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Inner Ear

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Inner Ear is a browser-based aural training software designed to improve and better understand the process and means through which students acquire sound-focused aural skills. Christine Beckett discusses.

Image courtesy of interviewee. March 7, 2024

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This video video is a comprehensive lecture on ear training, emphasizing that it involves mental rather than just physical processes. The speaker discusses inner auditory imagery, which is the ability to hear music in one's mind without auditory stimulation, and highlights that musicians are typically adept at this skill. Various methods of perceiving music beyond traditional hearing, such as through bone conduction and bodily vibrations, are mentioned.

The speaker explains how auditory imagery allows musicians to connect with musical elements like rhythms and melodies, reinforcing the idea that if a musician can hear it mentally, they should be able to play it. They describe different training exercises, including singing back melodies and sight-singing without prior exposure, to advance ear training skills. The importance of understanding musical notation is also discussed, though it is noted this is not universally emphasized across all musical cultures.

The lecturer calls out the misconception that music is a universal language, noting the vast diversity of musical forms. They draw a parallel between language acquisition in children and music perception, advocating for exposure to various musical styles to keep the mind open to different sounds.

The speaker shares their personal journey in ear training education, including research experiences and teaching strategies. They emphasize the effectiveness of multiple methods in music education, catering to different learning styles, and underscore the significance of humor and comfort in overcoming anxiety during training.

Overall, the lecture combines evidence-based insights with practical teaching experiences, promoting a multi-faceted approach to ear training that values psychological understanding and adaptability in musicianship.

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Here are some key quotes from the video that capture the main ideas and concepts discussed:

1. **On the Nature of Ear Training**:
- "Ear training doesn't necessarily have all that much to do with our ears. ... it isn't just that ear training for musicians has much more to do with training of the mind."

2. **On Inner Auditory Imagery**:
- "We have what's called inner auditory imagery. ... musicians are usually very well endowed with inner auditory imagery."

3. **On Perception Beyond Hearing**:
- "It isn't just the ear, it's the mind."

4. **On Training Exercises**:
- "Many musicians say, if you hear it, you should be able to play it."

5. **On Musicians and Notation**:
- "Many musicians do not work with notation... this depends on being cited because if you don't have your eyes, how do you read the things or write them down?"

6. **On the Universal Language of Music**:
- "Many people say... that music is the universal language. Well, I'm sorry. No, it isn't."

7. **On Children's Early Language Ability**:
- "Children when they're first born can hear every sound on earth... But then as they're bathed in their native language, neural pruning removes the ability both to hear and reproduce the sounds that are not in their native language."

8. **On Teaching Ear Training**:
- "Part of the work is to try to crawl inside the student's heads. ... that's a fatal question that leads to research."

9. **On Multiple Methods in Music Training**:
- "What does the student do when that method fails due to nerves illness, for whatever reason? ... you must have more than one way of doing anything."

10. **On Humor in Teaching**:
- "Humor is a very important part of my classes, and it's actually a reasoned teaching technique on my part."

11. **On Functioning Under Anxiety**:
- "Part of your training is learning to function even though you are nervous."

These quotes reflect the speaker's insights on ear training, the importance of understanding auditory imagery, the role of the mind in music perception, and innovative teaching methodologies.

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Ear training doesn't necessarily have all that much

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to do with our ears.

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These are called the pina.

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And of course, there is a chain of hearing for

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normally hearing people, but it isn't just that ear training

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for musicians has much more to do with training of the mind.

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We have what's called inner auditory imagery.

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Um, some people don't have it just

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as some people cannot visualize things in their minds,

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but most people have it to some extent.

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And musicians are usually very well endowed

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with inner auditory imagery.

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Um, so it's a question of,

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and the other ways of getting it in

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besides our regular ears, I mean, you have bone conduction,

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you have vibrations from the feet, from the floor.

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Your body, Dame Evelyn Glenny, the very famous percussionist

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of course, uses multiple methods of

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perceiving the musical vibrations.

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Anyone who's been in a cathedral

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and the organist has pulled the 32 foot stop

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or at at a rock concert has felt this.

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So it isn't just the ear, it's the mind.

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Now, auditory imagery, I could give you an example

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that many people can just think of a favorite tune,

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and you can hear it in your head if you can hear the

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Beatles, Hey, Jude, or Revelle's Bolero in your Head.

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Or even just a favorite song that you sang, you know, with,

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with friends, a cannon,

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or the Sound of your Best Friend's voice.

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So we can hear things in our head without any

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exterior stimulus.

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So for musicians, the music is there

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and it's making the connection between the realities

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of the music, the rhythms, the melodies, the harmonies,

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the textures, the dynamics, whether it's very soft

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or very, very loud.

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I'm not going to shout. Um,

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but all of the elements of music, making the connection

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between those realities

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and what you can understand in your mind

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and what you can then feed back out in some

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productive sense.

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Um, many musicians say, if you hear it,

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you should be able to play it.

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And so some of your training exercises will be the teacher

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making a little bit of sound

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and the students either singing it back

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or playing it on a keyboard

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or playing it on their own instrument.

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And this isn't necessarily so easily done for the beginners.

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Um, and also many musicians do not work

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with notation,

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although some ear training programs,

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particularly conservatory type programs,

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and I could cite a number of very, very,

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very famous conservatories in which

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what they do is what is called.

