Ear Training
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"Ear training gives a broad foundation of musical skills that adds to one's musicianship. I want my students to be able to figure out rhythms accurately, sing pitches clearly, and hear common chords and harmonic movement in different instrumental and stylistic contexts. These are the skills we work with, regardless of our instrument or the style of music we play."
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Robin Ginenthal, Professor
DEPARTMENT : Ear Training Department"I think that Berklee is way ahead in terms of how students are learning ear training. When you're learning solfege at most conservatories, there's a system called the fixed do system. If you're in the key of C, C is do (do re mi…). And if you're in the key of F, C is still do. Which means that the relationship of the pitches is going to change all the time according to the key signature. Berklee uses the movable do system. With the movable do system, once students learn the scale, that can be applied to any scale. Once you know how to sing in C major, you know how to sing in F major. Once the students learn the pitch relationships in one key, they can do them in any key."
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Rick DiMuzio, Professor
DEPARTMENT : Ear Training Department"I like to bring a lot of supplemental material into the ear training classroom. I feel responsible for exposing the students' ears to great music that they may not have heard before and for educating them to become better critical listeners. It's not uncommon for the class to learn a North Indian raga or to dissect the harmonies of a piece by Stravinsky or Ellington."
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"Nobody comes to Berklee to study ear training, and yet what we do here is the most practical thing. What we're dealing with are long-term musicianship skills that are not for any particular style, but are important to all musical styles. It's really not about style at all. It's about the musical language that's common to all musical forms. We're developing long-term learning skills that, really, you're not going to digest for five or ten years. So we do our best to make it challenging and rewarding to every musician. What we're doing is building a style-neutral method for musical learning, one that will take many years to master."
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"I want students to come away with an understanding and an appreciation of why the basics are so important. Because at 18, 19, 20 years old, I had certain ideas of what music I wanted to play. But life changes and takes you in different places, and you're an artist, but you're also a craftsman. You have to be able to do a variety of things to make a living in music. It's important to get those basic things in place so that when you leave school you'll have options. What you do now may not be what you're doing in ten years. If you don't have the groundwork in place you're going to fall short somewhere along the line."
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"My approach, I think, is very pragmatic. How can I teach things that are going to be practical? How do we make ear training relevant, instead of being some academic or abstract course that students have to take, but don't understand why. I try to demonstrate examples of things I've transcribed. Throughout my career, I've been playing diverse styles. In my classes, I use funk, r&b, Latin, Brazilian, Afro-Cuban. . . ."
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"Ear training is an integral piece of the puzzle for the professional musician. Having a good ear means better communication in any musical setting, including stage, recording studio, and teaching studio. If a note, chord, or rhythm is heard that elicits a response (whether good or bad), how cool is it to know exactly what the sound was and why it worked—or didn't! In those circumstances, I feel as if I'm in on a little secret that nonmusicians never get to experience."
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"There's a lot of work involved in acquiring the skills to become a creative musician. You can have the creativity, but it comes out more easily if you do the work to acquire these tools. It doesn't have to be a drag to do that work, but even genius needs help. Even Lennon and McCartney went through lots of study. They learned every song that came on the radio; they knew hundreds of songs before they became the Beatles. We're not trying to inhibit anyone's creativity; we're just trying to give them the vocabulary to express themselves."
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Yumiko Matsuoka, Professor
DEPARTMENT : Ear Training Department"If people want to continue as professional musicians in any way, ear training will be essential for their growth. People who write have to be able to express what they hear in their heads in an efficient way. Sometimes it takes time for students to find out what ear training can do for them and their career. But once they do, they go, 'Oh, wow—this is what I have to do to achieve my goals.' It might be a long road, but I'm hoping that it's a fascinating discovery. I'm still learning myself. I learn as I teach. And I love it."
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Roberta Radley, Assistant Chair
DEPARTMENT : Ear Training Department"Ear training is not magic. And it's not something you're either born with or not. It's a lot of dedicated hard work, and it takes time. But the value of it is that, like a language, once you own it, you own it."
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