Qualitative and quantitative data gathered from questionnaires, in-class surveys and tests, homework, and competence tests provided evidence of skill acquisition, primarily in loudness discrimination, timbral discrimination, tonal awareness, interval discrimination, meter discrimination, and descriptive ability. Actions were designed in response to critical reflection on emerging problems, evaluations of students’ views about the process, their moods and attitudes, and measurements of students’ achievements-with specific attention to eight EA-oriented skills and seven tonal and metric skills.
The action study was organized into four cycles of observation, critical reflection, and action, and focused on optimizing and autonomizing the skill acquisition process within the large, varied group. In the 2009/10 academic year, the researcher conducted an action study with his intact EA aural training class of 25 first year undergraduate students majoring in EaSt for the purposes of better understanding and improving the students’ aural skill acquisition process and of refining the teaching and learning sequence. Since 2005, this researcher has been developing and teaching EA aural training at a Canadian university in that was inspired by concepts from Auditory Scene Analysis (ASA) studies, primarily integration and segregation. This is a somewhat devastating gap in the teaching literature, in that its expansion would be overwhelmingly beneficial to music educators across all disciplines.Įlectroacoustic (EA) musicians require aural skills that exist beyond tonality and meter however, specialized ear training courses for EA music are rare in university and college music programs that offer EA studies (EaSt) in their curricula. However, there is significantly limited literature and/or methods related to practical application and integration of aural skills development and music theory knowledge into large ensemble rehearsal settings. These strategies also relate to a student’s ability to comprehend language, reading, and master critical reasoning in other subjects outside of music, and help in creating “independent learners.” There is a significant amount of previous literature affirming the importance of these skills and how they would benefit large ensemble rehearsals, along with significant previous literature regarding concepts for developing efficient and effective large ensemble rehearsal strategies. It is difficult to contradict the idea that being able to aurally analyze and understand musical concepts can greatly affect the possibilities for an ensemble’s mastery of certain concepts and musical literature.
Aural skills and sight-reading abilities directly affect proficiency in music performance and critical analysis. There is little disagreement among music educators on the importance of aural skills and basic theoretical knowledge to the development of performance skills. * Rhythmic, harmonic, and melodic drills accompany musical examples and solidify students' understanding of the position of every pitch within the tonal context * "Expanding Repertoires" sections include listening and dictation-type exercises that allow students to engage in listening beyond the traditional examples * "Contextual Listening" assignments are accompanied with streaming audio at various tempos and an online mixer for balancing musical parts on the companion website. In addition to a wide variety of partial and complete excerpts, Aural Skills in Context also provides a wealth of activities that range far beyond simply singing the melodies or writing them down from dictation, giving instructors and students the opportunity to engage in improvisation performance in multiple voices switching between melody and accompanying lines creating new melodies above a given bass line or even an additional "obbligato" voice above the given melody or between the outer voices. By featuring real examples from classical music to folk and jazz, and offering melodies with their related harmonies, the text parallels the full Music Theory curriculum and reinforces the relevance of aural skills to students' other classes, as well as their performance and listening interests.
Aural Skills in Context takes a comprehensive approach to sight singing, ear training, and rhythm practice.