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So sight singing.

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The student is presented with a melody

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and they have to scan through it

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and then sing it just like that.

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They've never seen it before.

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So sight singing and dictation in which the student hears

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something and they notate it.

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But this depends on being cited

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because if you don't have your eyes,

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how do you read the things or write them down?

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And it depends on that, notated tradition.

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So not all cultures and traditions do that at all.

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And increasingly,

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we have ways of doing ear training, not

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so much completely without it,

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but with a little bit less emphasis on it.

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So maybe I'll come back a little bit later to

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that notated tradition,

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but the real core of ear training is training the mind.

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And I'll just close with one little thing.

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Many people say, or I have heard it said all too often

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that music is the universal language.

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Well, I'm sorry. No, it isn't.

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There are many, many, many, many forms of music just

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as there are many, many, there's thousands of languages,

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and there could be more than thousands of musics.

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Um, but there is an analogy with language Children

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as they grow and they learn their mother tongue

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and will presume a one language home at first,

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children when they're first born can hear

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every sound on earth.

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Research has shown that they can perceive vowels

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and dip thongs and sounds from any language.

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You present them up to a certain age.

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But then as they're bathed in their, native language,

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neural pruning removes the ability both to hear

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and reproduce the sounds

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that are naughty in their native language.

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So that argues strongly, if you want to keep your brain

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and your mind very open

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and very capable for all kinds of sounds

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that you don't do just one language, that you include many,

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many, many different languages, or at least two

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or three in terms of linguistic.

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But from the musical point of view, the more the merrier.

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My research grew directly out

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of having been thrown into teaching an ear training class.

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So the brief background is I was raised in an English

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speaking part of Canada, and they use what's called

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movable dough for singing.

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You know, dear a female Dear Ray, a drop of Golden Sun.

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And so however, when I came for my graduate studies,

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to Montreal,

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and I thought, well, I already had a bachelor's degree,

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couldn't I do something around here to help out?

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And besides, I have to pay my rent.

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So I offered theory, counterpoint, harmony

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analysis, history, and so on.

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Just anything but an ear training class, please,

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because I don't do that fixed do of fe stuff.

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And of course, they assign me an ear training class. Okay?

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Uh, that led to interesting syllabic confusion

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for me for a long time.

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That also became a source of, okay,

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how do I help somebody else who goes through this?

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And because hearing things has always been very easy

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for me, I would

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Sail into the class in my twenties

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and say, okay, let's do this.

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Dooly Dooly, dooly, Dooly Doo.

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Students would just look at me

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and they would try to cope with it.

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They would sing, they would write,

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they would do whatever they had to do.

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And the distortions were phenomenal.

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And I just started to say, what goes on in their heads?

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This is one of my mantras, what goes on in their heads?

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So for the ear training teacher, part of the work is to try

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to crawl inside the student's heads.

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And how do you do that? That's a fatal question

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that leads to research.

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So my graduate studies began,

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and my, supervisor suggested

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that I do work on ear training.

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And I did a study where I presented the students with,

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intervals musical intervals.

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It takes two notes to make an interval,

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an interval in music is the pitch space

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difference between those notes?

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It's not a timing thing,

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it's not the act at the Covent garden.

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Okay? So no, no, that's an interval.

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I gave the students this page

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of somebody has supposedly written this dictation,

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another student, and I let them hear the recorded tape.

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This was back in the days of tape.

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And I said, some of these intervals are wrong.

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Please listen to the tape like a teacher would

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and circle and correct.

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Okay, first circle, say, just say this one is wrong.

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And then if you can tell what it should have been, say,

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it should have been this instead.

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And finally, if you can notate the correct notes for that,

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do so, they couldn't do it.

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So it was one way of crawling into their heads

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and finding out, you know, we really have to train and train

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and train and train and train

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and drill these basic things

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until somebody is comfortable enough to do error detection.

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I also did some work on how do

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students hear two things at once

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where the don't notes don't come successively,

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but perhaps you have two melodies going along.

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Say the vocal line of, Hey, Jude, with the baseline,

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and you ask them to say, notate

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that We call this two part dictation.

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Uh, this was for my doctoral work.

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This was a few months ago.

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And, so I was interested in their strategies.

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I wondered whether writing down the pitches first,

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the actual notes, the ABCs, would help,

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to some extent or whether notating the rhythmic symbols like

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this one was a half note.

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And there you've got a couple

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of eighth notes followed by a quarter.

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And also let them do one run where they did only

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what they would normally do, their regular strategies

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and describe these to me.

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And I thought that their own strategy being more practiced

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would come in first and that the pitch wise might be second,

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maybe be kif kif between

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what they regularly did in the notes.

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And that rhythm. Doing the rhythm first

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seemed a little bit remote.

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Well, the rhythm came in first,

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sketching out the rhythm in the correct bars.

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I gave them prepared pages with bar lines. Okay?

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So that was a bit of a trellis work for them.

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But doing the rhythm first was the most accurate method.

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So of course I asked them why,

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and they said, well, my own methods don't

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generally work very well anyway.

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So what I normally do, nevermind,

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but doing the pitches first,

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I didn't know where to put them.

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Whereas if I did the rhythmic symbols first, it organized

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adding the pitches, it organized it in time,

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and it also gave me time to memorize

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what the pitches were doing so that by the time I got

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to the pitches, I had all my beams and flags

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and dots and rests already.

