition of how the music works, how it is
organised, structured and patterned, rather than focussing in a potentially exclusive way on note-bynote pitch or rhythmic content. All the exercises are based around tests used in real-life
conservatory exams.
5. Gary S. Karpinski (University of Massachusetts Amherst)
The Seeing Ear: Towards a Rationale for Dictation
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. Students strain
to focus on these fleeting pitches and rhythms, and 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. Nevertheless, this is a nearly ubiquitous pedagogical requirement. For example, in
the U.S. 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 2016, 99). 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 paper takes a close look at the many skills necessary for listeners to translate musical sounds
into notation, with an eye towards the practical applications those skills find in musicians’ daily lives.
Among those skills are focused attention, short-term musical memory, pulse inference, meter
perception, perception of rhythm proportions, contour perception, tonic inference, perception of
scale-degree function, plus a strong working knowledge of how to notate rhythms and pitches in
various clefs, keys, and meters. This paper explores diverse applications of these skills in various
career paths — those of performers, educators, composers, arrangers, editors, scholars, and others.
In addition, the paper examines skills that can be built on a solid foundation of those dictation-based
skills, such as error detection, memorization, phrasing and interpretation, analysis, and intonation. In
sum, this paper traces the many manifestations of what Benward (1978) called ‘the seeing ear’
throughout our musical lives.
6. Jena Root (Dana School of Music, Youngstown State University, Ohio)
Teaching Improvisation: Starting Points
Traditional course objectives for aural skills classes often include facility in singing prepared and atsight exercises, melodic and harmonic dictation, and pitch mapping through a solmization system.
Put more simply, we might say that the successful aural skills sequence develops a student’s musical
understanding through internal hearing or “aural imagination.”
Sight-singing requires the student to process musical notation through the eye, into the musical
understanding of the mind, and to prove that understanding by using the voice to generate sound.
Conversely, dictation begins with sound that enters through the ear into the mind; in this case, the
student proves the same internal musical understanding through transcription. What is typically
called “ear training” more accurately trains the ear, eye, and voice to convey the musical work of the
mind. If musical understanding is the goal, then sight-singing and dictation are the traditional
assessment tools.
A third tool, improvisation, can be used to reinforce this type of musical understanding and to help
the student synthesize the more traditional modes of aural learning. Improvising a melody over a
given chord progression is an eye-ear-voice-mind activity, which, even at a 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.
This session will provide sample assignments and pedagogical guidance for instructors who wish to
integrate improvisation into the aural skills curriculum. 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. Attendees are encouraged to participate in what will be an interactive workshop-style
presentation. Additionally, the presenter will discuss methods for tailoring exercises “on the spot” to
classes comprising students of diverse backgrounds: from those who embrace musical
experimentation, to those who might be more hesitant to leave the clear expectations of the
notated score. The session will conclude with a brief discussion of available web-based technologies
that enable students to practice and submit assignments online.
7. Robin Harrison
The Kodály Technique – recently accredited by UNESCO as an Intangible Cultural Heritage
Will it really do what it says on the tin?
“Because of its global use as an aural training method and its profound influence on musicians at all
stages of progression within their musical journey“
When we originally wanted to learn to play our instrument we did so often because we liked the
sound of that instrument and we wanted to make some fabulous noise on it! In other words, we
focused on sound. The Kodály technique equally starts with the sound as its objective and sets out
to train the inner ear, initially via the voice. It reverses traditional music tuition by moving from
sound to symbol (“producing to visually recording”) before moving from symbol to sound
(essentially “reproducing”). The method frequently starts by teaching games to cohorts of young
children that result in securing the sense of pulse and rounds to enhance the sense of pitch. Kodály
worked through a specific sequence of intervals from those that he believed are easiest to sing in
tune, to the more challenging.
Does the approach have any relevance to the advanced student or the modern world? The following
will be explored: Application of the pedagogy to training the musician to hear notation in their mind
before they perform on an instrument/voice/conduct. How transposition develops by ‘hearing
within the key’. Can aural and dictation skills can improve in such a way that improvisation becomes
spontaneous for all? Counterpoint skills evolve and so the ability to play one part whilst listening to
another (crucial to ensemble playing) is enhanced. Is it possible that the ability to hear counterpoint
in the mind assists score reading and thus conducting? Modern technology can allow much
musicianship development such that individual study is possible and thus personal development can
be rehearsed both through repertoire and has a core part of practice technique. Can apps and
software really play a part, or are they all a gimmick?
Conclusion – This technique develops the musician by training the mind. Therefore, however the
music is channelled (conducting, voice, instrument) it will reveal a deeper understanding, intimate
knowledge and therefore expression. This Kodály inspired approach moves beyond intervallic
training providing the most broad-spectrum skills base that leads to the entire musician flourishing.
8. Simon Parkin (Royal Northern College of Music)
Aural training within an integrated approach to musicianship training
When I was a student, aural skills were tested rather than taught. Since there appeared to be no
clear correlation between aural exam marks and level of performance or ‘musicality’, the aural
programme was re-examined, and it was decided that there needed to be more integration with
music-making. Theory skills are needed to process what is heard. Improvisation training in
ensembles develops listening and reaction, as well as practical knowledge of harmony and modes.
‘Aural’ skills are, therefore, clearly part of a wide range of musical abilities that need to be
coherently structured within an integrated unit.
My presentation will focus on the development of this integrated approach to musicianship training
at my conservatoire. It will mention the positives (increased motivation and good feedback from
students, a genuine link between musical ability and high marks) and some of the difficulties (finding
staff happy and able to teach all aspects of the programme, the mis-match between how quickly a
student can absorb information in theory, and put it into practice on their instrument).
Having taught first aural, then aural with practical musicianship, then musicianship, then theory and
musicianship, I can trace this evolution, and point the way forward towards an idealised approach
where all ‘academic’ musical subjects are coordinated and integrated.