Aural Skills Acquisition The Development of Listening, Reading, and Performing Skills in College-Level Musicians

by Karpinski, Gary S.

• ISBN13: 9780195117851
• ISBN10: 0195117859
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2000-11-16
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

This book is a hands-on investigation of the stages musicians go through as they learn to hear, read, and perform music. It draws on the latest research in music perception and cognition, music theory, and pedagogy, along with centuries of insight from music theorists, composers, and performers. The first part explores the development of music listening skills, including such broader activities as dictation and transcription, and specific abilities such as meter perception, short-term musical memory, and tonic inference. The second part then examines the skills involved in reading and performing music. It looks at such physical skills as vocal production and eye movements and at such complex integrated tasks as sight-singing transpositions and modulations. Throughout the book the author presents these skills in their musical contexts and emphasizes their roles in the general development of musicality. Aural Skills Acquisition builds important bridges between music theory, cognitive psychology, and pedagogy. It subjects ideas from music theory to the rigors of psychological testing and combines findings from the psychology of learning with ideas and methods of contemporary music theory. It will prove an invaluable guide for music teachers, music theorists, and psychologists interested in music perception and cognition.

Author Biography

Gary S. Karpinski is Professor of Music and Coordinator of Music Theory at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He has served as President of the Association for Technology in Music Instruction, President of the New England Conference of Music Theorists, Board Member for Music Theory for the College Music Society, and as Reviews Editor for the Journal of Music Pedagogy. His research interests include the relationships between cognition studies and music theory pedagogy, Schenkerian analysis, musical memory, and the interval cycles in twentieth century music.

Table of Contents

Introduction	3	(1)
Purpose	3	(1)
Methodologies	4	(2)
Organization	6	(1)
Scope	6	(1)
Readership	7	(1)
Conclusion	8	(3)
Part I: Listening Skills
Identification of Basic Features	11	(8)
Texture	11	(2)
Timbre	13	(1)
Tessitura and Register	14	(1)
Tempo	15	(2)
Dynamics	17	(1)
Articulation	17	(1)
Conclusion	18	(1)
Preliminary Listening Skills	19	(43)
Pulse and Meter	19	(13)
Pitch	32	(30)
Melodic Dictation	62	(49)
The Inadequacies of Melodic Dictation	62	(2)
A Model for Music Perception and Cognition during Dictation	64	(28)
Presenting Melodic Dictations	92	(11)
Summary of the Dictation Process	103	(1)
Assessment Tools and Evaluation Rubrics	103	(8)
Polyphonic and Harmonic Dictation	111	(17)
Polyphonic Dictation	111	(6)
Harmonic Dictation	117	(11)
Other Listening Skills	128	(17)
Transcription	128	(1)
Instrumental Playback	129	(1)
Error Detection and Correction	130	(2)
Advanced Hypermeter	132	(3)
Large-Scale Features	135	(4)
Identification of Various Other Compositional Devices	139	(2)
Identification of Pitch Collections	141	(1)
Aesthetics	142	(3)
Part II: Reading and Performing Skills
Fundamental Reading and Performing Skills	145	(13)
Vocal Production	145	(1)
Fundamental Solmization for Reading	146	(2)
Inculcating Scale and Solmization	148	(3)
Establishing Collection and Tonic	151	(3)
Establishing Pulse, Tempo, and Meter	154	(2)
Aural Imagery prior to Sound Production	156	(1)
Reading from Protonotation	156	(2)
Sight Reading	158	(36)
Scanning Music before Slight Reading	158	(7)
Interval and Scale-Degree Strategies	165	(1)
Solmization Systems for Sight Reading	166	(3)
Intonation	169	(3)
Visual Tracking	172	(3)
Metric and Rhythmic Thinking	175	(5)
Harmonic Thinking	180	(3)
Structural Singing	183	(4)
Performance Indications and Musical Expression	187	(2)
Prepared Materials and Sight Reading	189	(2)
Transferal to Instruments	191	(3)
More Complex Reading Skills	194	(31)
Chromaticism	194	(5)
Modulation	199	(14)
Proportional Tempo and Meter Changes	213	(1)
Clef Reading	214	(1)
Transposition	215	(2)
Score Reading	217	(3)
Conducting as a Set of Aural Skills	220	(1)
Reading Schenkerian Graphs	221	(2)
Conclusion	223	(2)
References	225	(20)
Index	245