McKenzie 1

Jimmy McKenzie

The Benefits of Teaching Aural Skills

in Early Music Education

Dr. Stringham

MUED 371

11 December 2018
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Abstract

Aural skills training is a cornerstone of a music education. Studying music has been

shown to have lasting positive effects that will reap rewards for the duration of a person’s life.

Developing aural skills early in life while a child’s brain is still highly plastic will ensure that

their musical abilities will continue to grow. By delaying notational instruction and teaching

improvisation, music educators can help students foster their own musical growth in the future,

as well as benefit their ability to cover songs and be musical instructors and/or conductors.

Introduction: What was that note?

One of the most fundamental aspects of music education is the development of aural

skills. Often the goal of ear training is, among other things, to enhance a musician’s ability to

listen to music for replication through dictation, although there are a multitude of positive

reactions that also come from developing one’s aural abilities. This paper will examine the

benefits of music education and aural skills training for child and adolescent growth as well as

for professional musicians and college students, and cover some techniques for teaching ear

training to young children.

The Benefits of Music Education and Aural Skills Training

for children and adolescents:

Unsurprisingly to many musicians, music education has been proven to have myriads of

benefits in life. Not only musicians believe this though. Approximately 95% of Americans

believe that music plays a quintessential role in a well-rounded education (Lyons, 2003). Most

Americans have some sort of formal music education during their lives. For many of them, it
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takes place in a public school setting. Be it in an elementary school general music class, or a

secondary school band class, involvement in music has been shown to have great effects on the

lives of the students. In fact, “music training in adolescence and young adulthood may carry

meaningful biological benefits into older adulthood” (White-Schwosh, 2013).

Elementary school music classrooms can be great tools to enhance the cognitive abilities

of young children. A study of four- and five-year-olds showed that those who were enrolled and

participated in a music class had better abstract thinking skills than those that did not, as shown

by the participants’ scores on the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale and the Musical Skills

Assessment (Bilhartz, 1999). The music class that the children in the study participated in was

part of a larger organization named Kindermusik, who provides music education from birth to

age seven. A study conducted by an independent research firm on the developmental of language

skills showed that children involved in Kindermusik’s ABC Music & Me classes made literacy

gains 32% higher than children in the control group, who were not involved in the class (SEG

Measurement, 2013).

The findings on Kindermusik’s ability to increase literacy in young children are not

alone. A study showed that “kindergarten children … who received four months of music

instruction showed significantly greater gains in development of their phoneme-segmentation

fluency when compared with children … who did not receive music instruction” (Gromko,

2005). Music and language have a lot in common. They both activate similar places in the brain,

so teaching reading and music concurrently in early schooling years could be highly

advantageous (Hansen, 2012). This also leaves room for inter-departmental teaching

opportunities, which music educators should attempt to include wherever possible.

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for professional musicians and students continuing their music education:

Those who have aural skills training early in their lives may reap benefits much farther

down the road of their musical careers. Beyond increasing the chances of succeeding in aural

skills classes, having a well-trained ear can be incredibly valuable for college music students.

Many auditions for ensemble placements require musicians to sight read, and ensemble

directors often will hand out music and then have the ensemble play through it. Sight reading,

therefore, is a necessity for musicians. Those musicians with highly developed aural skills tend

to be much more successful in sight reading scenarios. “Music reading skills draw on auditory

processing skills,” meaning that the best sight readers are those who are able to accurately

internally audiate what they read on the page (Hayward, 2009). A performer should always be

seeking ways to improve their audiation skills for this purpose. Additionally, many performers

get their music and do not rehearse it immediately, so being able to audiate their music within the

context of individual practice could hugely benefit the preparedness of the music when a full

ensemble rehearsal occurs.

A well-developed ear is as necessary for conductors as it is for performers. Conductors

need to be able to consistently make quick and accurate error corrections without fail in order for

an ensemble to produce the best quality music possible. Especially for music educators, who

work to develop the ears of their students, the speed of the corrections must be rapid without

sacrificing their authenticity. A study of college beginning conducting students proved that

students that were more adept in contextual sight-singing were better at error detection from the

podium (Sheldon, 1998). A conductor’s ability to audiate the music in the score ensures making

corrections is considerably more painless for performer and director alike.

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Aural skills abilities are incredibly useful for musicians operating outside the world of

large ensemble, traditional Western music as well. Rock and jazz musicians, among others, often

use aural skills to create covers of familiar tunes. Furthermore, formally trained jazz and rock

musicians are also more capable to add their own embellishments to the arrangements, as they

are more comfortable with the repertoire and style of the music they play than untrained

musicians. Musicians that have trained their critical listening abilities will be able to more

accurately replicate what was being played. Trained rock musicians know to listen for the bass

part so they can find what chords should be played and built on top of it. These musicians are

also equipped with an arsenal of formulas that they can identify and use in the creation of a cover

(Johansson, 2004). The use of these musical formulas is predicated on the ability to aurally

identify them and perform them, often in different keys.1

Teaching Aural Skills to Young Students

As with many things, teaching aural skills to young children is easier than teaching aural

skills to adolescents, who are easier to teach than adults. This is for the same reasons that

learning a language is considerably easier for children – children have more neuroplasticity than

adults do. As was addressed earlier in this paper, learning music and language concurrently is a

great way to increase the chances of success in both, as they activate the same areas of the brain.

