Ear Training In Education

What is Ear Training, Where and Why Does it Apply, and Should Ear Training be Taught to High School Students? Music educators have a large responsibility on teaching and building on their students’ musical techniques and skills, many of which go beyond just the performance aspect of music itself and in the education setting. Along with solo and ensemble performance, students engage themselves and progress their musical ability through learning literacy, theory, history, technology, and composition, some of which overlap. With this being said, students learn the basis of these subsets and the skills and techniques that interchange and interlink them, one of which will be the main focus of this paper – ear training. Not only will there be a

Music educators don’t always notice that these skills come naturally in our standards, but it also comes naturally to teach such skills, particularly ear training, in the first place to develop greater musicians. Dennis Granlie’s article, “Training the Musical Ear,” explains that “[students] are led by directors who, consciously or not, teach to Standards 6 and 7 of the National Standards for Music Education: ‘listening to, analyzing, and describing music’ and ‘evaluating music and performances’ (National Standards for Arts Education, 1994)” (1999, p. 38). With this, we naturally incorporate ear training, and of course with other vital skills, to our lesson plans and our classrooms. In The Teaching of Instrumental Music by Richard J. Colwell and Michael P. Hewitt, the emphasis and connection of ear training and well known songs bring together easier training of the ear and development of the musician – “Learning familiar songs by ear promotes development of ear-to-hand skills and audiation, both of which are important for the development of musicianship. Ear-to-hand skills are those skills necessary for playing music from memory or by improvisation” (2011, p. 4). Furthering past just ear training, the many techniques and skills learned along with it build a better musician, such as “singing, playing by ear, and improvising” where “students can take charge of their learning because they understand tonality and

As this essay has explained what ear training is and how and why it should and can be used in a musical setting in the classroom, it does not ever specify age or grade level, except for one article that specifically looks into his own research with his students in middle school, Huenink’s “Sing It, Hear It, Play It! Ear Training for Middle School Students.” With this being said, it should be asking us as educators whether we should be teaching ear training at all. Ear training can start at a young vital age where the brain is soaking in information and expanding on the knowledge our students know at that time and previously. At this point we, as teachers, should take advantage of this to teach basic ear training skills to kids as young as possible. By high school, it should be advancing and/or perfecting their ear training skills in preparation for their possible continuous music education and/or music involvement. The answer is yes, we should be teaching ear training, not just in high school but in middle school and elementary school as