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And I just went, okay, that's a B that's a G to.

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So it was a bit of a surprise, but actually,

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because music is sound organized in time

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and time is like our canvas,

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therefore organizing the time element first.

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When I thought it over, it made sense.

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So that directly informed my teaching.

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For instance, now I often tell students,

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unless it's a method that doesn't work for them,

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but make a little rhythmic sketch first so that you know,

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you're not, you are not missing some notes or attacks,

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or you're not adding too many.

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Just know how many things you've got

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to deal with in each phrase.

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And after that, other things, I did other research,

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in terms of ear training.

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It was more general.

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I became involved with, the psychologists of music.

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And we, we looked, for instance, at Perfect Pitch,

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that was an interesting journey

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and helped me with certain types of students.

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Uh, that was work that I did with Robert Zori

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on what's called Absolute Pitch in the literature.

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And then just being in connection with that world reading,

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sometimes very high level neuroscience

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of auditory perception,

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but trying to derive the implications, okay,

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if this is some way the human brain tends

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to perceive sound, this is how we hear.

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So how do I teach? And this is another one of my mantras.

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I try to stay in touch with all the research literature,

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not just your training.

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Um, I always asking, how do we hear? So how do I teach?

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I'm trying to think of any other, yes.

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Uh, some of my other published research

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having to do with ear training.

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And for me, the, the research and the pedagogy

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and doing the ear training in the class is just

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all one thing.

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Uh, I published a very early paper called the Integration

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of Musical Languages in the Ear training class.

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I was working in a particular university

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and one of the other music professors one day in the local,

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Uh, I was about to say dip, which is a, expression

11:57.765 --> 12:00.845
for like a corner shop, you know, a variety store, okay.

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This professor said to me, by the way, I, I have a,

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a colleague up at the Neurological Institute who's working,

12:07.245 --> 12:09.165
looking for a research assistant.

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Would you like to do that? I said, yes, of course.

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So that is how I met Robert Zori,

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and we were both very young

12:15.705 --> 12:19.125
and he was working on various things, starting with that,

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absolute pitch study.

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Uh, we didn't even have a functional magnetic

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resonance imaging yet.

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We didn't have MRI yet.

12:27.405 --> 12:31.565
We only had positron emission tomography,

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PET PET scans, which are a little bit vague,

12:35.105 --> 12:36.885
but they were better than not being able

12:36.885 --> 12:37.925
to image the brain at all.

12:38.185 --> 12:41.325
So Robert and I started to work on, a number

12:41.325 --> 12:43.925
of studies at the neurological using PET scans.

12:44.385 --> 12:48.165
And after the first one for some reason, I mean,

12:48.365 --> 12:52.005
I was a music student studying chords

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and how to play the viola.

12:53.855 --> 12:55.765
After the first study we were talking

12:56.665 --> 12:58.965
and he said, would you like to write the methods section?

13:01.075 --> 13:03.995
I said, of course. I was flabbergasted

13:03.995 --> 13:06.475
because writing part of the section, of,

13:06.475 --> 13:09.355
of the article meant that he was offering me co-authorship.

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And we did a couple of things.

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And, that introduced me to others

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of his colleagues such as Isabel.

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And the two of them wanted to found a lab in Montreal

13:22.865 --> 13:26.555
that would deal with the brain, BRA

13:27.055 --> 13:30.035
and Music M and Sound.

13:30.295 --> 13:31.675
Now, some other colleagues said, well,

13:31.675 --> 13:35.235
we really should say the brain hearing music and sound,

13:35.255 --> 13:37.475
and then we have the same as the composer's name.

13:37.705 --> 13:39.755
Then it was pointed out that it would be very difficult

13:39.755 --> 13:41.435
to find our website in that case.

13:42.655 --> 13:45.955
So the brain music and sound rather does imply hearing.

13:45.975 --> 13:48.315
And they asked me whether I wanted to come on board.

13:49.995 --> 13:53.415
So of course, again, I said yes, and there were wonderful.

13:53.415 --> 13:55.175
There still are, there are wonderful,

13:55.175 --> 13:56.455
wonderful people in that group.

13:56.725 --> 14:00.855
Carolyn Palmer from McGill, Virginia Pen Hue from,

14:00.925 --> 14:04.775
Concordia, which is my, my school Concordia in Montreal.

14:05.325 --> 14:08.095
Concordia in Montreal has nothing to do with the Concordias.

14:08.095 --> 14:10.615
There's a whole chain of concordias south of the border.

14:10.725 --> 14:13.175
It's a different group. We're not that,

14:13.955 --> 14:15.615
and many other people in Brahms.

14:15.615 --> 14:16.775
And so we get up and going.

14:17.275 --> 14:20.845
Uh, it's been just the most wonderful

14:20.985 --> 14:22.725
and privileged experience of my life.

14:22.925 --> 14:24.685
I still to this day kind of pinch myself

14:24.685 --> 14:26.565
to say, is this real?

14:26.665 --> 14:28.405
Do they really want me to be part of this?

14:28.545 --> 14:31.325
But a lot of it is backstage work.

14:31.885 --> 14:36.245
I don't always get co-authorship out of most

14:36.245 --> 14:37.445
of the work I do at Brahms.