Therefore, it would make sense to add aural skills training to the already established curriculum.

The children would essentially be learning a second language that, if kept up with, will develop

their musical life for years to come.

1
As much as musicians mock it, just about every serious rock or jazz musician should be able to play The
Lick in all 12 keys. This, of course, is just one of thousands of little motifs that might be found in a piece, so
knowing more is also a necessity.
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When teaching ear training to young students, one of the most important tools an

educator can use is improvisation. Improvisation involves playing music without notation, and

relies on the musician’s ability to audiate what it will sound like in time with playing. Teaching

improvisation at any age is a simple method to ensure that the students are developing their aural

skills. However, teaching improvisation to young children ensures that aural ability is a tool they

can use for the rest of their musical career. A study of 5th grade musicians showed that students

that improvised demonstrated greater musical understanding than those who did not improvise

(Azzara, 1993). Since improvisation can lead to students’ enhancing their music, teaching it at a

young age will allow them to further hone their knowledge as their music education continues.

The concept of playing without notation is not new. Some theorists of music education

such as Zoltán Kodály and Shinichi Suzuki emphasize that learning notation should be delayed,

focusing more on developing musicianship than reading abilities. Playing without notation forces

the students to be able to understand the music that they play instead of being completely

dependent on what is written. Teaching out of method books that simultaneously teach notation

and how to play an instrument might even be a hindrance to young students. Learning to play

completely be ear yielded a noticeable growth in playing ability for a group of 6th graders while

the control group, who played out of traditional method books, did not yield the same results

(Bernhard, 2002). By delaying notation and advancing improvisation in early music classes,

young children will be better equipped to foster greater musical ability through developing their

ear to understand what sounds best to them. The combination of these concepts will ready

students to become the best musicians they can by enhancing their musical understanding.
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Conclusion: What’s Next?

The work for finding the best ways to teach music is never done. While these techniques

might work fairly well, there is no perfect works-in-all-scenarios method for teaching anything,

especially for a qualitative subject such as music. Perhaps the best course of action from here on

is to continue searching for ways to integrate ear training into music classrooms, as well as

finding ways to incorporate ear training (and music in general) into other subjects in school.

Since much of this paper covered how music and audiation helped children cultivate growth in

literacy, more research could be dedicated to find ways that music can be merged with other

subjects to boost development elsewhere.

On the whole, the development of strong aural skills benefits musicians and children to

an incredible degree. The importance of including appropriate ear training in the classroom,

therefore, is paramount. By improving aural skills teaching – and searching for further teaching

methods – music educators can shape the ways a musician grows as a conductor,

instrumentalist/vocalist, and performer.

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Sources Used:

Azzara, C. D. (1993). Audiation-Based Improvisation Techniques and Elementary Instrumental

Students Music Achievement. Journal of Research in Music Education,42(1), 88.

Bernhard, H. C. (2002). Singing in Instrumental Music Education: Research and

Implications. Update: Applications of Research in Music Education,22(1), 28-35.

Bilhartz, T. D., Bruhn, R. A., & Olson, J. E. (1999). The Effect of Early Music Training on Child
Cognitive Development. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology,20(4), 615-636.

Gromko, J. E. (2005). The Effect of Music Instruction on Phonemic Awareness in Beginning

Readers. Journal of Research in Music Education,53(3).

Grutzmacher, P. A. (1987). The Effect of Tonal Pattern Training on the Aural Perception,
Reading Recognition, and Melodic Sight-Reading Achievement of First-Year
Instrumental Music Students. Journal of Research in Music Education,35(3), 171.

Hansen, D., & Milligan, S. A. (2012). Aural Skills: At the Juncture of Research in Early Reading
and Music Literacy. Music Educators Journal,99(2), 75-80.

Harrison, C. S., Asmus, E. P., & Serpe, R. T. (1994). Effects of Musical Aptitude, Academic
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Hayward, C. M., & Gromko, J. E. (2009). Relationships Among Music Sight-Reading and
Technical Proficiency, Spatial Visualization, and Aural Discrimination. Journal of
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Johansson, K. (2004). What Chord Was That? A Study Of Strategies Among Ear Players In
Rock Music. Research Studies in Music Education,23(1), 94-101.

Jordan-Decarbo, J. (1982). Same/Different Discrimination Techniques, Readiness Training,

Pattern Treatment, and Sex on Aural Discrimination and Singing of Tonal Patterns by
Kindergartners. Journal of Research in Music Education,30(4), 237-246.

Lehmann, A., & McArthur, V. (2002). Sight-reading. In R. Parncutt & G. McPherson (Eds.), The
science & psychology of music performance: Creative strategies for teaching and
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Lyons, L. (2003, May 20). Americans Want Music Students to Play On. Retrieved December 10,
2018, from https://news.gallup.com/poll/8434/americans-want-music-students-play.aspx

SEG Measurement. (2013). Improving Preschool Students Language Skills: A Study of the
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https://media.kindermusik.com/assets/files/ABCMusicMe_ResearchStudy_FullReport.pd
f

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https://www.kindermusik.com