Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Aural training: What good is it?

I think you mean solfège?


Aural training can be done at any time, not formally with a teacher, as I hinted at earlier. You can do it in the bath or shower - just practice singing intervals (after singing do-re-mi first, if you need to). Most people sing in the bath, don't they?

And you can also do it while listening to music - not even classical. Find a tune you know very well, like your national anthem, or a Christmas carol, and identify the interval between each of the adjacent notes of the melody, using solfége. If you know your harmony, try identifying the harmony and the harmonic progression too. Try to sing a third below the melody of a song.

And so on.....

(BTW, all the above was what I did when I was a student, often just for fun, when I was bored during school classes - I'd 'sing' stuff in my head (often the hymn that I sang in morning assembly earlier) and write it down on solfége, add on what I think was the harmony used, then later try it out on the piano to see how much I got right)

True not just for aural skills, isn't it?
Unless of course you do know everything about everything.
Still, it seems to me that would certainly be hard to know that you know everything about everything, wouldn't it? Your mileage may vary.

It's about time for the Alan Watts limerick, isn't it?

There was a young man who said though,
It seems that I know that I know,
But what I would like to see is the I that knows me
When I know that I know that I know.

The only question is what these different opinions are based on. If you ask the question: "How much is it necessary to read notes to an amateur pianist of jazz or pop", then it is easy to foresee the majority of answers, to which I can join. But on the basis of this, deny the need to develop musical ear (my guess)? These are two completely different categories!

Solfège and solfeggio are the same thing, one is French and the other Italian.

As a child, my teacher made me sing in solfeggio (solfege). I loved singing, but that was hard for me. And then I had to do it in choir, and then again for undergrad ear training classes. I was thankful when taking those classes that I had done that before, but it didn't really appear to serve any other purpose for me except something more to think about.

In the US, solfege isn't really used much except in choir. It's not in any method piano books, nor do you find it much in sightreading books out there except for ones used in college. But I do know in Europe and Asia it is used quite a bit more in piano. So why is it neglected in the States?

When Tyrone brought this up for the exams, I started to realize that there were things that I could do because of my singing background that were extremely helpful in learning pieces:

1) Audiation (looking at sheet music and being able to "sing" it in your head without playing)
2) Musicality (such as phrasing, identifying cadences or significant notes or chords in a passage)

I think this is where solfege really comes in handy, and sure, as a result I can play by ear very easily and write down what I hear. Those are great benefits, but not necessary for the average adult student. But audiation is extremely important, and being able to hear your mistakes because your reading and the sound that what you see should make helps you to self-regulate that (although no one is perfect).

As for musicality, I think when you physically sing notes, you can first of all, feel if the interval is close or far away. The human voice has to work harder for leaps larger than a 3rd, and the human ear hears higher notes as louder, so by learning solfege, one can better understand instinctively how to shape a phrase or find significant notes in a passage. Certainly one can do this as well by analyzing the score, but I do think feeling the important notes is much more helpful and faster.

edited to add: One last point I was thinking, is that what we do is an aural art, so we probably should be concerned with developing our relative pitch/aural skills, if anything so that we listen to ourselves.

So, not absolutely necessary, but probably worth putting some effort into it, IMO.

Yes but solfège is a french word, I didn't know it was also valid in english. I thought solfeggio was right word.

I heard that in France, solfeggio requirements are at a completely crazy level, including the singing and dictations of atonal music.

I got the strong impression that if Tyrone wasn't doing the RCM exam in which aural tests are a part, you would never bothered with teaching him aural skills.

If that's so, does that mean that you don't consider aural skills an important part of teaching students piano, and that you don't bother with them?

Music is an international language. Words, unfortunately, are not. Morodienne just answered that - Solfeggio is the Italian word, with an accent grave it's French, minus the accent, it's sort of English - I've seen it referred to in English with and without the accent, and as Solfege or Solfeggio. I think the former is more common.

What is much more important is how it's used, where it's used, and whether it is "movable Do" or "fixed Do" - that is ultra important. In French, the names of pitches are Do Re Mi - in English they are called C, D, E .... "fixed Do" replaces C with Do, etc. and the name is the pitch. In movable, Do is the Tonic, Sol is the Dominant note, Ti is the Subtonic etc., so that in the key of G major, G is called Do in movable, in the key of C major, G is called Sol. That is why it's ultra-important to know which is being meant.

