Music help - aural skills - anyone know how?

[eeyore45]

Hi, my son is trying to be a music major at Univ of IL (he works hard, got a 3.4gpa first semester!! )

but he's thinking he will have to change majors because he doesnt think he can pass his aural skills class - he hired a tutor, and dropped the course, but kept up with the training, up to 3 hours a day, so he's completely frustrated, and ready to throw in the towel...

Anybody here have any words of wisdom, or know anything that will help? I googled and found perfetpitch.com site, that sounds too good to be true, and you know what that means? Buyer Beware!!

 

[Micca]

I'm no help, but I love music and considered majoring in it at one time. What exactly do "aural skills" consist of?

 

[The Mystery Machine]

Was does the tutor say?

 

[ducklite]

Mark Baxter. http://www.singers.com/instructional/markbaxter.html

He has coached two people I consider personal friends, both platinum selling singers. They say he's amazing.

Jaime Vendera www.thevoiceconnection.com

He has coached two other personal friends who are platinum selling artists, one claims his career was saved by the guy.

Anne

 

[Golf4food]

Ah, yes... aural theory... bane of music majors everywhere.

As a former music major myself (Bachelor of Church Music, 2003) I can say that aural theory was by far the least looked forward to class among the music students, even more so than "regular" theory because at least with the regular theory it is down in black & white in front of you. Aurual is just floating out there in the air and in your ears. (For those that don't know, Aural refers to sound, so Aural theory is where music student learn to recognize and repeat or write down pitches, intervals, chords, melodies, etc. just by listening to someone playing something.)

I honestly have to say that, to me, aural theory skills are mostly a matter of either you have it or you don't. Not that people who don't have a good ear can't be a good musician, it just makes certain things more difficult. But most of the people who have a good ear seem to have always had a good ear. For instance, you will notice early on that some children can carry a tune better than others because they can hear everything better musically speaking, and that ability usually carries on into adulthood. Some people are kind of in the middle and can improve with practice and training. Others just plain don't have a good ear for such things and couldn't carry a tune in a bucket, so to speak.

I wouldn't want to discourage your son, but aural theory is not easy for most music students, much less those who struggle with it. Of the dozens of music students I was around in my time in college I can say that there were only a very few of us who didn't worry about aural theory and stress out about it.

What is your son's instrument / voice?

As for ways to help, I am a visual learner and always tried to visualize the music as though it was a written sheet of music in front of me (which is, of course, the whole point of aural theory). The more you can recognize what sounds certain intervals and chords create, the easier it will be to visualize them in your head when hearing them. That means, the best way I found was to have music in front of me that I could look at, then listen to what it sounds like so that your brain can put 2 + 2 together that interval A sounds like this. Interval B sounds like that. Chord A sounds like this, etc. etc.

And I've never met anyone who "learned" perfect pitch. I have a good ear, but nowhere near perfect pitch. A very well trained person that already has a good ear can learn relative pitch or near-perfect pitch, but I have never met someone who at one point didn't have perfect pitch and then suddenly learned it. The handful of people I know with pefect pitch seem to have always had it whether they knew it or not, but it wasn't a learned skill.

 

[eeyore45]

Thank you Thank you Thank you!!

1. DS is a Bassoon major - wanting to be a teacher - maybe high school, or junior high!

2. He never did have a good "pitch" at all, never could sing even close to "on tune"...

I still believe, that if this is his path, he can do it!! I wouldnt have chosen this path and tried talking him out of it, many times!! But I dont want him to give up just because of one course - no matter how important the course is, there has to be a way, if he has the will!!! (and I do believe in the power of prayer!! Just show ds the way!! )

 

[Galahad]

And I've never met anyone who "learned" perfect pitch. I have a good ear, but nowhere near perfect pitch. A very well trained person that already has a good ear can learn relative pitch or near-perfect pitch, but I have never met someone who at one point didn't have perfect pitch and then suddenly learned it. The handful of people I know with pefect pitch seem to have always had it whether they knew it or not, but it wasn't a learned skill.

I have a music degree and I do know folks that have learned perfect pitch. But that's not what you need to pass this requirement, IMO. There isn't a trick but it isn't magic in that only some can do it. It really may take some folks LOTS of work and time to do it. There are a few good sets of ear training courses on CD you might search for. One was published by Rutgers University in the 1990's. Lots of ear training, Yes. Shortcuts, No - they will only slow him down, IMO.

Oh, and if he's still spending time listening to "popular" music - have him stop for a while - a good long while perhaps. It can only interfere with what he's trying to train his brain to do, IMO.

 

[Golf4food]

I would encourage him to practice the piano a lot then, which I'm sure he already has to do anyway, but to practice it specifically with the desire to learn the pitches, intervals, and chords, not just to practice with the intent of learning only enough piano to be able to pass his piano proficiency exam. None of us music majors were ever guilty of that!

I am a horn player, so as a fellow single note instrumentalist, I do think it is a little more difficult for a wind or brass player than it would be for a pianist or string player who regularly play multiple pitches at the same time. So practicing piano will help get the sounds in his ear while he is looking at music to associate with the sounds. I would say to just pick out a single interval or chord that is in the piano piece he is looking at and play just the single interval or chord instead of practicing playing an entire piece. Pick it apart and learn the sounds and colors. The major, minor, augmented, diminshed, etc. chords are pretty easy to recognize once you learn their color (major = happy, minor = sad, augmented = space movies, diminished = horror movies for example). But if he has never been great at carrying a tune, then the normal method for remembering intervals won't likely work very well: we are taught to recognize intervals by hearing them and matching them to a well known song that everyone knows - childhoon songs, pop tunes, musicals, etc. But if you aren't good at carrying a tune, what good does it do to try to match up an interval to a tune since you can't recognize the tune in the first place? It's the proverbial blind leading the blind. So he'll need to find a better way to recognize intervals that works for him, not for everyone else.