14:37.445 --> 14:39.645
I might get an acknowledgement at the end of the article,

14:40.105 --> 14:42.805
but it's things like writing the stimuli.

14:42.805 --> 14:46.205
They'll say, we want music that, is very,

14:46.275 --> 14:48.285
very regular without being boring.

14:48.465 --> 14:50.525
Or we have the melody, can you write the

14:50.525 --> 14:54.085
Accompaniment that, that was one thing I did for,

14:54.345 --> 14:57.965
an, an article that Robert Zori did with Anne Blood.

14:58.505 --> 15:02.165
Um, like, how dissonant does the accompaniment have to get

15:02.165 --> 15:04.125
before people really get disturbed?

15:04.425 --> 15:05.965
And the answer is not all that dissonant.

15:06.425 --> 15:08.685
Uh, so that sort of thing.

15:08.865 --> 15:11.245
Or they will have all of their musical sounds ready,

15:11.245 --> 15:15.285
their stimuli read, ready, and they'll ask me to judge them.

15:15.505 --> 15:19.165
Are they really doing what we hope them to, to do?

15:19.625 --> 15:21.965
Uh, one, fairly recent thing,

15:22.105 --> 15:24.965
Brahms has become interested in musical prodigies.

15:26.315 --> 15:29.525
What makes a 9-year-old capable of playing

15:30.285 --> 15:32.725
a chopan ballad or a work by list?

15:34.185 --> 15:36.565
So well that when you listen to recordings,

15:36.585 --> 15:39.085
you literally cannot tell the difference between them

15:39.085 --> 15:41.045
and Horowitz, how does this happen?

15:41.505 --> 15:44.365
And what they asked me to do was to do exactly that, listen

15:44.365 --> 15:47.685
to recordings and say, these are the professionals

15:47.945 --> 15:49.445
and those are the prodigies.

15:49.635 --> 15:51.405
Well, frankly, Sam, it's impossible.

15:51.665 --> 15:53.765
So the work at Broms has been varied,

15:53.985 --> 15:55.325
but somewhat backstage.

15:55.545 --> 15:57.805
But you know, I have been there ever since.

15:57.805 --> 16:00.245
When they held their 10th anniversary

16:00.265 --> 16:03.125
and people came from all over the world to speak,

16:04.025 --> 16:07.965
it was just a love in, it was so informative about

16:07.985 --> 16:10.205
how the brain processes music.

16:10.705 --> 16:14.125
And Isabel and Robert asked me to do the music.

16:14.265 --> 16:16.725
So I found people to play for a few minutes here,

16:17.225 --> 16:19.805
or the, the occasional music during the lunches

16:19.805 --> 16:22.285
and the receptions and, and at the end,

16:22.465 --> 16:25.005
and we just had so much music.

16:25.185 --> 16:26.805
It was, it was wonderful.

16:26.945 --> 16:29.965
But my own personal teaching practice, my preference is

16:29.965 --> 16:31.165
to be multi-genre.

16:31.185 --> 16:32.365
And it always has been.

16:32.825 --> 16:36.165
Uh, my deep background is I did a lot of folk singing.

16:36.405 --> 16:38.885
I was digging through the child's ballads at the age of

16:39.435 --> 16:40.645
16 or whatever.

16:41.145 --> 16:44.085
So classical folk and traditional musics.

16:44.085 --> 16:46.605
I've done research on Irish traditional music

16:47.065 --> 16:48.725
and Icelandic music.

16:48.945 --> 16:50.245
I'm crazy about Iceland.

16:50.305 --> 16:55.165
So my students get tons of Iceland pop, pop rock,

16:55.165 --> 16:57.845
including metal death, metal thrash, you may name it,

16:58.315 --> 17:00.925
jazz music from all over the world

17:00.925 --> 17:04.885
because, it isn't just the European tradition anymore,

17:05.125 --> 17:06.325
although there's been a huge influence.

17:06.905 --> 17:10.645
And of course the Euro Western literacy tradition,

17:11.845 --> 17:12.845
students have to learn it.

17:13.185 --> 17:15.485
Uh, if they're not cited,

17:15.675 --> 17:18.085
they can nevertheless give the note names back

17:18.085 --> 17:21.045
or some students will have braille programs.

17:21.625 --> 17:23.805
Um, but of course I work differently

17:23.835 --> 17:27.205
with non-sighted students and that's not a problem.

17:27.585 --> 17:28.685
And so multi-gen,

17:30.055 --> 17:33.395
and as I've moved through my years of practice

17:33.535 --> 17:36.755
and based on the things I bring in from the research world,

17:37.335 --> 17:41.595
there's been a, a, a gradual deemphasis, not

17:41.595 --> 17:42.595
that I don't teach it still,

17:42.735 --> 17:47.235
but a, a slight deemphasis on the notation in favor

17:47.335 --> 17:48.835
of keeping it in, but adding,

17:49.425 --> 17:51.245
Um, if you hear a piece of music,

17:51.585 --> 17:54.565
can you make a coherent verbal description of it?

17:54.585 --> 17:55.885
Now, that's hard to do.

17:56.175 --> 17:57.445
There aren't that many words

17:57.445 --> 17:59.525
that actually talk about sounds.

17:59.785 --> 18:02.125
We say the violin has a bright sound.

