Aural Skills Training

[Professor1]

Have any of you had formal aural skills training? It includes sight-singing, melodic dictation, chord progression identification, and other stuff like that.

Right now, I'm learning a method that is totally different than what I had been taught before. Many instructors begin by teaching what intervals are, and how to identify them because it's like the beginning of some song.

My current instructor thinks that is wrong, and I tend to agree with him. What we are doing now is a method based on pitch relationships. This includes singing melodies based on the key signature...which will always produce the correct solfege syllables. A particularly challenging, and helpful exercise is to sing chord progressions. We hear chords from the top down, so why sing them from the bottom up? The technique is to sing them top down as arpegios and repeat the top note before proceeding to the next chord.

[dkaplowitz]

That's an interesting approach, Professor. So you're saying to sing chord progressions as descending arpeggios? Are you just using block 1,3,5,7 inversions? You mentioned solfege, is that part of it?

I've been struggling through a commercial relative ear training product (that I'm sure all of you have seen in magazines) that is actually quite good (and extremely thorough). He doesn't mention learning the intervals based on popular melodies, but I still can't help but do that with some of them (fantasy island for major 7th, a joe pass walking bass line I remember for perfect 4ths, "off we go into the wild blue yonder" for minor 3rds, etc. ). The course I'm refering to trains you so well, and you have to pass tests that go by so fast there's no way for you to think in any logical way about the sounds/intervals...you have to know them cold. So you don't have time to think about the song. I think that's a great way to train your ear, but it takes tons and tons of time singing while playing the notes and reciting the names of the notes.

Anyway, I'm curious to learn more about the method you mentioned.

Cheers,

Dave

[Professor1]

Yes, sing I-IV-V-I like below. It's a 4 x 8th note arpeggio of a block chord where the first note is repeated at the end, and uses solfege syllables ( do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-ti-do ) for an ascending major scale;

sol-me-do-sol (I) - like g-e-c-g
la-fa-do-la (IV)
ti-sol-re-ti (V)
do-sol-mi-do (I)

The top note moves from 5 up to 1.

Secondary dominants and 7th chords are sung as before, but with the second 8th as 2 16ths. With the appropriately altered syllables and again, repeating the first note at the end before continuing on.

sol-mi-do-so (I)
la-fa-do-la (IV)
la-fi-re-la (V/V)
ti-sol-re-ti (V)
do-sol-mi-do (I)
te-sol-mi-do-te (V7/IV)
la-fa-do-la (IV)
la-sol-mi-do-la (vi7)
sol-re-ti-sol (V)
fi-re-do-la-fi (V7/V)
sol-re-ti-sol (V)
mi-do-sol-mi (I) -leap down from sol to mi
mi-do-te-sol-mi (V7/IV)
fa-do-la-fa (IV)
la-fa-re-do-la (ii7) -leap up from fa to la
do-la-fi-re-do (V7/V) -leap up to do
do-sol-mi-do (I)
ti-sol-fa-re-ti (V7)
do-sol-mi-do (I)

Write it out on a staff and memorize it. This is only one of many exercises.

Tonal indexing involves singing a few lines of black noteheads without stems, in any key -- there are only 7. (for this purpose)

No matter what the key signature, the last flat is fa, the last sharp is ti. G major looks just like E minor, but E minor starts on la. E flat looks just like E - all the syllables are on the same lines, do and sol are in the same places, and those are the ones you want to always be able to find. Just use the appropriate reference pitch.

C major, A minor, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, and Mixolydian all use the exact same syllables. Dorian starts on re, phrygian starts mi, etc. Transposed modes use the same syllables appropriate for the key signature.

I find this is a difficult (at first) but very helpful method. It also helps your hearing of harmonies and modulations. It uses a "moveable do" system where a major tonic is always do. This has the advantage of never changing the syllables for the harmonic singing -- sol-ti-re-fa -- in whatever order, are always a version of V7. do-la-fa is always IV. Minor keys are different, they start on la, therefore la-fa-do is VI, not IV.

[Professor1]

Uhh...Well, No response...I hope that wasn't too heavy for you guys.