If he has always had a bad ear, I'm not overly confident that he'll be able to get "a lot" better, but certainly with practice he can improve. But I'm not sure to what level.

 

[My2Cinderellas]

I have a Bachelor of Music degree in bassoon performance and teacher certification (band). Aural training and sight singing were never anyone's favorite courses, but were degree requirements at my school. If that is the case for your son, then he will need to get through them one way or another. My aural classes were linked with the written theory classes, you took the same level of each at the same time. By not passing the aural, it may slow down his degree progress depending on whether the classes are offered each semester or just once a year.

I have known people to barely pass aural training and go on to be successful, but the skills learned in aural training really do help. I don't have concrete ideas on how to improve, but wanted to pass along best wishes to you and your son in getting through this challenge.

 

[eeyore45]

I am so happy you all have weighed in with your thoughts, and experiences, I'm copy pasting them to him, along with the reccommended websites - dh found the reutgers site!!

I appreciate it!!

 

[I Love Pluto]

I'm a music teacher also. I was going to suggest taking more piano lessons than usual. Chordal listening (as with the piano) is quite different than listening to a single note (as with the bassoon).

He can also make a game of interval training for himself. Some examples are
for a 4th - "Here Comes the Bride"/for a 5th "Blue Skies", etc, etc.

I hope this works for him. Music is a great career.

 

[jimmiej]

I earned a Music Degree from The University of Texas while doing VERY poorly in Aural Music. Interestingly enough, I'm pretty good at it now, after 23 years of teaching band and about 35 years of singing in the church choir.

 

[Bojo]

My aural skills improved immensely once I started playing the guitar. I was an instrumentalist with poor piano skills and OK vocal skills. Playing the guitar helped me to improve both vocal and aural skills (and the chicks liked it as well!).

Tell your son to keep trying until he finds the key.

 

[Tifffany]

I have no help to give, but I just wanted to say that I go to the University of Illinois as well, and my roommate is a Music Ed major and she took Aural Skills this past semester and I NEVER heard the end of it. Sounds incredibly difficult. Good luck to your son!

 

[Tinijocaro]

Another Music Educator here. Music theory (aural) came pretty easily to me during college. Here are some things that helped me.

I am a violinist, and whenever I had to look at a piece of music and sing it (sight-sing), I would "finger" along, sometimes on a pencil, sometimes just in the air. This helped me "hear" the pitches better. Now, after many years, I don't need to do this. I can pretty much sing what's on the page with very few errors. I don't think yo can do well with Aural theory if you don't practice- especially if it doesn't come naturally to you.

Your son needs to practice sight-singing and practice it a lot. If he can't sing in tune, then he needs to work with an electronic tuner so he can learn when he is in tune and when he is out- he will learn his tendencies this way.

Hearing chords is a bit more difficult, and again, he needs to sit at the piano and play chords, listen to the sound of them, and get a friend to work with him in this manner. Maybe someone else who is struggling, they could help each other.

Interval training is crucial- he needs to learn to recognize what each interval looks like on the page, and also what it sounds like. He should be able to sing any interval on command. This just takes practice. I used to go around when I was alone practicing intervals. I actually liked it!

He should not give up- he should get a tutor- lots of grad students needing work at the U of I. DH went there back in the 90's for doctoral work in music.

best of luck to your son- if he truly loves music, he'll get it, but it will take lots of work on his part.

 

[eeyore45]

Again, thanking everyone for the replies!!

I know he is taking a break - and maybe that's ok too!! I copied and pasted the thread for him - and made sure he knows we're behind him!!

He does have a tutor, he dropped the class, but kept the tutor, he's not taking it next semester, but is planning on staying with the tutor!!

Thanks again for the help!!

 

[Tony Toon]

bump - out of interest.

 

[Tony Toon]

ok - just trying to find time to post a considered reply without losing sight of the thread.

The bottom line is that there are those who never have a problem hearing difference in minute changes of pitch while others cannot carry even the simplest melody. Then there are those inbetween who with practice of intervals and chords will improve their sense of pitch and eventually will be able to repeat either vocally or on manuscript phrases of a reasonable length. Often this group will have been described as having a "good ear" before comparison with those with perfect or relative pitch.

Unfortunately those who can't sing a simple melody in tune though are unlikely to develop this core ability sufficiently to be comfortable in any situation where they are called upon to demonstrate an awareness of sounds (such as you would find in teaching listening skills within the classroom for instance). It must be extremely frustrating, even demoralising for such a teacher to discover that there might be several students in the class who hear and recognise so much more than they themselves are capable of.

If your son is determined to make a career in music then I would endorse those who recommend practicing chords at the piano. My music teacher wife (head of a large high school performing arts faculty in Glasgow) also tells me that student guitarists (even those with not so good ears) are interesting in that they do recognise various forms of chords quite readily. On the other hand, I don't have a problem with pop music at all. It can equally be used for recognition of melody, chord sequence, bass line movement etc.

Tony

currently lecturer and senior low brass tutor at a conservatoire here in the UK.