18:02.125 --> 18:03.365
Well, bright is a visual term

18:03.705 --> 18:07.085
or something has, you know, you can think of lots

18:07.285 --> 18:09.405
of examples of trying to describe sound.

18:09.705 --> 18:11.765
And the words actually are not sound based.

18:11.985 --> 18:14.005
So verbal description,

18:14.185 --> 18:16.525
and they start out usually by saying,

18:16.595 --> 18:18.645
that just made me feel like I was floating.

18:19.155 --> 18:23.165
Okay, great. What of the musical features, what was it

18:23.165 --> 18:24.685
that you heard in the music that made you

18:24.685 --> 18:25.845
feel like you were floating?

18:26.665 --> 18:30.365
Oh, so working on accurate verbal feedback.

18:30.425 --> 18:32.405
And this can also be point, form written,

18:32.985 --> 18:34.845
and I don't care whether it's English or French

18:34.945 --> 18:36.525
or any language I can deal with.

18:36.625 --> 18:39.165
So verbal feedback, point form,

18:39.195 --> 18:41.005
written textual feedback,

18:41.005 --> 18:45.895
and even graphics, I'll have them, it doesn't have

18:45.895 --> 18:49.975
to be a picture, but interpret the music in a graphic way.

18:50.075 --> 18:51.135
And of course notation.

18:51.835 --> 18:54.975
So, it isn't just the score, it's the score

18:55.515 --> 18:57.895
and more, it's many, many, many,

18:57.895 --> 18:59.295
many different types of music.

18:59.835 --> 19:03.495
And also in terms of how the students do their work,

19:04.535 --> 19:08.215
I would say that traditionally your training tends to say,

19:08.595 --> 19:10.215
if you have to do this, you do that.

19:10.595 --> 19:12.615
And when you have this to deal with, you do this.

19:12.755 --> 19:14.415
And they offer a method.

19:14.885 --> 19:17.735
What does the student do when that method fails due

19:17.735 --> 19:20.255
to nerves illness, for whatever reason.

19:20.715 --> 19:25.215
So although some students don't like it quite as much, I go

19:25.215 --> 19:26.295
with multiple methods

19:26.675 --> 19:29.455
and I tell them, you must have more than one

19:29.455 --> 19:30.495
way of doing anything.

19:30.515 --> 19:33.255
And this includes when you're playing, you know,

19:33.255 --> 19:34.455
if you're doing a shift

19:35.035 --> 19:36.775
and you usually take it on your fourth finger,

19:36.775 --> 19:38.215
and suddenly just as you're arriving you,

19:38.515 --> 19:40.015
you realize you're about to overshoot.

19:40.035 --> 19:42.135
You have to be able to substitute the third finger.

19:42.635 --> 19:47.535
So multiple methods, which means that where I teach now,

19:47.675 --> 19:52.135
we do the sage, fixed dough syllables

19:52.135 --> 19:56.135
where D fa C means C, DE, FGAB,

19:56.485 --> 19:58.095
note names, and they're always the same.

19:58.095 --> 20:01.175
So if you're in G major, the tonic is soft. Okay?

20:01.515 --> 20:04.215
But I will introduce them to the movable dose system.

20:05.355 --> 20:08.015
And we use what's called scaled degree numbers,

20:08.265 --> 20:13.055
where the tonic is one or, and set French works better.

20:13.635 --> 20:17.975
Uh, so multiple methods, multi genres, multiple methods.

20:18.475 --> 20:21.735
Now, as you can imagine, this might delight some

20:21.795 --> 20:23.935
or even many or most of the students.

20:25.045 --> 20:26.175
Some students hate it.

20:27.235 --> 20:28.495
And what I get from the,

20:28.715 --> 20:32.575
the most important stuff I get from the students is when

20:32.575 --> 20:35.535
they tell me that something is not working for them.

20:36.355 --> 20:38.895
And this usually means, okay, let's sit down, have a cup

20:38.895 --> 20:42.575
of tea office hours, what does work for you?

20:42.755 --> 20:44.895
And when this thing doesn't, doesn't work for you,

20:45.075 --> 20:46.855
how does it make you feel? Why isn't

20:46.855 --> 20:47.855
It working? Sometimes

20:47.855 --> 20:49.765
it's just, it's 'cause it's new

20:49.865 --> 20:51.365
and they're not used to it yet.

20:51.435 --> 20:53.685
Sometimes there's a real blockage.

20:54.425 --> 20:57.645
And because I teach so many methods, in any case, finally

20:58.035 --> 21:00.165
with some students, I'll say, well, just keep at it.

21:00.165 --> 21:01.565
Maybe it will get easier. And it doesn't have

21:01.565 --> 21:02.885
to be your main method anyway.

21:03.425 --> 21:05.205
Use what works most for you.

21:05.785 --> 21:07.485
And that usually solves the problem.

21:08.025 --> 21:10.245
But sometimes it's actually getting in the way,

21:10.385 --> 21:13.085
in which case I tell them, okay, in that case,

21:13.155 --> 21:16.445
when I'm nattering on about that one, just tune out,

21:17.915 --> 21:22.215
put your earbuds in, listen to one of your favorite tunes.

21:22.235 --> 21:24.295
Do something else. 'cause I never want

21:24.495 --> 21:25.735
to do anything destructive.

