Jenny B. asks...

I've migrated a question from another site, plus my answer. I would enjoy your perspectives on her question and/or my answer.

Jennifer Berkedal asked, on April 18th, 2007 at 6:01 pm
Hey Ron,
What is aural comprehension?
Jenny

My answer:

Ron Malanga said, on April 19th, 2007 at 10:01 am

Aural Comprehension is the breadth, depth and accuracy of one’s understanding of musical patterns as they occur in sound.

Compare it to the visual arts. Among other gifts, a good painter must have a powerful imagination and memory for color, line, shape, perspective, etc (the stuff of art). Similarly the musical artist must possess a powerful imagination and memory for tone patterns, rhythm patterns, harmonic progressions, timbres, meters, modes, etc (the stuff of music).

Developing Aural Comprehension is often called ‘ear training’, but the traditional methodologies don’t actually train most ears very efficiently with tone, and almost not at all with rhythm! Superior methods have been developed, but are, as of yet, not well known or widely used.  Read "Learning Sequences in Music" by Edwin E. Gordon for better ways.

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