Ear Training Research Articles

Developing and Implementing a Repertoire-Specific Approach to Ear Training

Developing and Implementing a Repertoire-Specific Approach to Ear Training

Reflection in the Elementary Music Ear Training

This article discusses an issue, concerning musical theory and in particular music pedagogy. As working, the terms reflection and reflection activity were used and their positive practical application was indicated. This, of course, leads to didactics. It was proposed as an attempt for psychological practical and applied analysis of a specific education practice – solfegging with piano self-accompaniment. The author of this article is motivated by the concept of pointing new aspects to the work forms and methods for the music ear education in the solfege training.

Film as a Rhetorical Device for Demonstrating the Relevance of Ear Training to Careers in Music

Film as a Rhetorical Device for Demonstrating the Relevance of Ear Training to Careers in Music

Film as a Vehicle for Demonstrating the Relevance of Ear Training to Careers in Music

Film as a Vehicle for Demonstrating the Relevance of Ear Training to Careers in Music

The evaluation of synchronous distance ear training compared to the traditional ear training

It is clearly seen that distance education, spreading all over the world recently, is increasingly used in music education process. That the method brings great flexibility to the teaching-learning process destroys the limits depending on time and space and it can easily reach wide audiences and so on outstanding features are the main factors behind its choice. The applicability of this important method for the Ear Training course was seen to be a current topic worth investigating in the present study. For this reason, it was aimed to determine the applicability of the simultaneous distance education method in the context of Ear Training course. The experimental method (pre-test-post-test) was preferred and an experimental group consisting of 14 students and a control group consisting of 14 students were formed and the groups’ ability to hear multi-voice (interval and chord) and to write dictation (rhythm and melody) was compared. The data achieved in the experimental setting was interpreted with the independent t test according to the p<.05 level and as a result of the research, it was stated that there was no significant difference between experimental group students who had synchronous distance Ear Training lessons and control group students who had traditional Ear Training lessons. In addition, it was observed that the experimental group students and control group students could easily communicate with each other and that the experimental group students had a great motivation for the lesson. The research results were discussed with a variety of scientific research results and various proposals were made. The proposals made according to the research results were about the importance of the method’s applicability in the context of different courses and its contribution to the music teacher training process in Turkey. Key words: Synchronous distance Ear Training, Traditional Ear Training, Music Education.

Jazz Harmony for Kids: The Capitol Records Children's Albums of Billy May, 1946–54

This article tells the never-before-told story of the jazz “ear training” of the Baby Boomer generation. Millions of American children of the 1940s and 50s received a thorough education in modern jazz harmony from an unlikely source: popular children's records! It was “The Golden Age of Kiddie Records,” and the best-selling composer in the industry was jazz composer Billy May.With annotated musical examples drawn from the original manuscript scores and scripts in the BYU Capitol Records Manuscript Collection, this article shows how Billy May used the hallmark techniques of modern jazz harmony to tell captivating stories to children: Bugs Bunny will introduce us to quartal harmony (including “So What” voicings); Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck will introduce altered chords, upper-structure triads, quintal harmony, extensions beyond the 13th, and even octatonic harmony; and Robin Hood will join with other children's icons to introduce tri-tone substitutions, polytonality, modulation to distant key centers and more.Finally, this article will show how Billy May was composing creatively with the advanced harmonic concept that has come to be known as “Coltrane Changes,” and even composed a large portion of both the melody and harmony that came to be known as “Giant Steps,” in the 1940s—more than a dozen years before Coltrane caused a “harmonic revolution” in jazz by composing these exact same notes and chords. It was childhood “ear training” like no other. These discoveries will challenge our beliefs and update our knowledge about the historical development of jazz harmony.

Effects of ear training on lectures of audio information processing for nontechnical undergraduates

Effects of ear training on lectures of audio information processing for nontechnical undergraduates

The Comparison of Methods Used for Oud Education in Turkish Music

Compering of Oud Methods in Oud Instrument's Education of Turkish Music In Turkish music has both voice and instrumental basis, but specifications of instrumental basis has different significancies. In this regard, as being used an instrument of traditional Turkish Music, Oud is an important role in terms of performing. It is important that interplaying between Oud performances in Turkish music and other musical genres which is coming from centuries. People who wanted to know playing Oud with effects of different cultures and geographies made up new methodologies. Here, musical abilities such as ear training and finger tecniques has primary role at instrumental performance. In additional, teacher and methods that are make of used are great effect on learning Oud performance. Nowadays, methods are being used for Oud education at institutes such as conservatories and music divisions. In 1910, first Oud method was written by Udi Hoca Ali Salahi Bey in the end of the Ottoman era. After that, method writing custom was spread. The custom are kept by Şerif Muhiddin Targan, Kadri Şençalar, Cinuçen Tanrıkorur, Mutlu Torun, Onur Akdoğu ve Gülçin Yahya Kaçar. In all of this methods; preferences of the writer’ musical abilites, knowledge, performing specifications/choices can be seen. In this paper, how current Oud methods are useful and how methods increase performing specifications for students will be comparatively gone over.

