Ear Training Courses

In this introductory course to ear training, students will develop musical memory, inner hearing, rhythmic and melodic sight reading, and basic dictation skills. Students’ musical perception and performance will become more accurate, and they will develop fluency in translating sound into notation and notation into sound. Several ear training techniques will be used, including folkloric melodies, rote-song method, moveable-do solfege, conducting, counting systems, and dictation techniques. The musicianship skills that students will acquire are essential for composition, arranging, production, learning new repertoire and bandleading, improvisation and musical interaction in performance, and improved music perception in listening. Students who complete this course will have the tools to be prepared to take ET-111 and the subsequent Core Ear Training classes.

Ear Training 2 – Entering is an advanced placement course that covers the content of Ear Training 1 and Ear Training 2 in one semester. Upon successful completion of the course with a passing grade, students receive credit for both Ear Training 1 and Ear Training 2. Students develop basic ear training skills through performance and dictation; learn to read, perform, recognize, and notate melodies, intervals, harmony, and solfège in major and minor keys; and study rhythms, meters, conducting patterns, and rhythmic notation.

Development of ear training skills through performance and dictation. Study of melodies, intervals, harmony, and solfege in Lydian, Mixolydian, Dorian, and Phrygian modes, mixed modes, and harmonic and melodic minor. Continued study of rhythms, meters, conducting patterns, and notation.

Continuation of ET-211. Modal singing and dictation studies. Interval studies, two- and three-part dictation. Basic atonal melodic studies.

Ear Training 3 for Advanced Placed Entering Students covers the content of Ear Training 1, Ear Training 2, and Ear Training 3 in one semester. On successful completion of the course with a passing grade, you will receive credit for Ear Training 1, 2, and 3. Students develop ear training skills through performance and dictation; learn to read, perform, recognize, and notate melodies, intervals, harmony, and solfège in major and minor keys, including melodic and harmonic minor, and in the Lydian, Mixolydian, Dorian, and Phrygian modes, and mixed modes; and study rhythms, meters, conducting patterns, and rhythmic notation.

Ear Training 4 for Advanced Placed Entering Students is an accelerated course that covers the content of Ear Training 1, 2, 3, and 4 in one semester. On successful completion of the course with a passing grade, you will receive credit for all four courses. Students will pursue advanced study of ear training skills through performance and recognition activities. The moveable-do solfege system will be introduced and applied to the study of major, minor, and modal music. Chromatic functions and syllables are presented through core melodic motives, forming the basis of melodic reading, melodic dictation. Students learn to recognize non-diatonic harmonic progressions using tensions, secondary and substitute dominants, and modulation. Students learn advanced rhythmic concepts through performance and transcription, using conducting patterns and common music notation.

This course focuses on a variety of rhythmic patterns, percussive ostinatos, and melodic repertoire from around the world, with an emphasis on African, Caribbean, and South American traditional and popular music, as well as South Indian classical, Balkan, and Middle Eastern genres. In-class activity includes vocalization and rhythmic externalization exercises based on particular musical examples, general listening and aural analysis, and transcription of selected elements of a musical texture. Students examine music from the perspective of musical cognition, including the potential impact of cultural background on the formation of one's mental representation and the analysis of ambiguous musical structures. Homework assignments entail full or partial transcriptions of rhythmic and melodic elements, as well as exercises involving melodic solfege and rhythmic recitation designed to enhance a student's internal sense of time, pitch, and physical independence through singing or speaking of melody and rhythm in the context of its underlying essential metrical structure.

This course will work within the limited scope of progressions including simple root position diatonic harmony, inversions, secondary and extended dominants, II-V patterns, and passing diminished chords. Chord voicings containing one tension will also be covered. This course will include several activiites that address application to real music situations.