During her first study, published in 2002, she observed that: A tenet of informal learning involves learning music by ear from a recording (the way popular musicians learn music) as referenced earlier. Lucy Green, a long-time scholar of informal learning approaches in the UK has lots to say about learning music by ear. Playing by ear was even shown to facilitate performing rehearsed music, the traditional mainstay of school music education” (Woody, 2012, p. “…ear playing offered much to learning to improvise it was also, however, a strong contributor to sight-reading ability. There is evidence to suggest that learning by ear can drastically improve other musical skills (like reading) as well: Think about how immersing in those activities will improve your ear and how your ability to learn a song completely by ear will become very efficient in a very short time. Consider, instead of immersing yourself in reading and notation, you are instead immersed in ear-based learning activities with only your instrument and a recording. 195), not learning music by ear with this approach seems like a disservice to everyone involved.įor ensemble parts, this may be a more challenging (but not impossible) feat to pull off than learning solo repertoire by ear but even for solo repertoire it seems like a reasonable ask seeing as there are normally two parts with one being the main melody with a mostly chordal accompaniment on piano. Ear-based learning is a slow process at first, but what new skill isn’t slow to acquire at first? And, considering that “he vast majority of all music ever made is played by ear” (Lilliestam, 1996, p. In fact, classical music was largely learned by ear before notation began to take over (Agrell, 2008). Of course, it is more prominent in popular styles, but certainly has a place in the classical world. The skill of learning by ear is typically acquired on the musician’s primary instrument and is learned and acquired in ensemble and solo work with a recording. Over time, the player will begin to recognize patterns, intervals, and rhythms inherent in the music they are learning and those patterns will become vastly easier to instantly recognize. Then, they are immersed into the process of learning the song by ear using trial-and-error, figuring out what works and what doesn’t. Next, they have to actively listen to it, meaning that they critically listen to it for the sake of learning to play it. What if instead, ear training was taught more like learning by ear? Here’s what I mean: When a person learns music by ear, they are first looking for a song that they want to learn, which is an important difference between these approaches. It is often called cheating, and seen as “…a simplistic and inefficient alternative to doing it the ‘right’ way, through notation” (single quotes added, Woody, 2012, p. Learning by ear often gets a bad rap in formalized music education. This is why this formalized approach to developing one’s ear does not meet learners’ needs, and it is not a realistic, culturally relevant way to develop a better ear. They are not immersed into the process of learning by ear and actually copying another piece of music completely by ear which is, really, the overall intent of developing a good ear. What is the really strange part is that all of this learning is performed and executed entirely on another instrument other than that person’s principal instrument, and is done in complete isolation from their ensemble and applied repertoire. This practice is not generally seen as a terrible thing and it can develop a good ear, but it is fair to say that it is disconnected from how a good ear is generally acquired outside of school. For example, ear training is often taught in a formalized way, beginning with simple and moving to complex, often including intervallic recognition and rhythm dictation exercises that are out of context or in isolation. The term “Authentic” in music education refers to “…goals and learning processes are realistic, culturally relevant for learners and meet their needs” (Evelein, 2006, p. This is why classical music programs, and many formal approaches to music education focus a portion of their time and energy on the concept of “Ear Training.” However, the way ear training is generally administered is hardly authentic. Music teachers often understand and agree that a “good ear” is important to learning music, and helps to contribute to the overall skill of musicianship. (A portion of this blog post was approved for publication in Technology for Unleashing Creativity published by Oxford University Press, April 2022)
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