Toward the development of objective difficulty measure in technical ear training tasks

Technical Ear Training is a method to improve the ability to focus on a specific sound attribute. It is also used to be able to communicate using the common language used in the industry such as Hz and dB. Although it is essential to gradually harden the task difficulty for successful technical ear training, the objective measure of the difficulty is still not known. Therefore, the tasks are decided by the teacher's own ears and experiences, leading to inefficiency when students want to train themselves in the teacher's absence. As the first step towards understanding this tacit ability of knowing the task difficulty, the authors investigated the correlation between the students' subjective ratings of the task difficulty and the physical measures calculated from the sound materials used in the training. A linear regression model (R-squared=0.629) which predicts the subjective task difficulty from residual of the linear fit through the spectra of the sound material was created. This model may provide a firm step towards the goal of developing objective difficulty measure in technical ear training.

Technical ear training: Tools and practical methods

Broadly defined, technical ear training seeks to make associations between aural impressions of sound quality and quantifiable characteristics of audio signal processing and acoustical measurements. Technical ear training typically focuses on attributes of sound such as spectral balance (e.g., filtering and parametric equalization); dynamic range of musical signals (including artifacts produced by dynamics processing); reverberation, delay, and early reflections (from real acoustic spaces or generated artificially); and spatial extent (width and depth). These elements of recorded sound can be broken down into graduated levels of audibility for the development of critical listening skills. With repeated and regular practice of carefully chosen exercises, listeners can gain increased sensitivity to subtle details of sound, as well as efficiency and accuracy in identifying specific parameters of signal processing by ear. With applications primarily in sound recording and production, technical ear training is also highly relevant to the evaluation of acoustical spaces as a complement to objective measurements. This presentation will review a selection of software modules developed by the author to teach critical listening skills to undergraduate students. The author will also discuss some practical methods and exercises used for teaching technical ear training and critical listening.

Perceptual Aspects of Tuning in a Balinese Gamelan Angklung for North American Students

A detailed analysis of the spectra and frequencies of tones produced on metallophones in a Balinese orchestra clarifies a number of issues that arise in studying timbre and tuning. Among these are the relative importance of accuracy and completeness of measurements, the relevance of acoustical description to musical perception and style, the appropriateness of statistical generalizations and numerical formulations to musical practice and theory, and the possibility of bi-musical responses to divergent tuning systems. Byproducts of the investigation include a proposed basis for inter-cultural ear training and a novel formulation of the unison, octave, and other intervals (including wide and narrow variants), as well as traditional scales and interval collections that have existed side-by-side in widely varying forms within individual cultures.

Inter-subject differences in personalized technical ear training and the influence of an individually optimized training sequence

Technical ear training aims to improve the listening of sound engineers so they can skillfully modify and edit the structure of sound. Despite recent increasing interest in listening ability and subjective evaluation in the field of audio- and acoustic-related fields and the subsequent appearance of various technical ear-training methods, the subject of how to provide efficient training for a self-trainee has not yet been studied. This paper investigated trainees' performances and showed that an (inherent or learned) ability to correctly describe spectral differences using the terms of a parametric equalizer (center frequency, Q, and gain) was different for each person. To cope with such individual differences in spectral identification, the authors proposed a novel method that adaptively controls the training task based on a trainee's prior performances. In detail, the method estimates the weakness of the trainee, and generates a training routine that focuses on that weakness. Subsequently, we tried to determine whether the proposed method—adaptive feedback—helps self-learners improve their performance in technical listening that involves identifying spectral differences. The results showed that the proposed method could assist trainees in improving their ability to identify differences more effectively than the counterpart group. Together with other features required for effective self- training, this adaptive feedback would assist a trainee in acquisition of timbre-identification ability.

EXPERIENCIA DEL ENTRENAMIENTO MUSICAL EN UNA UNIVERSIDAD PARTICULAR DE LIMA

El objetivo de la Revolución del Entrenamiento Musical es aprovechar las modernas herramientas tecnológicas para la educación, aplicándolas al entrenamiento auditivo, dentro de un programa de formación musical profesional. En este trabajo, se presentará la experiencia de transformación del curso presencial de Nivelación en Lectura y Entrenamiento Auditivo, de un pregrado universitario de Música, a la modalidad b-learning. La modalidad b-learning de este curso se estableció sobre un Aula Virtual en una plataforma Moodle. El trabajo en línea, dentro de esta Aula Virtual, incluyó foros de comunicación, foros académicos, recursos autoinstructivos de entrenamiento auditivo y tareas académicas. La estrategia del trabajo online del curso consideró varios aspectos: 1) Estructura del Aula Virtual; 2) Comunicación dentro del Aula Virtual; 3) Administración del Aula Virtual; 4) Creación y organización de contenidos; 5) Planteamiento de una metodología de estudio en línea; 6) Diseño y puesta en marcha de las actividades en línea; 7) Calificación de las actividades realizadas en línea; 8) Evaluación de todo el proceso. Los resultados obligaron a replantear los contenidos del mismo curso en los niveles siguientes debido a los importantes avances alcanzados.

