Aural Skills in Context by Matthew Shaftel, Evan Jones, and Juan Chattah is the first complete text covering sight singing, ear training, and rhythm practice that features real musical examples (from classical to folk and jazz) as the composer wrote them.

Comprehensive Aural Skills is a complete suite of material for both performance and dictation, covering the wide range of sight singing and ear training skills required for undergraduate courses of study. It provides a series of instructional modules on rhythm, melody, and harmony, and blends musical examples from the common-practice repertory with original examples composed to specifically address particular skills and concepts. Each module includes material for classroom performance, self-directed study, and homework assignments. Features A complete suite of aural skills material: Comprehensive Aural Skills is a combined sight singing and ear training textbook, audio, and companion website package. Fully modular, customizable organization: Instructors can choose freely from the set of exercises in the book and supplemental material on the companion website to appropriately tailor the curriculum based on their students’ needs. Engaging and idiomatic musical examples: Examples are selected and composed specifically for the didactic context of an aural skills classroom. Dictation exercises for practice and assignment: Practice exercises include an answer key so students can work independently and receive immediate feedback, while homework assignments are given without a key. Audio examples for dictation: The website hosts live recordings of acoustic instruments performed by professional musicians for each dictation exercise and homework assignment. Supplemental Materials for Instructors: A wealth of material for class use and assignment can be found on the companion website. Teachers Guide: The guide includes answers for every homework assignment, brief commentary on each module’s content, tips for integrating written theory, and strategies on how to effectively teach new concepts and skills. The companion website for Comprehensive Aural Skills includes a wealth of additional examples in all areas of aural skills and at every level of difficulty represented in the text. Students have access to additional dictation examples with recordings and answer keys, allowing them to directly reinforce their classroom experience and practice dictation on their own time.

This book is about thinking in music. Music listeners who understand what they hear are thinking in music. Music readers who understand and visualize what they read are thinking in music. This book investigates the various ways musicians acquire those skills through an examination of the latest research in music perception and cognition, music theory, along with centuries of insight from music theorists, composers, and performers. Aural skills are the focus; the author also works with common problems in both skills teaching and skills acquisition.

A self-training manual as well as a classroom text, this book is a complete step-by-step course to develop the musician's ability to hear and notate any style of music. Personal training, thoery and exercises produce techniques which are combined in an integrated craft which may be applied to composition, orchestration, arranging, improvisation and performance. A kind of finishing school for those who wish to pursue a career in composing, orchestrating, arranging or performing. -- The Score, Society of Composers and Lyricists A myriad of practical information. Comprehensive ear training, important because aural skills are among the most overlooked in music education. -- Survey of New Teaching Materials, Jazz Educators journal A synthesis of the author's vast knowledge and his quest to define the question, "How do we hear?" -- ITG Journal A wonderfully systematic approach to ear training . . . neatly designed and structured, it just flows. Direct and easily understood. -- New books, Jazz Educators Journal Bernard Brandt says: "Hearing and Writing Music", by Ron Gorow, is a superb book. It makes a simple and elegant presentation of the internal process by which we hear sounds and music, how we recognize intervals, chords, melody, harmony, counterpoint, and the timbre of instrumentation/ orchestration, how we can develop the skills of listening, auditory memory and imagination, and how to use these skills to hear and to write down music of any sort. The hallmark of an expert is the ability to explain the basics of his field as simply as possible. By that standard, Mr. Gorow has proven his expertise in this book. I note that the other reviews, both for Amazon and in musical journals, tend to limit the importance of "Hearing and Writing Music" to ear training. I believe that Mr. Gorow's book is valuable for much more than ear training. I have studied it, and as a result of that study, I believe that my auditory memory and imagination and my abilities in score reading have improved enormously. Further, I have been able to use the skills in this book to transcribe melodies, harmonies and counterpoint almost effortlessly, both those that I have heard, and those which existed only in my imagination. This book has opened many doors for me. I believe that it can do so for many others.

Developing Musicianship Through Aural Skills is a comprehensive method for learning to hear, sing, understand, and use the foundations of music as a part of an integrated and holistic curriculum for training professional musicians. Each chapter is organized to take advantage of how our minds and instincts naturally hear and understand music and provides a variety of exercises for practicing and integrating the structure into your musical vocabulary. Developing Musicianship Through Aural Skills will provide you with the musical terms, progressions, resolutions, and devices that you will be able to draw upon as a functional and usable musical vocabulary. Ear training exercises on the companion website reinforce both discrete structures (intervals, chords, etc.) as well as all rhythmic and melodic material, and sections are provided to open discussion and reflection on the skills and attitudes professional musicians need to be successful. Features: Easy to Understand Explanations: Topics are logically ordered and explained to help the student make connections to their theory instruction and common usage. A Complete Method: Detailed instructions are given for singing and hearing structures as they most commonly appear in music., providing students with a proven, reliable process for creating and discerning musical structures. Exercises: Ideas for drill, pitch patterns, rhythms, melodies, duets, sing and plays, and examples from the literature help the student to integrate each chapter’s material. Reflections: Discussions of topics that help students to develop as a person, a professional, and an artist, and to integrate aural skills into their musical education. Companion Website: Ear Training tools and video demonstrations. You can find the companion website at www.routledge.com/textbooks/developingmusicianship.

This book comes with no CDs. You will need four CDs to work with this book. These CDs can be bought separately or you may download MP3 files from various on-line vendors. Contextual Ear Training is a major expansion of the "One Note" exercise from the "Fanatic's Guide to Sight Singing and Ear Training." Much of the material from the first few chapters of "Fanatic's Guide" is included in this book. This is because some students may be purchasing this book and not the "Fanatic's Guide." It's recommend that you first work with the "Fanatic's Guide" before using this book, although you can certainly work with both simulta-neously, to good effect. For some students working without the "Fanatic's Guide" may be fine but "Contextual Ear Training" assumes you have a fair degree of proficiency with the "One Note" exercise in "Fanatic's Guide." So to reiterate, if you find this book and associated CD too hard it would be suggest that first work with the "Fanatic's Guide." Although the "One Note" exercise is just the first exercise in "Fanatic's Guide" it's really the key to the whole methodology. Many students can easily sing through all exercises in the Fanatic's Guide once they have mastered the "One Note" exercise. However, It would still recommend getting the "Fanatic's Guide" because cases have be seen where a person has mastered the "One Note" technique but still has problems with the other "Fanatic's Guide" exercises, so it's prudent to make sure you are not one of those people. If you are new to this Ear Training Series its also recommend that you work with "Ear Training One Note Complete" book as a companion to this method. The "One Note" exercise is an extremely good exercise and thefour CDs that are available separately from this book really help a student to focus in on this technique in a structured way. Contextual Ear Training includes a music theory section and FAQ sec

The Musician’s Guide to Theory and Analysis is a complete package of theory and aural skills resources that covers every topic commonly taught in the undergraduate sequence. The package can be mixed and matched for every classroom, and with Norton’s new Know It? Show It! online pedagogy, students can watch video tutorials as they read the text, access formative online quizzes, and tackle workbook assignments in print or online. In its third edition, The Musician’s Guide retains the same student-friendly prose and emphasis on real music that has made it popular with professors and students alike.