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Introduction to

 Ear Training

At home ear training (and general music education/fun) resources.

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Please contact Emi at eferguson (at) juilliard (dot) edu for any requests.

 

This website was created from materials used in my Juilliard Evening Division class, Introduction to Ear Training, for students doing online study during Juilliard's closure to prevent the spread of Covid-19.

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The methods, and materials, are a combination of The Juilliard School's "Mary-Anthony Cox" style of ear training (based on that of Nadia Boulanger), combined with my own.

What is Ear Training?

EAR TRAINING IS A PERFORMANCE BASED MUSICAL SKILLS CLASS REQUIRED OF ALL MUSIC STUDENTS AT THE JUILLIARD SCHOOL.

Our classes are a musical equivalent of working with a personal trainer at the gym - slow, steady work that will get you in super strong shape.

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Ear Training can be a great way to comprehensively understand the fundamentals of music performance if you are new to music, as well as a great way for professional musicians to solidify their skills and fill in any holes that may exist. Our ultimate goal, is to give our students the tools to become a self-sufficient musician who has all of the tools to achieve their musical dreams.

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Through Ear Training work and exercises, students will:

  • DICTATION: acquire the skill of notating melodic and harmonic passages with a high degree of accuracy within a limited number of hearings

  • SIGHT SINGING: further one's ability to sight-sing using the basic skills of interval fluency and melodic memory, master the singing and immediate recognition of intervals independent of key

  • PERFORM: methodically solve performance problems posed by difficult passages in a timely manner

  • DISCIPLINE: master musical activities, exercises, and drills that foster mental focus, discipline, and independent thought

  • MEMORY: learn and memorize music more efficiently

  • STRUCTURE: better understand the fundamental structures of tonality, become equally at home in all major and minor keys, hear harmonic function

  • RHYTHM: increase rhythmic precision by performing and conducting passages containing rapid changes of both meter and subdivision

  • LANGUAGE: become fluent in the language of fixed-do solfege and musical analysis

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