Comprehensive Aural Skills

A Flexible Approach to Rhythm, Melody, and Harmony

Justin Merritt, David Castro

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000768671
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Music

Comprehensive Aural Skills is a complete suite of material for both performance and dictation, covering the wide range of sight singing and ear training skills required for undergraduate courses of study. It provides a series of instructional modules on rhythm, melody, and harmony, and blends musical examples from the common-practice repertory with original examples composed to specifically address particular skills and concepts. Each module includes material for classroom performance, self-directed study, and homework assignments.

Features

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• A complete suite of aural skills material: Comprehensive Aural Skills is a combined sight singing and ear training textbook, audio, and companion website package.

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• Fully modular, customizable organization: Instructors can choose freely from the set of exercises in the book and supplemental material on the companion website to appropriately tailor the curriculum based on their students' needs.

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• Engaging and idiomatic musical examples: Examples are selected and composed specifically for the didactic context of an aural skills classroom.

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• Dictation exercises for practice and assignment: Practice exercises include an answer key so students can work independently and receive immediate feedback, while homework assignments are given without a key.

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• Audio examples for dictation: The website hosts live recordings of acoustic instruments performed by professional musicians for each dictation exercise and homework assignment.

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• Supplemental materials for instructors: A wealth of material for class use and assignment can be found on the companion website.

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• Teachers' guide: The guide includes answers for every homework assignment, brief commentary on each module's content, tips for integrating written theory, and strategies on how to effectively teach new concepts and skills.

This updated second edition includes the following:

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• Revised rhythm and harmony module structure, now introducing foundational concepts more gradually.

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• Additional examples from the repertory in the harmony and melody modules.

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• New and improved recordings on the companion website.

PART 1

Rhythm

MODULE 1

Introduction to Simple Meters

Introduction

Because they are so common, simple meters feel “natural” to us and are a great place to begin your study of meter and rhythm. By meter, we mean a regularly recurring pattern of strong and weak beats, which is notated using a meter signature and bar lines.

Consider Example 1.1. The first thing to notice is the meter signature (also known as the time signature), which is the two “fours” at the beginning of the line. The top four indicates that in this excerpt beats will be organized into groups of four at a time, as is shown by the bar lines you see aft...