21:26.275 --> 21:29.015
And I'll just end on one tiny little note here.

21:29.905 --> 21:32.975
Humor is a very important part of my classes,

21:33.555 --> 21:36.895
and it's actually a reasoned teaching technique on my part.

21:37.395 --> 21:41.455
Uh, they have to sing. If they're tight in their midsection

21:41.915 --> 21:45.855
and in ear training classes, fighting anxiety and out

21:45.855 --> 21:47.735
and out fear is half the battle.

21:48.875 --> 21:50.535
If they're sitting there sweating bullets

21:50.535 --> 21:54.775
and tight, a good laugh and relaxing over something silly.

21:55.355 --> 21:56.975
And this, it has to be musically silly.

21:57.715 --> 22:00.375
Um, and that makes a human connection too.

22:00.995 --> 22:04.455
Uh, so it's important to me that the classes be full

22:04.455 --> 22:08.175
of humor and the freedom to connect at the personal level so

22:08.175 --> 22:09.695
that they're not frightened all the time.

22:09.915 --> 22:12.535
But if they are nervous, I say, that's fine.

22:13.165 --> 22:14.455
Part of your training is learning

22:14.475 --> 22:15.815
to function even though you are nervous.

22:16.095 --> 22:17.975
'cause you have to do that when you go on stage. Anyway.

Understanding Ear Training Beyond Hearing

00:00:00 - Ear training doesn't necessarily have all that much to do with our ears. These are called the pina. And of course, there is a chain of hearing for normally hearing people, but it isn't just that ear training for musicians has much more to do with training of the mind. We have what's called inner auditory imagery. some people don't have it just as some people cannot visualize things in their minds, but most people have it to some extent.
00:00:32 - with inner auditory imagery. so it's a question of, and the other ways of getting it in besides our regular ears, I mean, you have bone conduction, you have vibrations from the feet, from the floor. Your body, Dame Evelyn Glenny, the very famous percussionist of course, uses multiple methods of perceiving the musical vibrations. Anyone who's been in a cathedral and the organist has pulled the 32 foot stop or at at a rock concert has felt this.
00:01:07 - Now, auditory imagery, I could give you an example that many people can just think of a favorite tune, and you can hear it in your head if you can hear the Beatles, Hey, Jude, or Revelle's Bolero in your Head. Or even just a favorite song that you sang, you know, with, with friends, a cannon, or the Sound of your Best Friend's voice. So we can hear things in our head without any
00:01:39 - So for musicians, the music is there and it's making the connection between the realities of the music, the rhythms, the melodies, the harmonies, the textures, the dynamics, whether it's very soft or very, very loud. I'm not going to shout. but all of the elements of music, making the connection between those realities and what you can understand in your mind and what you can then feed back out in some
00:02:11 - many musicians say, if you hear it, you should be able to play it. And so some of your training exercises will be the teacher making a little bit of sound and the students either singing it back or playing it on a keyboard or playing it on their own instrument. And this isn't necessarily so easily done for the beginners. and also many musicians do not work with notation, although some ear training programs,
00:02:42 - and I could cite a number of very, very, very famous conservatories in which what they do is what is called. So sight singing. The student is presented with a melody and they have to scan through it and then sing it just like that. They've never seen it before. So sight singing and dictation in which the student hears something and they notate it. But this depends on being cited because if you don't have your eyes, how do you read the things or write them down?

Exploring the Essence of Ear Training

00:03:16 - So not all cultures and traditions do that at all. And increasingly, we have ways of doing ear training, not so much completely without it, but with a little bit less emphasis on it. So maybe I'll come back a little bit later to that notated tradition, but the real core of ear training is training the mind. And I'll just close with one little thing.
00:03:46 - that music is the universal language. Well, I'm sorry. No, it isn't. There are many, many, many, many forms of music just as there are many, many, there's thousands of languages, and there could be more than thousands of musics. but there is an analogy with language Children as they grow and they learn their mother tongue and will presume a one language home at first, children when they're first born can hear
00:04:15 - Research has shown that they can perceive vowels and dip thongs and sounds from any language. You present them up to a certain age. But then as they're bathed in their, native language, neural pruning removes the ability both to hear and reproduce the sounds that are naughty in their native language. So that argues strongly, if you want to keep your brain and your mind very open and very capable for all kinds of sounds
00:04:47 - many, many different languages, or at least two or three in terms of linguistic. But from the musical point of view, the more the merrier. My research grew directly out of having been thrown into teaching an ear training class. So the brief background is I was raised in an English speaking part of Canada, and they use what's called movable dough for singing. You know, dear a female Dear Ray, a drop of Golden Sun. And so however, when I came for my graduate studies,
00:05:19 - and I thought, well, I already had a bachelor's degree, couldn't I do something around here to help out? And besides, I have to pay my rent. So I offered theory, counterpoint, harmony analysis, history, and so on. Just anything but an ear training class, please, because I don't do that fixed do of fe stuff. And of course, they assign me an ear training class. Okay? that led to interesting syllabic confusion for me for a long time. That also became a source of, okay,
00:05:52 - And because hearing things has always been very easy for me, I would Sail into the class in my twenties and say, okay, let's do this. Dooly Dooly, dooly, Dooly Doo. Students would just look at me and they would try to cope with it. They would sing, they would write, they would do whatever they had to do. And the distortions were phenomenal. And I just started to say, what goes on in their heads? This is one of my mantras, what goes on in their heads?

