The development of aural musicianship skills is essential to any serious musician. Aural musicianship encompasses various aspects of musical listening, sight-reading and sight-singing, as well as musical improvisation.

Aspects of aural musicianship training include:

– Familiarization with the rudiments of staff notation, including concepts of key signatures, accidentals, rhythms, and meters

– Sight-reading ability (sight-singing as well as on an instrument)

– Identification of melodic and harmonic intervals

– Identification of rhythms and meters

– Identification of chord qualities and chord functions

– Proficiency in alternating between fixed and movable solfege systems

– Identifying modulations and associated harmonic devices

– Freely navigating within tonal space

– On-the-spot figured bass or lead sheet realization

– Atonal listening and pitch-class sets identification

– Improvisation

– Musical memory: melody, rhythm, harmony, timbre

…and more.

Lessons in aural skills will be tailored to the needs of each individual student.