Relevance for peers, my own development and the music teaching world

The research is relevant for all teachers of music at any level of music teaching when music notation is involved. Teachers need to be aware what is activated in the mind and the ears of their students when reading music notation. For music theory colleagues the research may hopefully shine a light on aspects in the process of the development of aural skills that have been debated for a long time.

Sight singing is a (much feared or even hated) part of almost every music theory curriculum in conservatoires. But one might ask oneself why lessons in sight singing are needed for students who can supposedly already read music notation? The answer usually is: to develop their aural imagination in relation to music notation. The way they have learned to read music notation in the first place did not develop this skill well enough then.

“Many music educators believe the purpose of syllables is to teach students how to hear pitch relations and so to teach tonal syllables as a way for students to discriminate among sounds. The reverse is true in learning sequence activities. As explained, sounds are taught first and then with syllables as a way to name what has already been heard. […] Soon, simultaneous audiation of sounds with syllables occurs automatically.”[1]

In classes we often meet students who have no problems in sight sing and students who find sight singing very difficult or frustrating. I think this is not the fault (or lack of talent or even musicality) of the students. The way they have learned to read staff notation may actually prevent them to hear the music before it is played. And this problem can’t be solved if music notation is approached in this same way in the aural skills classes: from symbols and pitch names to sound. Just singing instead of playing the music on an instrument will not be enough to learn to understand the staff notation aurally if this skill has not been developed before. A way to connect the inner hearing (which students do have because they have heard and played a lot of music) to the notated symbols must be learned. Therefore an inner hearing system is needed. In my opinion this is the relative system of sound relations, expressed in the relative solfa syllables.

Can the tests show if and how the inner hearing system is applied? And is there a different experience when the notation is changed?

For my own development as an aural skills teacher I see possibilities for designing my lessons and teaching materials in a more structured and effective way, based on tested experiences with students, and not only on my own suppositions.