Exploring Students' Understanding of Musical Intervals

00:06:25 - to crawl inside the student's heads. And how do you do that? That's a fatal question that leads to research. So my graduate studies began, and my, supervisor suggested that I do work on ear training. And I did a study where I presented the students with, intervals musical intervals. It takes two notes to make an interval, an interval in music is the pitch space
00:06:54 - It's not a timing thing, it's not the act at the Covent garden. Okay? So no, no, that's an interval. I gave the students this page of somebody has supposedly written this dictation, another student, and I let them hear the recorded tape. This was back in the days of tape. And I said, some of these intervals are wrong. Please listen to the tape like a teacher would and circle and correct. Okay, first circle, say, just say this one is wrong. And then if you can tell what it should have been, say,
00:07:26 - And finally, if you can notate the correct notes for that, do so, they couldn't do it. So it was one way of crawling into their heads and finding out, you know, we really have to train and train and train and train and train and drill these basic things until somebody is comfortable enough to do error detection. I also did some work on how do students hear two things at once where the don't notes don't come successively,
00:07:58 - Say the vocal line of, Hey, Jude, with the baseline, and you ask them to say, notate that We call this two part dictation. this was for my doctoral work. This was a few months ago. And, so I was interested in their strategies. I wondered whether writing down the pitches first, the actual notes, the ABCs, would help, to some extent or whether notating the rhythmic symbols like
00:08:30 - And there you've got a couple of eighth notes followed by a quarter. And also let them do one run where they did only what they would normally do, their regular strategies and describe these to me. And I thought that their own strategy being more practiced would come in first and that the pitch wise might be second, maybe be kif kif between what they regularly did in the notes. And that rhythm. Doing the rhythm first seemed a little bit remote. Well, the rhythm came in first,
00:09:03 - I gave them prepared pages with bar lines. Okay? So that was a bit of a trellis work for them. But doing the rhythm first was the most accurate method. So of course I asked them why, and they said, well, my own methods don't generally work very well anyway. So what I normally do, nevermind, but doing the pitches first, I didn't know where to put them. Whereas if I did the rhythmic symbols first, it organized adding the pitches, it organized it in time,

Teaching Music Through Rhythm and Perception

00:09:34 - what the pitches were doing so that by the time I got to the pitches, I had all my beams and flags and dots and rests already. And I just went, okay, that's a B that's a G to. So it was a bit of a surprise, but actually, because music is sound organized in time and time is like our canvas, therefore organizing the time element first. When I thought it over, it made sense.
00:10:03 - For instance, now I often tell students, unless it's a method that doesn't work for them, but make a little rhythmic sketch first so that you know, you're not, you are not missing some notes or attacks, or you're not adding too many. Just know how many things you've got to deal with in each phrase. And after that, other things, I did other research, in terms of ear training. It was more general. I became involved with, the psychologists of music.
00:10:36 - that was an interesting journey and helped me with certain types of students. that was work that I did with Robert Zori on what's called Absolute Pitch in the literature. And then just being in connection with that world reading, sometimes very high level neuroscience of auditory perception, but trying to derive the implications, okay, if this is some way the human brain tends
00:11:07 - So how do I teach? And this is another one of my mantras. I try to stay in touch with all the research literature, not just your training. I always asking, how do we hear? So how do I teach? I'm trying to think of any other, yes. some of my other published research having to do with ear training. And for me, the, the research and the pedagogy and doing the ear training in the class is just all one thing.
00:11:39 - of Musical Languages in the Ear training class. I was working in a particular university and one of the other music professors one day in the local, I was about to say dip, which is a, expression for like a corner shop, you know, a variety store, okay. This professor said to me, by the way, I, I have a, a colleague up at the Neurological Institute who's working,
00:12:09 - Would you like to do that? I said, yes, of course. So that is how I met Robert Zori, and we were both very young and he was working on various things, starting with that, absolute pitch study. we didn't even have a functional magnetic resonance imaging yet. We didn't have MRI yet. We only had positron emission tomography, PET PET scans, which are a little bit vague, but they were better than not being able to image the brain at all.

Journey into Music and Neurological Research

00:12:41 - of studies at the neurological using PET scans. And after the first one for some reason, I mean, I was a music student studying chords and how to play the viola. After the first study we were talking and he said, would you like to write the methods section? I said, of course. I was flabbergasted because writing part of the section, of, of the article meant that he was offering me co-authorship.
00:13:12 - And, that introduced me to others of his colleagues such as Isabel. And the two of them wanted to found a lab in Montreal that would deal with the brain, BRA and Music M and Sound. Now, some other colleagues said, well, we really should say the brain hearing music and sound, and then we have the same as the composer's name. Then it was pointed out that it would be very difficult to find our website in that case.
00:13:45 - And they asked me whether I wanted to come on board. So of course, again, I said yes, and there were wonderful. There still are, there are wonderful, wonderful people in that group. Carolyn Palmer from McGill, Virginia Pen Hue from, Concordia, which is my, my school Concordia in Montreal. Concordia in Montreal has nothing to do with the Concordias. There's a whole chain of concordias south of the border. It's a different group. We're not that,
00:14:15 - And so we get up and going. it's been just the most wonderful and privileged experience of my life. I still to this day kind of pinch myself to say, is this real? Do they really want me to be part of this? But a lot of it is backstage work. I don't always get co-authorship out of most of the work I do at Brahms. I might get an acknowledgement at the end of the article, but it's things like writing the stimuli. They'll say, we want music that, is very,
00:14:48 - Or we have the melody, can you write the Accompaniment that, that was one thing I did for, an, an article that Robert Zori did with Anne Blood. like, how dissonant does the accompaniment have to get before people really get disturbed? And the answer is not all that dissonant. so that sort of thing. Or they will have all of their musical sounds ready, their stimuli read, ready, and they'll ask me to judge them. Are they really doing what we hope them to, to do?
00:15:22 - Brahms has become interested in musical prodigies. What makes a 9-year-old capable of playing a chopan ballad or a work by list? So well that when you listen to recordings, you literally cannot tell the difference between them and Horowitz, how does this happen? And what they asked me to do was to do exactly that, listen to recordings and say, these are the professionals and those are the prodigies.