Clinical ear, nose and throat training as a percentage of the undergraduate medical curriculum

Clinical ear, nose and throat training as a percentage of the undergraduate medical curriculum

Singing in the key of life: A study on effects of musical ear training after cochlear implantation.

This study investigated the effect of a 6-month one-to-one musical ear-training program on the perception of music, speech, and emotional prosody of deaf patients receiving a cochlear implant (CI). Eighteen patients who recently underwent cochlear implantation were assigned to either a musical ear-training group or a control group. The participants in the music group significantly improved in their overall music perception compared with the control group. In particular, their discrimination of timbre, melodic contour, and rhythm improved. Both groups significantly improved in their speech perception; thus, this effect cannot be specifically ascribed to music training. In contrast to the control group, the music group showed an earlier onset of progress in recognition of emotional prosody, whereas end-point performances were comparable. All participants completed the program and showed great enthusiasm for the musical ear training, particularly singing-related activities. If implemented as part of aural/oral rehabilitation therapy, the proposed musical ear-training program could form a valuable complementary method of auditory rehabilitation, and, in the long term, contribute to an improved general quality of life in CI users.Keywords: cochlear implants, music perception, music enjoyment, music training, music testingSupplemental materials: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0031140.suppA cochlear implant (CI) is a neural prosthesis that helps deaf people to hear. The implant operates by an external signal processor, which breaks up sound into different frequencies, converts these into electrical signals, and transmits them to an internal receiver through a radio-frequency link. The receiver passes the stimuli onto an implanted electrode array, which stimulates remaining auditory nerve fibers in the cochlea (Loizou, 1999). The auditory nerve is hereby activated, allowing sound signals to reach the brain's auditory system. The clinical impact of the evolution of CIs has been nothing less than extraordinary. With current implant technology and up-to-date sound-processing strategies, the average CI listener recognizes 80% of sentences and approximately 55% of monosyllabic words, in quiet listening conditions, after 12 months of practice with a unilateral CI; some users even achieve the capability of talking on the phone (Friesen, Shannon, Baskent, & Wang, 2001; Wilson & Dorman, 2007). The variability in implant outcome, however, is large, with duration of hearing loss (HL) and residual hearing as important predictors of the result (Cosetti & Waltzman, 2012; Lee et al., 2007; Summerfield & Marshall, 1995; Waltzman, Fisher, Niparko, & Cohen, 1995). With the considerable improvements made in CI technology with regard to speech perception, it is natural that many existing CI users express hopes of being able to enjoy music. Moreover, because music has played an essential role in many of these patients' cultural and social life before deafness, CI candidates' hope of retrieving music enjoyment is an important reason for choosing this treatment (Gfeller et al., 2000).For the majority of CI users, however, the music experience is disappointing. Surveys have shown that a majority of adult CI recipients' self-reported levels of music listening and enjoyment are significantly lower after than before implantation (Gfeller et al., 2000; Lassaletta et al., 2007; Looi & She, 2010; Mirza, Douglas, Lindsey, Hildreth, & Hawthorne, 2003). This reduced music appreciation is due to a general difficulty with perceiving complex acoustic stimuli, which also includes speech perception in conditions involving background noise or competing talkers. Be- cause of the limited number of available electrodes and the mis- match between the pulse-rate of the electrical impulses and the sound input frequency coupled with the dominance of temporal processing for low-frequency sound, the CI signal is unable to adequately code the spectrum of sound needed to perceive musical pitch and timbre. …

The Use of Audio Interpretive Materials in the Development of Tuneful Ear

The report is devoted to the one of the contemporary ways in the development of tuneful ear related to intensive use of varied audio interpretive materials during musical classes. Sound of “Live music” imparts new sense to such conventional forms of ear training as rhythm dictation, musical dictation, harmonic analysis. It makes possible to train timbral ear, to improve attention, reaction speed, memory as well as noticeably widens musical horizon of pupils. This method has been widely used in France since the end of the 20th century therefore the article looks closely into one of the French encased set. Analysis of French edition proves that this experience should be popularized amidst Latvian music teachers too and analogical edition can be created on the basis of Latvian music.

