Aural Skills in Beginning Band: A Comparative Case Study

Abstract

The purpose of this comparative case study was to describe how experienced directors of beginning band teach aural skills. Research questions that guided this study were: (a) How do beginning band teachers incorporate aural skills into their teaching?; (b) How do beginning band teachers describe their preparation, implementation, and assessment of aural skills?; and (c) How do teachers of beginning band balance the teaching of aural skills with other requirements? Purposeful and criterion-based sampling were used to identify information-rich cases. Four experienced teachers of beginning band were interviewed and observed with special attention given to their techniques when teaching aural skills to their students. Each teacher was observed once in person and each teacher supplied no fewer than three recordings of lessons of their choosing that they felt best represented their aural skills teaching philosophy. Teacher participants shared that they believe teaching aural skills in band is essential for the following reasons: (a) teaching with aural skills first is an efficient way to start beginners; (b) asking students to learn the mechanics and executive skills on instruments concurrently with learning how to read, is unreasonable to expect from a student; (c) music is similar to a language and should be taught in the way that emerging reading behaviors are taught for any other language; (d) students are more likely to find quicker success and therefore motivation to keep trying if they are able to play tunes by ear early on in their education; (e) developing musicianship in students is a priority and aural skills plays a huge role in musicianship; and (f) students that learn aurally first tend to read music more effectively in the long run. Participant answers on when aural skills and notation should be taught included the following: (a) notation should be introduced during the second lesson; (b) notation should be introduced during the second year of instruction; (c) aural skills should be infused into every lesson; (d) aural skills must precede notation; and (e) more time would mean more depth of knowledge in aural skills. Participants were observed teaching aural skills in a number of different ways through a number of a different techniques, including: (a) solfege; (b) singing; (c) call-and-echo; (d) improvisation; (e) buzzing on brass mouthpieces; (f) background music; (g) tonal center identification; and (h) tonal patterns.