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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 I developed and used in my Juilliard Evening Division class, Introduction to Ear Training.

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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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