Exploring Music: Multi-Genre Teaching Practices

00:15:51 - So the work at Broms has been varied, but somewhat backstage. But you know, I have been there ever since. When they held their 10th anniversary and people came from all over the world to speak, it was just a love in, it was so informative about how the brain processes music. And Isabel and Robert asked me to do the music. So I found people to play for a few minutes here, or the, the occasional music during the lunches
00:16:22 - and we just had so much music. It was, it was wonderful. But my own personal teaching practice, my preference is to be multi-genre. And it always has been. my deep background is I did a lot of folk singing. I was digging through the child's ballads at the age of 16 or whatever. So classical folk and traditional musics. I've done research on Irish traditional music and Icelandic music. I'm crazy about Iceland.
00:16:55 - including metal death, metal thrash, you may name it, jazz music from all over the world because, it isn't just the European tradition anymore, although there's been a huge influence. And of course the Euro Western literacy tradition, students have to learn it. if they're not cited, they can nevertheless give the note names back or some students will have braille programs.
00:17:23 - with non-sighted students and that's not a problem. And so multi-gen, and as I've moved through my years of practice and based on the things I bring in from the research world, there's been a, a, a gradual deemphasis, not that I don't teach it still, but a, a slight deemphasis on the notation in favor of keeping it in, but adding, if you hear a piece of music, can you make a coherent verbal description of it?
00:17:56 - There aren't that many words that actually talk about sounds. We say the violin has a bright sound. Well, bright is a visual term or something has, you know, you can think of lots of examples of trying to describe sound. And the words actually are not sound based. So verbal description, and they start out usually by saying, that just made me feel like I was floating. Okay, great. What of the musical features, what was it that you heard in the music that made you
00:18:26 - so working on accurate verbal feedback. And this can also be point, form written, and I don't care whether it's English or French or any language I can deal with. So verbal feedback, point form, written textual feedback, and even graphics, I'll have them, it doesn't have to be a picture, but interpret the music in a graphic way. And of course notation. So, it isn't just the score, it's the score

Embracing Diverse Methods in Music Education

00:18:57 - many different types of music. And also in terms of how the students do their work, I would say that traditionally your training tends to say, if you have to do this, you do that. And when you have this to deal with, you do this. And they offer a method. What does the student do when that method fails due to nerves illness, for whatever reason. So although some students don't like it quite as much, I go with multiple methods
00:19:29 - way of doing anything. And this includes when you're playing, you know, if you're doing a shift and you usually take it on your fourth finger, and suddenly just as you're arriving you, you realize you're about to overshoot. You have to be able to substitute the third finger. So multiple methods, which means that where I teach now, we do the sage, fixed dough syllables where D fa C means C, DE, FGAB, note names, and they're always the same.
00:20:01 - But I will introduce them to the movable dose system. And we use what's called scaled degree numbers, where the tonic is one or, and set French works better. so multiple methods, multi genres, multiple methods. Now, as you can imagine, this might delight some or even many or most of the students. Some students hate it. And what I get from the,
00:20:32 - they tell me that something is not working for them. And this usually means, okay, let's sit down, have a cup of tea office hours, what does work for you? And when this thing doesn't, doesn't work for you, how does it make you feel? Why isn't It working? Sometimes it's just, it's 'cause it's new and they're not used to it yet. Sometimes there's a real blockage. And because I teach so many methods, in any case, finally with some students, I'll say, well, just keep at it.
00:21:01 - to be your main method anyway. Use what works most for you. And that usually solves the problem. But sometimes it's actually getting in the way, in which case I tell them, okay, in that case, when I'm nattering on about that one, just tune out, put your earbuds in, listen to one of your favorite tunes. Do something else. 'cause I never want to do anything destructive. And I'll just end on one tiny little note here. Humor is a very important part of my classes,
00:21:37 - they have to sing. If they're tight in their midsection and in ear training classes, fighting anxiety and out and out fear is half the battle. If they're sitting there sweating bullets and tight, a good laugh and relaxing over something silly. And this, it has to be musically silly. and that makes a human connection too. so it's important to me that the classes be full

Embracing Nervousness in Performance Training

00:22:16 - that they're not frightened all the time. But if they are nervous, I say, that's fine. Part of your training is learning to function even though you are nervous. 'cause you have to do that when you go on stage. Anyway.

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