CONTEMPORARY EARTRAINING LEVEL TWO - AUTHOR'S FOREWORD and TABLE OF CONTENTS
For your information we have included below the Author's Foreword and Table of Contents from the Contemporary Eartraining Level Two Book.
This web page contains excerpts from the Contemporary Eartraining Level Two Book ©1994 Mark Harrison. All rights reserved.
CONTEMPORARY EARTRAINING LEVEL TWO - AUTHOR'S FOREWORD
Welcome to Contemporary Eartraining Level 2. This book has been used by hundreds of students in Eartraining classes held at the former Grove School of Music in Los Angeles. As such it represents a proven and 'battle-tested' approach to the subject matter! The internationally-acclaimed Grove School provided a unique learning experience for the contemporary musician, and in this exciting environment I developed a complete Eartraining
syllabus which became a vital part of the school's musicianship instruction. I am delighted to now be making my Eartraining Level 1 & 2 courses available to a wider market of students and educators! This book is self-sufficient for teachers working in private lesson or classroom settings, and for students wishing to use it as a theory/conceptual review. However, teachers as well as students working on a self-study basis will be interested to know that cassette tapes of all the exercises in this book are available - please see page iv for further information.
Some of you may be thinking, "What is Eartraining and why do I need it?" - well, it's my belief that an educated ear is the foundation we need in order to compose, arrange or perform in contemporary styles. In other words - you won't be able to write or play anything that you can't hear! A main factor distinguishing top pro musicians from the rest, is their ability to 'hear ahead' - to know what something will sound like before it is written or played. This of course results in greater focus and accuracy in the musical end product. Also the ability to hear what other performers are doing, either live or transcribing from records, is a vital goal for a great many musicians! The bottom line is that the mastery of Eartraining skills will enable you to achieve these goals!
My Eartraining books & courses use a key-center based 'relative pitch' method. By this I mean that the ear first needs to identify where the tonic or 'home-base' of a given key is, and then to establish the 'active-to-resting' resolutions that occur within the key. There are two vital
consequences to this approach - firstly it empowers you to discard bad habits like 'singing up
the scale' to find out where you are, and secondly you will be identifying the 'resolutions' in
every key in exactly the same manner. In order to do this, we need a method of labelling the
scale degrees which will apply to all keys - my books use the 'SOLFEG' (short for 'solfeggio')
system. This simply entails calling the major scale degrees by their 'solfeg' names - DO, RE,
MI, FA, SO, LA, TI and back to DO. Famous 'solfeg' users include Julie Andrews in the Sound of Music!! The beauty of using this system is that 'DO' can be assigned to any key - the scale
resolutions will work in exactly the same manner! Indeed I believe that it is vital for the modern musician to be able to hear melody and harmony in the same way regardless of the actual key used - hence the problems with the so-called eartraining methods advocating 'perfect pitch' that I sometimes see advertised. My Contemporary Eartraining Level 1 book introduced this 'SOLFEG' labelling system and the main 'active-to-resting' resolutions which occur within the major scale - these tools were then used in melodic dictation, diatonic chord recognition etc. This Contemporary Eartraining Level 2 book also makes use of these 'SOLFEG' and resolution concepts - please check out the 'Level 1 Solfeg Review' on page 2 as necessary!
Here in Contemporary Eartraining Level 2 our main focus is on hearing harmony and different types of chord progressions (following on from Contemporary Eartraining Level 1 where the main focus was on hearing melodies, resolutions and intervals). In this book we will be transcribing chord progressions using major triads (involving key changes) and diatonic triads (staying within the same key). These types of progressions are routinely found in today's pop music! Also we will be transcribing 'II-V-I'-type four-part chord progressions (for example, Dmi7 - G7 - Cma7 in the key of C) moving through different key changes - this is an essential foundation for understanding jazz and standard tunes. We then see how melodies can be used (and transcribed) across these 'II-V-I'-type modulations. As so much of today's music uses modal scales, we will also work on modal scale recognition in this book. To get the best out of the material in Level 2, you need to have some familiarity with basic melodic dictation and interval recognition, either by having worked through my Contemporary Eartraining Level 1 book, or via equivalent study and/or experience.
This book is divided into three main sections:-
Textbook, containing chapters for each subject area addressed, with explanation of the eartraining concepts and how to apply them
Workbook Questions, containing exercises for each subject area
Workbook Answers, containing answers and transcribed voicings for all the exercises.
At the Grove School, we were running ten-week quarterly semesters, and in the class I would cover the earlier chapters (major triads, diatonic triads, modes) in the first four weeks prior to a mid-term test, and the later chapters ('II-V-I' progressions, 7-3 line melodies) together
with continuing assignments from the earlier chapters, in the next four weeks prior to a final test. The material can also be adapted for use within different length semesters/courses, at the discretion of the teacher. The cassette tapes available with the book contain practice material and homework assignments for each chapter.
Teachers can play from the Workbook Answers section when drilling students, who can then fill out their answers in the Workbook Questions section. Students wishing to drill the material on a self-study basis can listen to the cassette tapes which are available (see page iv) when filling out the Workbook Questions, which can then be verified against the Workbook
Answers. (Teachers may also feel that students would benefit from using the tapes between lessons). Good luck with Eartraining - and I hope it opens many doors for you as a musician!!
MARK HARRISON
Harrison Music Education Systems
Los Angeles, California
CONTEMPORARY EARTRAINING LEVEL TWO - TABLE OF CONTENTS
| Level One solfeg review: | Explanation of major scale solfeg and resolutions first introduced in Contemporary Eartraining Level 1 | Page 2 |
| Chapter One/Introduction: | Summary of subject areas addressed in the book | Page 3 |
| Chapter Two: | Circle-of-fifths and circle-of-fourths | Page 5 |
| - how these terms are used in an Eartraining context | |
| Chapter Three: | Chromatic solfeg | Page 11 |
| - adding extra solfeg syllables for chromatic notes | |
| Chapter Four: | Major triad progressions | Page 15 |
| - using the circle of 5ths/4ths and half-step movements | |
| Chapter Five: | Diatonic triad progressions | Page 23 |
| - hearing all combinations of triads within a major key | |
| Chapter Six: | Modal scale recognition | Page 31 |
| - hearing modes as 'solfeg' alterations to the major scale | |
| Chapter Seven: | II-V-I (two-five-one) four-part progressions | Page 37 |
| - recognizing key changes using II-V-I harmonies | |
| Chapter Eight: | 7-3 melodic line dictation over II-V-I (two-five-one) progressions | Page 47 |
| - using 7ths & 3rds of the chords as melody notes | |
| Chapter Nine: | Vocal drills | Page 51 |
| - practice routines around the circle of 5ths & 4ths | |
| Chapter Ten: | Cassette tape contents list | Page 59 |
| Workbook Questions: | Fill out your answers to the tape assignments here | Page 61 |
| Workbook Answers: | Check against correct answers printed here | Page 89 |
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