Importance of Scales in Piano Education in Turkey

Abstract Practicing scales has important place in piano education to improve students’ technique and dexterity, also improve timing and help the ear training. This research is qualitative research was made by interviewing six piano teachers who is working in Piano Education Departments in Turkey with semi-structured questions. It was indentify how has given the scales education in these schools. According to findings it shows that there is not any standardization in the curriculums of Music Educations Department Piano Education in Turkey and also there is same lacks as in same universities don’t play all scales like triple scales and students don’t practice convenient. Piano teachers gave advises to practice the scales more efficient like start from the major keys by separate the hands and gradually use metronome, practice regularly. The aim of this study is to improve the scale education. It is important because practicing scales is starting at the beginning of piano education and even you get profession practicing scales never finish.

SIG 1 Perspectives Vol. 19, No. 1, January 2012

SIG 1 Perspectives Vol. 19, No. 1, January 2012

Supplemental Material for Singing in the Key of Life: A Study on Effects of Musical Ear Training After Cochlear Implantation

Supplemental Material for Singing in the Key of Life: A Study on Effects of Musical Ear Training After Cochlear Implantation

Informal auditory therapy: What's in the toy box?

Figure: © iStockphoto.com/MagdalenaKucovaParents of patients often ask me, “Can you help him listen?” But recently I was asked this by a friend who is a parent of a boisterous 4-year-old. My friend had concerns about her son's hearing, but an audiologic assessment revealed normal peripheral activity. The mother, an informed, educated parent who is also an elementary school teacher, was aware of her son's predisposition to otitis media and the family history of dyslexia and ADHD. Her next few questions were not unexpected: “Does he have auditory processing problems?” “What can you do to help him?” “What can I do to help?” It is important to know the difference between hearing and listening. Hearing is the reception of an acoustic event. Listening is an active process involving the reception and utilization of acoustic information, and it incorporates auditory and language processing skills. Unfortunately, a diagnostic assessment for (central) auditory processing disorder, (C)APD, at an early age is not possible. Diagnostic assessment is usually not performed until a child is at least 7, and although some screening tests may be administered as early as 5, results should be interpreted with caution. Audiologists can implement early auditory training to improve listening comprehension and communication processing for children with predisposing risk factors for (C)APD. This includes localization and lateralization, sequencing of sounds, phoneme/syllable discrimination, auditory memory, and temporal processing. EDUTAINMENT Audiologists can use routine activities as part of auditory training and enrichment activities to engage a young child at risk for (C)APD. Reading to children is important; a child who can listen to a story and answer questions about it or retell the story is practicing active listening and improving his listening skills. Advise the reader to purposefully make errors, such as omitting pages or calling a character by the wrong name. If the child notices the error or can make appropriate corrections, he is actively listening. Family game night might be a clever marketing strategy from a board game company, but it can also be auditory training time. Musiek previously reported that the Simon Game can be used in informal temporal processing training.1 Ferre also provided a list of board games and activities targeting specific auditory processing skills that we have expanded to include the appropriate age for each game.2 (See Table 1.)Table 1: List of age-appropriate board games and activities targeting specific auditory processing skills.In 1983, the term edutainment (education through entertainment) was used to describe a package of software games that hold the attention of learners by engagement and interaction. Video games designed for educational purposes promote incidental learning because they are often built around rule-based strategies, logic, adaptability, and motivation, and they appeal to young children and their parents. Kuster also developed a list of free online listening activities useful for formal and informal auditory training.3 Dowell, Milligan, and Hurley also reported on video games that enhance auditory processing skills.4 (See Table 2.) As new games are introduced, other games are taken off the market. Clinicians should continually update their list of materials to be used in informal therapy.Table 2: Review of age-appropriate video games that enhance auditory processing.MUSICAL TRAINING Kraus and Chandrasekaran recently reviewed the benefits of formal music training as an enjoyable auditory training exercise.5 Music and speech share many of the same acoustical properties, such as pitch, timing, and timbre, to convey meaning. Musicians are trained to extract meaning from sound, and numerous anatomical and behavioral investigations have emphasized the superiority of a musician's brain. Musicians have an exceptional ability to hear in background noise, and are better able to discriminate timbre and pitch. Formal music training also aids cognitive skills; working memory and attention are important to extract meaning from sound. These same skills are needed for language processing. The Suzuki method is a popular musical training method for young children that involves listening to musical recordings daily. This ear training emphasizes the prosodic qualities—intonation, timing, and tone—and consists of playing music by ear first, with emphasis on tonality. Reading musical notation is taught at a later time, just as the developing child learns to speak and before reading skills develop. Hearing and listening are a child's first exposure to linguistic communication, and are essential for language acquisition and cognitive development. It is estimated that children spend approximately 50 percent of classroom time hearing or listening to instructions from their teacher, and approximately 45 percent of their time outside school hours is spent listening.6,7 Children with good listening skills are more successful in school, and good listening and auditory processing skills can be improved with informal training using everyday tools.