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.
Author(s): Monika Andrianopoulou
Series: SEMPRE Studies in the Psychology of Music
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2019
Language: English
Pages: 264
Cover
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Table of Contents
List of figures
List of tables
Series editors’ preface
Acknowledgements
1. Introduction: how it all started
Personal beginnings
Teaching ‘ear training’ in higher music education in Greece
Embarking on research
Research aim and research questions
Notes
2. Tracing the history of ‘aural skills’: solfège and dictation as facilitators of musical learning
Introduction
Solmisation as an old and global phenomenon
Solmisation in the Western world: Guido d’Arezzo
The use of sol-fa syllables in the modern era
The practice of dictation
Solfège and dictation in tertiary music education
Modern developments
Notes
3. Current views on ‘aural skills’ teaching: a lively, ongoing discourse
Introduction
The perceived value of ‘aural training’ for the 21st-century musician
Desired aims of ‘aural training’ in the literature
Problematic aspects of ‘aural training’
Suggested changes for higher relevance of ‘aural training’
Exploring ‘aural training’ from a different angle
Notes
4. Aural perception: the human brain, a fascinating sound-processing machine
Introduction
How hearing works
Notes
5. Musical memory: much more than playing by heart
Introduction
A short history of memory
Characteristics of human memory
Memory and music – a short historical outline
Musical memory in psychological and pedagogical literature
Notes
6. Musical mental imagery: the brain’s inner musical life
Introduction
Musical mental imagery
Types of musical imagery in the literature
Uses of mental imagery by musicians for various goals
Notes
7. Music notation and literacy: bridge or barrier?
Introduction
Writing and music
How musical reading works
A brief history of Western European musical notation
Contemporary pedagogical issues
Notes
8. Implicit and explicit forms of musical knowing: you can only know what you already know
Introduction
Implicit (or ‘tacit’) musical knowledge characteristics
Explicit musical knowledge characteristics
Musical knowledge as a combination of implicit and explicit processes
Notes
9. Music theory: music’s changing shadow
Introduction
A basic history of music theory
Music theory today: issues of relevance
Theory at the service of musical understanding
Theoretical knowledge and musical intuition
Theory in contemporary formal music education
Notes
10. Embodied musical knowledge: it’s music to my ears – but not only
Introduction
The role of the body in engaging with music
Bodily knowing as a distinct form of knowing
Bodily and intellectual musical knowing
Bodily musical knowing as socially, culturally, and historically
embedded
A special case of embodied music perception: deaf musicians
Music as embodied experience
Notes
11. Musicality: synonymous with giftedness – or is it?
Introduction
Music and musicality as universal phenomena
Characteristics of musicality
Different profiles of musicality
Musicality as ‘giftedness’
Notes
12. An interview study: exploring non-Western classical views of ‘aural training’ parameters
Introduction
‘Aural training’ parameters through the eyes of non-Western classical
musicians
Notes
13. Moving from ‘aural training’ to aural education: a pedagogy according to the intricate character of the human musical experience
Introduction
How humans relate to (Western) music
Implications for ‘aural training’
Emerging pedagogical and educational/philosophical principles
Enhancement of learning transfer
Notes
14. Enriching aural education with non-Western classical perspectives: more immersion in musical sound, more creativity
Introduction
Correlating empirical data with literature findings
Implications of the interview study for aural education
Correlations summarised
Enriched pedagogical principles for aural education
Notes
15. Reflections and conclusions: thoughts on the way(s) forward
Recapitulation: from ‘aural training’ to aural education
Reflections on research choices and processes
Implications for education
Looking ahead: areas for further research
Conclusions
Notes
Appendix
Bibliography
Index