The RCM - which Tyrone is studying - added movable Do solfege to the theory books a few years ago. I had to do a leap when I went to the 2nd level of harmony theory, because the new book was leaning on things that had not been taught. They added letter name (jazz) chords, and m.D. solfege. The jazz chords are there, because in a lot of music, the neat and tidy functional chords no longer are enough. The Solfege is for "voice leading" patterns in 4-part harmony. For example: G7 to C (V7-I), Ti likes to go to Do (B to C), Fa likes to go to Mi (F to E). You have your four notes: G, B, D, F going to three notes: C, E, G ... which are on the page in some order, with four voices going on - and it has to make sense harmonically as well as for each individual line.

"Singing" the piano music falls apart for me, esp. using movable Do solfege ---- which was my ONLY reference for decades so I do know this system well ----- when the music is not diatonic, where suddenly you have no Do, i.e. when it's atonal ----- and how on earth do you "sing" music which is all chords, esp. massive complicated chords? Even if you develop throat singing, you'll only manage a maximum of two notes at a time.

I do have use for this ability and still use it. At times when someone posts music here, I sing it off the page with my eyes and voice - and don't necessarily have to use my voice.

One DISadvantage this ability gave me is a certain "register deafness". Our voices do not have the range of a piano. My range is larger than for most untaught singers: 3 octaves; my pitch is pretty good. But I still had to switch to an octave lower or higher when singing from the page. As a result, when restarting and remediating piano, I might play in the wrong octave because they were "the same" for me. I had to develop a "feel for register" and it is still a weakness.

The movable Do part as it evolved for me? I can play a melody on my descant recorder, on the piano, on the guitar - flip over to the alto F recorder and play the same thing in F that was in C, without batting an eye. I can switch into any key and not even notice: if a recording has been slowed down on Youtube so that the piece in C# is playing in C, I won't notice and won't care. The "perfect pitch" folks are thrown for a loop. But I ALSO won't notice if I'm playing in the wrong key - until I end up with an implausible number of black keys that shouldn't be there. V7-I .... G7-C; Bb7-Eb; E7-A .... sounded the "same" to me. I had to work on it.

What bothers me ......... often ............ is this guessing about what other people are and aren't doing. It's for Morodiene to answer ofc. But you are asking this of someone whose absolute expertise is singing, at a mastery level ... whether the hearing part of music might be important. I'd find it implausible that it weren't.

My post was addressed to her, not you. Why are you presuming to answer for her?

Have you read through the numerous posts in the exam thread?

You are correct. This is why I mentioned that it's not stressed at all in the US except in choirs and when you are a music major. You don't find it talked about much at all among fellow teachers from the US. So really, this process of going through the RCM has got me thinking more about it. I had also unrelatedly been reading a book that discussed solfege for piano (fixed do), in helping students develop a picture of the keyboard in their head as they play.

I'm giving it a try with my private students (at least the ones that aren't only taking 30 minute lessons - not my choice but the school's), but even 45 minutes isn't enough time. I'm not quite sure how to work this in.

I expect it's difficult for learners of fixed-pitch instruments like the piano to see what's to be gained from learning aural skills (if they weren't required for exams etc) and I have to say that it wasn't until I discovered that I could start to 'hear' the music I was looking at in a score (without needing a piano), and later, joined a choir and realized I could sight-sing fairly easily that I understood how useful aural skills were, and not just for general musicianship.

As well as an enhanced appreciation of the music I was learning (on piano as well as singing) or listening to, when I could pick out and follow individual lines within textures (in chamber, orchestral and choral music), and hear how they relate to the general harmonic progression as well as to the actual melody. I also believe aural skills helped immensely with my rhythmic acuity very early on, because familiarity with beating time to music (after ascertaining the number of beats per bar) develops the sense of an ingrained regular beat.

But I can see why teachers who don't have much time to get through all the pieces in each lesson will think that teaching of aural skills is surplus to requirements, especially if their students don't see the point of them either.....

I had ear training as a child student but it was a second 45 minute weekly lesson. I wasn’t asked whether I wanted it, but honestly it just seemed like a puzzle to learn. ... not painful. The one suggestion I would have is to find a good ear training application and incorporate it into the lesson and assigned practice. I’m not a teacher, so I have zero experience in putting this together this way.... so just a thought for better or worse.

