Teaching extremely basic aural perception
August 30th 2007 02:24
As a teacher, I have frequently come across students who, for whatever reason, lack the basic ability to replicate(sing back) a given pitch. This is a significant hurdle to teaching any further aural skills, and one which should be overcome as quickly as possible. The benefits of developing these skills are obvious and numberous - even possessing this simple ability makes the attack of unprepared notes on wind and brass instruments much easier to learn.
It is moderately problematic though, that this is an assumed skill of people in general - there are few if any tactics developed with which this skill can be taught and developed. Once this skill is taught, then traditional basic aural training may properly commence - the comparison of intervals, singing of melodies, recognition of harmonies, etc. There are numerous guides and instruction sets for these skills, but little widespread understanding of how to pass on to students these very basic building blocks. My purpose in this short article is to propose several processes with which I have found success in teaching this skill to students.
This situation first arises when students are asked to sing back a note, and they sing back something alarmingly distant and seemingly irrelevant to the note. It appears either that they are not hearing the note clearly in their head, or that they lack the ability to replicate this sound with their voice. Usually, when students are new to this, the problem is some of both.
It must be stressed that the student should be comfortable to glissando around, or jump with their voice, until they find the pitch. In at least one student I have taught, the simple embarassment of moving their voice around to find a pitch was a big obstacle. If this has been overcome, it will make some of the other tactics easier, and may even solve the problem outright.
Comparing the intervals of what the student has sung, to what they are asked to sing, shows them where they are and where they need to be. Ask them to consider if they are higher or lower than the given note. Interestingly, different people can have different trends to how far away from a note they sing. For instance, of three students with this problem, one tended to sing a tone below the given note, one a major third above, and another the fourth below or fifth above. Some of this is easy to understand - all of these intervals have a certain amount of stability, at least compared to a minor second or a tritone for instance. The harmonic stability of the third, and the acoustic stability of the fourth and fifth make them common errors, since many students when trying to sing a note are not singing to find a pitch, but to find a place where the interval they produce sounds stable.
Here then is a possible way to train this skill - have the student aim to bring the stability of what they are singing to a unison or octave. This will sound the most stable to anyone, and this quality of stability is something that can be taught. The student needs to hear a lot of what it sounds like when a voice is in unison with a given note, and when it is not. Then, even if the problem persists, if a student recognises the quality of being in unison, they can train themselves, and the battle is already won.
As one last side note, there seems to be some difference with this skill when different instruments are used for the task. Perhaps certain harmonic overtones can make this task easier or more difficult. When singing against a sustained tone, such as a violin or a clarinet, the student can hear their voice and the given note constantly, and so are able to more easily hear the interval produced. When the sound decays, such as in a piano, it can sometimes be more difficult for the student to compare the sound they are making to what they hear. Experimenting with students in this field gives best results.
I send my best wishes to any teacher attempting to teach their students this invaluable skill.
It is moderately problematic though, that this is an assumed skill of people in general - there are few if any tactics developed with which this skill can be taught and developed. Once this skill is taught, then traditional basic aural training may properly commence - the comparison of intervals, singing of melodies, recognition of harmonies, etc. There are numerous guides and instruction sets for these skills, but little widespread understanding of how to pass on to students these very basic building blocks. My purpose in this short article is to propose several processes with which I have found success in teaching this skill to students.
This situation first arises when students are asked to sing back a note, and they sing back something alarmingly distant and seemingly irrelevant to the note. It appears either that they are not hearing the note clearly in their head, or that they lack the ability to replicate this sound with their voice. Usually, when students are new to this, the problem is some of both.
It must be stressed that the student should be comfortable to glissando around, or jump with their voice, until they find the pitch. In at least one student I have taught, the simple embarassment of moving their voice around to find a pitch was a big obstacle. If this has been overcome, it will make some of the other tactics easier, and may even solve the problem outright.
Comparing the intervals of what the student has sung, to what they are asked to sing, shows them where they are and where they need to be. Ask them to consider if they are higher or lower than the given note. Interestingly, different people can have different trends to how far away from a note they sing. For instance, of three students with this problem, one tended to sing a tone below the given note, one a major third above, and another the fourth below or fifth above. Some of this is easy to understand - all of these intervals have a certain amount of stability, at least compared to a minor second or a tritone for instance. The harmonic stability of the third, and the acoustic stability of the fourth and fifth make them common errors, since many students when trying to sing a note are not singing to find a pitch, but to find a place where the interval they produce sounds stable.
Here then is a possible way to train this skill - have the student aim to bring the stability of what they are singing to a unison or octave. This will sound the most stable to anyone, and this quality of stability is something that can be taught. The student needs to hear a lot of what it sounds like when a voice is in unison with a given note, and when it is not. Then, even if the problem persists, if a student recognises the quality of being in unison, they can train themselves, and the battle is already won.
As one last side note, there seems to be some difference with this skill when different instruments are used for the task. Perhaps certain harmonic overtones can make this task easier or more difficult. When singing against a sustained tone, such as a violin or a clarinet, the student can hear their voice and the given note constantly, and so are able to more easily hear the interval produced. When the sound decays, such as in a piano, it can sometimes be more difficult for the student to compare the sound they are making to what they hear. Experimenting with students in this field gives best results.
I send my best wishes to any teacher attempting to teach their students this invaluable skill.
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Comment by Harry
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Comment by Peter
This is just what I've seen in my students though, and I welcome the views of anyone else. In my own playing, singing is such a similar practice to successfully playing a wind instrument that I find the process inseparable.
Thanks for your comment.
Comment by AmyHuang
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Thanks for the informed post!
Comment by paulcutlan
Comment by Peter