hello all- Ive got some stuff about ear-training, and a question about general music training vs. practicing.
At my university, ALL music majors are required to take 5 terms (trimesters) of very intense ear-training, sight singing, and theory and analysis (7 term of theory actually). I don't know if this is true at every music program, and I am hoping current students and music school graduates will let me know. I think it is great training, but more on that later. We have an "Aural Skills" class which is mostly written dictation of chord progressions (quite involved I might say), two part melodies (Bach inventions and such), single voice melodies, 7th chord and inversion identification, scalar modes, rhythm, chord voicing... We also take a Solfege-based Sight Singing course, which is quite difficult -especially since I have no voice training experience before. We sight-read chromatic melodies, voice duets, and lots of four-part chorals, and do a bit of vocal improvising over chord progressions. We also do a lot of rhythm exercises, some as silly as marching around the room tapping different rhythms while singing others, but we also have a weekly digest of two line rhythms which must be tapped in separate hands while counting out loud. These are very difficult and require hours of practice. All of this in done a class of peers, and everything we do is graded. For many of us this is a bit nerve-racking, to have to sight sing and improvise in-front of 20 people all the time, but it is FANTASTIC performance training. If you can get up and sing sight read solfege with a professor marking every mistake you make and 20 people staring at you, merely playing the Horn is easy! Now I get to the point. I have found this training unbelievably helpful. My intonation and pitch accuracy are unimaginably better than before. I try to sing everything before I ever play it, and this really helps. Also, now that I am fluent with solfege, I say the syllables along when I play, this always, always helps. I think this is different and perhaps better than "singing along in you head," or trying to sing in the horn. If you have learned solfege, try at first writing all the syllables along in your part and just reading them, and be sure to hear them as you play. Makes a huge difference I promise! Now, as to how to learn this. I was required to learn this stuff, so I cant offer too much advise one teaching yourself. Actually when I started I thought it was a waste of time, now I realize how foolish I was. Unforunately I don't really know to advise someone on how to learn solfege, I was taught in a class. Maybe, if you are looking to train you ears, you should find a good voice teacher and take solfege lessons. Try to get familiar with it if you aren't and then try to think along when you play. Start simple with scales, arpeggios (Do Mi Sol Do), even long tones. I have found a simple etude book by G. Concone (an Italian voice teacher) which is transcribed for Trumpet or Horn a good next step. These voice etudes are great on the horn, and simple enough to really concentrate on hearing solfege. Also try plinking out familiar tunes on the horn of the piano without looking. Also try writing them down. I find learning dictation really helps the ear because to write something down you have to know what the notes are. You might be able to buzz something on the mouthpiece but not able to transcribe it. Being able to transcribe it forces one to grasp all of the pitches and rhythms accurately. One other thing- Hearing solfege when you play is a great way to distract yourself from getting nervous in a performance or audition. If you start to feel the nerve kicking in, immediately start singing along. You can't make yourself "un-nervous" by telling yourself not to get scared. The best thing to do is find something else to concentrate on, and what better than solfege? Now to my question, and this is more a question for current music school students and graduates, but I welcome any relpy. In addition to the almost two years of intense Aural and Sight-Singing training, my University has one of the most involved general music theory requirements of any school I've looked at, including Eastman, C.I.M., Northwestern, Cincinnati... We spend several hours a day doing harmonic and formal analysis of everything from Bach chorals and cello suites to Wagner opera and romantic symphonies -next year is 20th century harmony and analysis- in addition to a lot of 4-part embellished choral writing, and arranging things for various instrumentation. My question is this. I know how wonderfully good all of this training is, and I am aware that most music school and conservatories require a lot of this, but at what point is trade-off of this and practice time passed? I think I would have substantially more time to practice outside of rehearsals if I didn't have to do all this other stuff, and given how competitive and technically demanding the performance world is today, is this going to hurt me? Sometimes I only have time to do a good warm-up and a basic chop-maintenance routine and then go to rehearsals because of all the other classes. (part of this is that I am double-majoring in a non-music field too) Or should I have gone to a full-time conservatory if I wanted to practice all day long? Input from people greatly appreciated, Thanks a lot, Dave Meichle Lawrence University ________________________________________________________________________ Try Juno Platinum for Free! Then, only $9.95/month! Unlimited Internet Access with 1GB of Email Storage. Visit http://www.juno.com/value to sign up today! _______________________________________________ post: horn@music.memphis.edu unsubscribe or set options at http://music2.memphis.edu/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