I have not gone through the entire thread yet, but my teacher teaches me technique, theory, aural, and even a little bit of history. I told her that I would never take the initiative to learn these on my own, so they have to be a good portion of my lessons. I have not taken any tests at all with any program and have no plans to do so at this time. I don't have official titles of what she teaches me, but just running through my head:

Major and Minor Intervals
Major and Minor Scales
Time Signatures
Key Signatures: what is the key of this piece? what other keys appear in this piece?
Recognizing a chord, melody, harmony, scale

I'm certain I'm missing some.

That's interesting...I was thinking back to my master's degree and there was nothing about solfege/ear training in my pedagogy course, nor is it mentioned in any of the pedagogy texts I own except in passing. I wonder why this is? Did it just fall out of fashion?

My teacher did not use a text book—- so I have no idea of her own personal history and, sadly, I never thought to ask her where she studied. I assume that it did go out of fashion at some point because it is so time consuming and there would not be much student interest. I was just addicted to anything piano and never questioned anything.

It's quite possible that nobody knows for sure how humans perceive pitch, and thus no one knows how to _teach_ it.

In my experience, students come in with all sorts of hearing abilities--some quite extensive, and others completely ZERO. Yet others I would contend have negative ability--meaning I have some hefty work to do with them just to get them to "normal" levels.

I think you need at least some rudimentary ear training so that you can hear wrong notes when you practice. For example, a note that is not in the major/minor scale should jump out at you, if you know the notes in the scale. And then you add chords and seventh chords if the student gets that far. Otherwise, I would only do ear training (such as interval ID) with the exam students. I save dictation for the AP students. Lesson time can be spent on other, more important things.

I think that piano teachers who are used to teaching aural skills as an essential part of piano teaching will find ways of incorporating them into normal lessons, as all my teachers did.

They never allocated 'special time' or devoted specific lessons towards aural skills: for the first four years, my weekly lessons were 30 minutes long; then a move to boarding school, where the lessons were 45 minutes. Aural skills were included from day 1: as I've mentioned frequently in previous posts, they were simply part of the 'counting beats', where my teacher sang them (one-and-two-and etc) in pitch with the actual notes being played, and got me to sing along with her. From counting-while-singing beats aloud to clapping the rhythm to beating time; and from singing intervals of major seconds to major thirds, perfect fourths and fifths as I learnt more notes.......it was a straightforward progression, all done together with learning the notes on the piano. One is complementary to the other.

When I was no longer required to count/sing beats aloud, my teacher would just - every now and then - play two-note chords, or two notes one after the other, and ask me to identify the interval between them (only intervals I'd already learnt, of course). And they were always notes I'd be learning as part of the new piece. Same for identifying time signatures and clapping rhythms.

No need to turn aural skills into something 'extra' or 'foreign' just because it's 'aurals' rather than practicals.

But of course, all teachers here in the UK (and my home country) have to teach aural skills to all students because of the exams, and they themselves too were taught them when they were students and doing the same exams. If it isn't part of a teacher's usual lessons - and it seems it isn't in the US -, it won't be an easy task to start doing it......

Tyrone, I never went to the original question. I'm thinking that to learn to play music on an instrument, this involves all kinds of things that interrelate. Music is held in notation when it is written down, the notation represents sounds, and the sounds create sequenced patterns which make sense to the listener. Ideally they are brought together in a way that they work together for the student, so he can use them. I don't think it always happens. When I first came on forums, I'd see students who had "studied theory", were advanced in it, hated it, saw no use for it, and did not use it in working on pieces of music. It has to all knit together and be useful.

In regard to the RCM program: I went through the theory you are doing right now, and beyond. At the moment you're doing the rudiments part, which comes in three overlapping levels. When I finished rudiments, I went on the harmony theory, which to a great degree went to four part harmony: the kind of music that Bach wrote for the chorales. You have four voices from bass to soprano, and the four voices had to make sense as individual melodies separately, yet also work as harmony. At this point I had to know the things I had studied in rudiments, because I had to use them and know what they are. It is not the only way to learn things, but it is one. It goes from the parts to the whole.

I would want to relate everything you are studying as much as you can to the music you are playing. If you are learning major thirds, find them in your music and on the piano, listen for the major or minor, seek out patterns that you hear and see. Listen on the radio and in your environment. The beeps in grocery store cash registers tend to be in unison but occasionally one is a semitone off. Music you hear - what mood does it create for you, and can you capture what you're hearing to make it so. You want to bring it from an abstract, intellectual thing, to something real.