Why are aural skills important

I made similar mistakes as an undergraduate and will do anything I can as an educator to break that trend. Did I miss anything here? The problem is, of course, that you have to decide at some point what you can reasonably include and not include. I just spent a few days at a family reunion where almost no one was a trained musician. I found it really difficult to explain what I do. Trying to give a nutshell of music theory would be way beyond me, but I think you hit the mark pretty well.

But of course, freshman and sophomore theory is only the tip of a very large iceberg of musicianship. Hi David! I think your article is great, and really well-written. My comment probably goes along with your point 1, but I thought I would share it anyway. I taught high school music for the first time last year near Sacramento. There was no music theory class, so I established a music theory club.

It started strong but quickly dwindled and died completely by spring break. Music theory is essential no matter what aspect of music one is studying. Guitar students with no understanding of theory cannot get away from memorized licks or the all-too-familiar I-ii-V-I progression. Inevitably they came back the next day with the same question, refined, wanting to understand all the jibberish I threw at them the day before. I gave them the very basic triads for the necessary chords in F Blues, and let them run with it.

Most students had a great time just with three notes per chord, but when I gave them the whole scale and explained how to use it in improvisation, several lightbulbs went off at once.

Many students said this was their favorite week of the trimester. Simple things in the band rehearsal, like why the third in a triad needs to be carefully adjusted in order to remain in tune, took our band from a below-average performing group into a well-received intermediate band.

Using language to focus on a concept, to describe or discuss it, promotes deeper perception and understanding of that concept. More about learning theory here. As an example: Claire, a five-year-old beginner will almost certainly begin playing the whole of a piece at the same dynamic level.

The teacher will draw Claire's attention to variations between loud and quiet via practical experimenting with loud and quiet sound, for instance by making up music that represents an elephant playing with a little mouse or by making up a little loud-quiet-loud clapping sequence.

The teacher will encourage careful listening to music she plays for Claire and will initiate discussion about it. Claire then begins to notice dynamics in all sorts of music she listens to and, with the teacher's guidance, starts to understand how and why to make dynamic contrasts in the music she plays.

Part of developing aural skills is learning to listen with increasing understanding of the structure of music. Understanding the structure of music helps enormously with learning it and with remembering it securely. Books of aural test examples are available to teachers for use in lessons.

Music teachers also advise parents to subscribe their child to internet-based resources as part of their aural skills development. Choose carefully since apps can be limited in scope and free resources are predictably impoverished in quality. Karen Marshall, music educator, advisor and writer, and co-author of Get Set Piano!

Aural perception and musical understanding are both essential if a child is to develop into a good musician, and are so important that they are tested as a part of most practical music exams. Promoting musical understanding and perception is the premise on which aural testing is included as a part of music exams. This is because she takes lessons on the violin and with ear training. When her teacher leaves on vacation for a couple of weeks, she starts to learn the same long piece.

As she plays, she misses the same notes as Jimmy, but every time she plays it, her ears tell her something is wrong. Looking back at the music, she notices she missed the fact that accidentals carry through the measure, and she fixes the problem right there. When she goes back to her teacher and plays the piece, everybody is happy.

This is considered by some to demonstrate the height of musical skills and performance. This is because good improvising requires a combination of performance, theory, and aural understanding. With aural music theory skills, the musician can hear and imagine the melody before they play it. This may seem obvious, but music is sound.

There are dozens of examples throughout music history in all genres of blind musicians who find success only through their ears. This should make it clear how important the skill is to the core of what music is.

Even the most famous deaf musician of all time, Ludwig van Beethoven, supports the importance of aural training. Beethoven spent most of his early and adult life able to hear, so when he went completely deaf by age 46, he understood music and had developed amazing aural skills.

For the rest of his life, Beethoven was still able to compose music without hearing the sound because he heard it all inside his head. Without his aural skill in combination with music theory understanding, we never would have all of his later works, including the iconic 9th Symphony.