why can't you hear that??????
think about this for a moment...
in college which students have usually have the best 'ears'?
i bet your thinking about the jazz musicians. ok now think a second about the classes these students take; do they spend hours on interval drill or taking dictation? no. i bet if you followed your favorite jazz musician around you could probably watch them practice transcribing his/her favorite solos.
ok that makes sense, well what about the other musicians who have good ears and are not part of the jazz lifestyle? so how did they develop good ears?
drugs? diet? are people just born with good ears?
well if you look closely at these other students you will probably find one of three patterns;
1. they grew up in a musical household where everybody plays and sings.
2. they either had early private instruction and have been playing as well singing since a young age.
3. they had a good elementary (and maybe earlier) musical experience and were probably exposed to group instruction by the kodaly, suzuki, orff or gordon methods of teaching.
its as simple as that.
musicians who have good ears do a lot singing and playing by ear. if jazz musicians and small children don't develop musicianship skills by interval drill and dictation then why would we expect college students to do the same. traditional college musicianship training revolves around evaluation. teacher plays something (melody, interval, chord, rhythmic pattern...) and students write it down. this is easy for the teacher to organize and its easy to sequence. but the inherent problem is that if the students have not internalized this information (edwin gordon calls this audiation) then they have no chance of writing it down. (isn't education supposed to be about making the complex simple, not the simple complex?)
for me the solution is simple. if you want kids to be able to take dictation of intervals, then they should be able to sing them. if you want them to id chords, why not sing those also. why not work the kids silly singing and playing everything we used to assess through dictation. i know a student will learn to id tonic and dominant chords much faster by solfeging them and playing them in all the keys. so much, much faster then putting them on a computer and drilling them till their ears bleed. its not too late for them, they are just learning it backwards, you have to have internalized the "language" before being asked to identify it. musicianship is about learning this 'language', singing and playing patterns by ear. adding solfege is important because it gives meaning about how the music functions.
its easy now. no more dictation, no more interval drill and no more chord i.d.
only
singing, playing by ear, and transcription. anybody can have good ears, its not that hard.
in college which students have usually have the best 'ears'?
i bet your thinking about the jazz musicians. ok now think a second about the classes these students take; do they spend hours on interval drill or taking dictation? no. i bet if you followed your favorite jazz musician around you could probably watch them practice transcribing his/her favorite solos.
ok that makes sense, well what about the other musicians who have good ears and are not part of the jazz lifestyle? so how did they develop good ears?
drugs? diet? are people just born with good ears?
well if you look closely at these other students you will probably find one of three patterns;
1. they grew up in a musical household where everybody plays and sings.
2. they either had early private instruction and have been playing as well singing since a young age.
3. they had a good elementary (and maybe earlier) musical experience and were probably exposed to group instruction by the kodaly, suzuki, orff or gordon methods of teaching.
its as simple as that.
musicians who have good ears do a lot singing and playing by ear. if jazz musicians and small children don't develop musicianship skills by interval drill and dictation then why would we expect college students to do the same. traditional college musicianship training revolves around evaluation. teacher plays something (melody, interval, chord, rhythmic pattern...) and students write it down. this is easy for the teacher to organize and its easy to sequence. but the inherent problem is that if the students have not internalized this information (edwin gordon calls this audiation) then they have no chance of writing it down. (isn't education supposed to be about making the complex simple, not the simple complex?)
for me the solution is simple. if you want kids to be able to take dictation of intervals, then they should be able to sing them. if you want them to id chords, why not sing those also. why not work the kids silly singing and playing everything we used to assess through dictation. i know a student will learn to id tonic and dominant chords much faster by solfeging them and playing them in all the keys. so much, much faster then putting them on a computer and drilling them till their ears bleed. its not too late for them, they are just learning it backwards, you have to have internalized the "language" before being asked to identify it. musicianship is about learning this 'language', singing and playing patterns by ear. adding solfege is important because it gives meaning about how the music functions.
its easy now. no more dictation, no more interval drill and no more chord i.d.
only
singing, playing by ear, and transcription. anybody can have good ears, its not that hard.
Labels: music education
posted by paul bailey at
12:29 PM
4 Comments:
Question - what if you have no trouble singing back what is sung to you but struggle to write it down? I ask as with me I don't have trouble singing back the melodies but transctribing by ears is difficult. Recognizing intervals and melodies has gotten better with solfege training and singing.
I agree with your post thouigh because I feel that my situation my arise from learning music primarily through the printed page and secondary through ears and singing.
Anyway, good luck to you shaking up the cirriculum.
you have no problem singing something back because it is a memory skill (mimicking). writing it down through transcription involves assigning symbols to what you hear and sing (association). the best way to do this is to first sing it or play it to yourself and then write it down.
Thanks for the advice and pardon the typos in my original post.
I'll add that as a keyboard player, I fault my own lack of discipline -- too many times I have postponed transcription exercises with the excuse I need to "polish" a passage in an organ or piano work. When especially lazy, I waste too much time sight-reading.
I bought a tape recorder and I will do the following -
a) Record individual voices of some of the organ music I am studying and transcribe it away from the keyboard.
b) Record short improvised melodies and do the above.
Final step would be to check my work at the keyboard .. the above would be in addition to the dictation I do at my lessons.
Question: is Gregorian chant a good repertoire to begin transcription of recordings? If not, any other recommendations?
seems like a good plan for me. although i wonder why you feel the need to transcribe away from the keyboard. its your primary instrument, so why not use it? sometimes when i hear a melody, i 'know' what positions its in on the trombone before the notes pop into my mind. i also think transcribing whatever music you like is very important. pop, jazz, folk, art, just sit down and do some on a consistent basis. the first few times will probably be frustrating. it gets better with repetition.
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