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.

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. This updated Second Edition includes Revised Rhythm module structure, now introducing foundational concepts more gradually Additional examples from the repertory in the Harmony and Melody modules New and improved recordings on the companion website

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.

From Sight to Sound provides practical and creative techniques for classical improvisation for musicians of all levels and instruments, solo or in ensembles. These exercises build aural and communicative skills, instrumental technique, and musical understanding. When students use their instruments to execute and improvise on theoretical concepts, they make vivid connections between abstract ideas and their own playing. This then allows students to unite performance with music theory, ear-training, historical style and context, chamber music skills, and listening skills. Many of the exercises in this book are designed for players working in pairs or small groups to encourage performers to communicate with one another and build an atmosphere of trust in which creativity and spontaneity may flourish.