[dkaplowitz]

Thanks for spelling it out, professor. That's a lot to absorb. I'm personally not crazy about solfege and am not really interested in learning it, but I think applying the above method of singing arpeggios is extremely helpful to ear training regardless of how you spell the notes out with your mouth.

[bluerag]

This is very interesting. Great info.

I'm going through Chris Standring's Play What You Hear. He gives the usual exercises for most part.


I think another cool method is to play a bit with a slide. Things like playing arpeggios on one string without looking and then into the next chord.

[Professor]

dkaplowitz said:

I'm personally not crazy about solfege and am not really interested in learning it, but I think applying the above method of singing arpeggios is extremely helpful to ear training regardless of how you spell the notes out with your mouth.

I know solfege can be a pain, but when you know that sol-fa-re-ti is always V7, then there's a good deal of usefulness to be had. (in a major key, otherwise, V7 will be mi-re-ti-si.)

NB - in a minor key - the dominant chord is a major chord, but the dominant key is still minor. For examples see Beethoven's minor piano sonatas. You do have the scores, don't you?

[dkaplowitz]

prof said:

You do have the scores, don't you?

Check your email much?

[Professor]

I mean't the beethoven scores. As far as the Zappa stuff goes, I haven't downloaded them yet, because it's gonna take over 3 hours. I'll have to do it late at night or something. Probably later tonight.

[dkaplowitz]

prof said:

I mean't the beethoven scores. As far as the Zappa stuff goes, I haven't downloaded them yet, because it's gonna take over 3 hours. I'll have to do it late at night or something. Probably later tonight.

O I didn't get you about the Beethoven scores. No I don't have them. Most of the classical stuff I have is Bach, and mostly for 'Cello, lute/guitar, or violin.

Sorry the file's so big. Are you on dialup? If you are and don't mind waiting, then I can parse it down some. There's some redundancy there that can be omited. Let me know. Either way, I think you'll find it worth the download time.

[Professor]

dklapowitz,
I sent you a PM.

[Professor]

OK, I was asked for a clarification of this technique. Re-read the posts explaining the technique. The premise is that we hear chords from the top down. So, we sing them that way. They are arpeggiated in eighth notes from the top down, and repeating the first note. Thus, a tonic chord with the 5th scale degree in the soprano position would be Sol-Mi-Do-Sol.

A seventh chord would be the same, except the second eighth note becomes a pair of sixteenths, then V7 with the 5th scale degree in the soprano becomes Sol-Fa-Re-Ti-Sol. The syllables are a "moveable Do" system, where Do is tonic in a major key. The syllables for the diatonic chords are always the same no matter what the (major) key is.

Minor keys have their own syllable/chord relationships based on La being the minor tonic. This way, the syllables for C major and A minor are the very same, one merely starts at a different place, La. However, the important point is that the intervalic relationships between the syllables always remains the same. Therefore, we dispense entirely with trying to figure out what the exact specific interval is, we simply sing the correct relationship via the appropriate syllables.

Now, this system also accomodates modal and pentatonic scales. In a modal piece, one merely sings the C major syllables if there is no key signature, starting and ending on the correct syllables. Remember, there is NOTHING that says Do HAS TO BE tonic. Nothing at all. So, Dorian starts and ends on Re (D). Phrygian starts and ends on Mi, etc.

At this point, it is important to note that when looking at non-modern, or even non-western music, the half steps always fall only between Mi and Fa, and Ti and Do, regardless of key or mode. Additionally, keep in mind that the minor third falls between La and Do, Re and Fa, and Mi and Sol.

For transposed modes, one would sing the music according to the key signature, which is often not what we would expect it to be. Therefore, the following rules must be observed:
1.) The last flat is Fa.
2.) The last sharp is Ti.

Finally, there are only 7 visually distinguishable keys.

C major, A minor, and the modes all look like C major, and are sung with the same sylables, with C being Do.

Bb major, B major and G minor all look the same...the middle line of the treble clef is Do.

E major, Eb major, and C minor all look alike, the bottom line is Do.

Etc. Since we don't stare at the key signature, we find the appropriate line or spaces for Do and Sol, and we're off and running.

It just occured to me that I may have left out, though it seems to be obvious, that we would sing the appropriate pitches that go with the syllables. This way, we connect what we see, hear, sing, and know intellectually into the single contextual internalized language of music.