The Moving Body In The Aural Skills Classroom

Inspired by Dalcroze-eurhythmics, this book is a practical guide for teachers and students interested in integrating the moving body into the aural skills classroom. Author Diane J. Urista focuses on movement-to-music as a tool for developing musical perception and the kinesthetic aspects of performance. As this book demonstrates, moving to music and watching others move cultivates an active, multi-sensory learning experience in which students learn by discovery and from each other. The book features a wealth of exercises that teach rhythmic, melodic, harmonic and formal concepts, including improvisation and expressive exercises. These exercises not only develop the ear, but also awaken the muscular and nervous system, foster mind-body connections, strengthen the powers of concentration, develop inner-hearing, short- and long-term memory, multi-tasking skills, limb autonomy, and expressive freedom. Exercises are presented in a graded but flexible order allowing readers to select individual exercises in any sequence. Activities involve movement through space as well as movement in place for those teaching in small classrooms. The book can be used as a teacher's manual, a supplementary aural-skills textbook, or as a stand-alone reference in a course dedicated to eurhythmics. Many exercises also provide an effective aural/sensory tool in the music theory classroom to complement verbal explanations. The approach integrates easily into any traditional college or conservatory classroom and is compatible with fixed do, moveable do, and scale degrees. A companion website features undergraduate students performing select exercises. Visit the companion website at www.oup.com/us/movingbodyauralskillsclassroom

Aural Education: Reconceptualising Ear Training in Higher Music Learning explores the practice of musical ‘aural training’ from historical, pedagogical, psychological, musicological, and cultural perspectives, and uses these to draw implications for its pedagogy, particularly within the context of higher music education. The multi-perspective approach adopted by the author affords a broader and deeper understanding of this branch of music education, and of how humans relate to music more generally. The book extracts and examines one by one different parameters that appear central to ‘aural training’, proceeding in a gradual and well-organised way, while at the same time constantly highlighting the multiple interconnections and organic unity of the many different operations that take place when we interact with music through any music-related activity. The resulting complex profile of the nature of our relationship with music, combined with an exploration of non-Western cultural perspectives, offer fresh insights on issues relating to musical ‘aural training’. Emerging implications are proposed in the form of broad pedagogical principles, applicable in a variety of different music educational settings. Andrianopoulou propounds a holistic alternative to ‘aural training’, which acknowledges the richness of our relationship to music and is rooted in absorbed aural experience. The book is a key contribution to the existing literature on aural education, designed with researchers and educators in mind.

This book is about thinking in music. Music listeners who understand what they hear are thinking in music. Music readers who understand and visualize what they read are thinking in music. This book investigates the various ways musicians acquire those skills through an examination of the latest research in music perception and cognition, music theory, along with centuries of insight from music theorists, composers, and performers. Aural skills are the focus; the author also works with common problems in both skills teaching and skills acquisition.

Featuring twenty-three essays by outstanding teacher-scholars on topics ranging from Schenkerian theory to gender, The Norton Guide to Teaching Music Theory covers every facet of music theory pedagogy. The volume serves as a reference for theory teachers and a text for pedagogy classes.

Comprehensive Aural Skills is a complete suite of material for both performance and dictation, covering the wide range of sight singing and ear training skills required for undergraduate courses of study. It provides a series of instructional modules on rhythm, melody, and harmony, and blends musical examples from the common-practice repertory with original examples composed to specifically address particular skills and concepts. Each module includes material for classroom performance, self-directed study, and homework assignments. Features A complete suite of aural skills material: Comprehensive Aural Skills is a combined sight singing and ear training textbook, audio, and companion website package. Fully modular, customizable organization: Instructors can choose freely from the set of exercises in the book and supplemental material on the companion website to appropriately tailor the curriculum based on their students’ needs. Engaging and idiomatic musical examples: Examples are selected and composed specifically for the didactic context of an aural skills classroom. Dictation exercises for practice and assignment: Practice exercises include an answer key so students can work independently and receive immediate feedback, while homework assignments are given without a key. Audio examples for dictation: The website hosts live recordings of acoustic instruments performed by professional musicians for each dictation exercise and homework assignment. Supplemental Materials for Instructors: A wealth of material for class use and assignment can be found on the companion website. Teachers Guide: The guide includes answers for every homework assignment, brief commentary on each module’s content, tips for integrating written theory, and strategies on how to effectively teach new concepts and skills. The companion website for Comprehensive Aural Skills includes a wealth of additional examples in all areas of aural skills and at every level of difficulty represented in the text. Students have access to additional dictation examples with recordings and answer keys, allowing them to directly reinforce their classroom experience and practice dictation on their own time.

This book aims to define new theoretical, practical, and methodological directions in educational research centered on the role of the body in teaching and learning. Based on our phenomenological experience of the world, it draws on perspectives from arts-education and aesthetics, as well as curriculum theory, cultural anthropology and ethnomusicology. These are arenas with a rich untapped cache of experience and inquiry that can be applied to the notions of schooling, teaching and learning. The book provides examples of state-of-the-art, empirical research on the body in a variety of educational settings. Diverse art forms, curricular settings, educational levels, and cultural traditions are selected to demonstrate the complexity and richness of embodied knowledge as they are manifested through institutional structures, disciplines, and specific practices.