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Listen to a song from the playlist below and determine its meter. Listen to the first 1–2 phrases of the song and identify the rhythmic cells used and their order. Optionally, identify an appropriate meter, time signature, and durational symbols that represent the music.

Goal: Perform indicated rhythmic cells Before you start: This is a group activity Instructions: Identify a leader. This person will display the defined rhythmic cells in a way that everyone else can see, such as in notation or protonotation on a board. The leader sets up a steady beat, perhaps by conducting, and everyone else aligns themselves with that beat. Once everyone is ready, the leader points at rhythmic cells and the other participants perform them on rhythmic solfège, on “ta,” or by clapping or tapping. The leader should start by changing slowly, allowing the other participants to settle into each cell by performing it a few times in a row; as people get more comfortable, the pace of change can speed up until you are changing every beat.

Start one of the songs in the playlist below. Pick a rhythmic cell listed above and perform it to the beat of the song playing As you perform the rhythmic cell, listen for where significant changes seem to happen in the music. At these points, change to a new rhythmic cell! If you feel like you aren’t able to hear these points of change while performing the rhythm, that’s ok (we’ll work on listening for form later)—just change when it feels appropriate to you. Continue to switch patterns until you feel comfortable with each of the four cells. If you feel pretty comfortable with the rhythmic cells, you might start performing them one after another or even jumping

Figure 7.31 “S5 Protonotation” by Meghan Hatfield licensed under a . Figure 7.32 “S6 Protonotation” by Meghan Hatfield licensed under a . Figure 7.33 “S7 Protonotation” by Meghan Hatfield licensed under a . Figure 7.34 “S8 Protonotation” by Meghan Hatfield licensed under a . Figure 7.43 “S9 Protonotation” by Meghan Hatfield licensed under a . Figure 7.44 “S10 Protonotation” by Meghan Hatfield licensed under a

Beats in compound meter have three equal divisions. Traditional notation of compound meter always uses a dotted note to represent the beat. This is a little more to keep track of than simple meter’s two divisions, but it can be helpful to think of the three parts of each beat as its “beginning,” “middle,” and “end.” In any meter, we can of course get notes that last longer than a beat. We can typically track these simply by counting the number of beats they occupy. Since compound beats are represented by dotted notes, it’s not always as intuitive to figure out what note value to use to notate a long note in compound meter as it is in simple meter. Sometimes, compound meter requires some awkward notation: for example, a three-beat note value is typically represented by a larger dotted note tied to a smaller one (for example, a dotted half tied to a dotted quarter in 9/8). The table below shows some of the most common beat- length patterns in compound meter. Any of the notes in the cells below may be replaced by rests. When this occurs, we simply need to experience the rest as a (silent) part of the pattern.

Identify one person to improvise. The improviser comes up with and performs a short rhythm (perhaps 4–6 beats long) made up entirely of the rhythmic cells defined above, plus optionally notes longer than a beat. The other student(s) identifies/identify which cells were used and in what order. If this activity feels too easy, go ahead and add pitches at an appropriate difficulty level to the improvised rhythm. Goal: Notice when rhythmic cells occur in notated music. Before you start: You’ll need a source of notated melodies or rhythms that primarily use the rhythmic cells listed above. are a good source. You can do this activity vocally or on another instrument. Instructions: Look over the notation, note the meter, and set up an appropriate sense of meter internally. Scan over the notation, identifying rhythmic cells. Note that some notes in the rhythmic cells may be replaced by rests; you can still call up the “sense” of the rhythmic cell, simply experiencing the silence as part of the pattern. Perform the rhythm, with or without pitch.

Goal: Perform indicated rhythmic cells Before you start: This is a group activity. Instructions: Identify a leader. This person will display the defined rhythmic cells in a way that everyone else can see, such as in notation or protonotation on a board. The leader sets up a steady beat, perhaps by conducting, and everyone else aligns themselves with that beat. Once everyone is ready, the leader points at rhythmic cells, and the other participants perform them on rhythmic solfège, on “ta,” or by clapping or tapping. The leader should start by changing slowly, allowing the other participants to settle into each cell by performing it a few times in a row; as people get more comfortable, the pace of change can speed up until you are changing every beat.

Start one of the songs in the playlist below. Pick a rhythmic cell listed above and perform it to the beat of the song playing As you perform the rhythmic cell, listen for where significant changes seem to happen in the music. At these points, change to a new rhythmic cell! If you feel like you aren’t able to hear these points of change while performing the rhythm, that’s ok (we’ll work on listening for form later)—just change when it feels appropriate to you. Continue to switch patterns until you feel comfortable with each of the four cells. If you feel pretty comfortable with the rhythmic cells, you might start performing them one after another or even jumping

Figure 7.60 “C1 Protonotation” by Meghan Hatfield licensed under a . Figure 7.61 “C2 Protonotation” by Meghan Hatfield licensed under a . Figure 7.62 “C3 Protonotation” by Meghan Hatfield licensed under a . Figure 7.63 “C4 Protonotation” by Meghan Hatfield licensed under a . Figure 7.64 “C5 Protonotation” by Meghan Hatfield licensed under a .

Compound beats typically divide into three parts/divisions. Those three divisions, in turn, are each typically represented by an un-dotted note such as an eighth note, which means they typically further divide (“subdivide”) into twos. This gives a total of six possible subdivisions within each beat. There is a huge number of ways those six subdivisions might be articulated. As you work with compound meter and figure out which of this huge number of possibilities is happening at any given time, it may be helpful to bring to bear your to keep track of the beat division physically as you listen or perform. For example, you could tap three fingers in succession for each beat. Eventually, however, we will strive to learn at least the most common rhythms as units that do not need to be subdivided to be recognized. For now, here are a few relatively common possibilities that are worth memorizing. Any of the notes in the cells below may be replaced by rests. When this occurs, we simply need to experience the rest as a (silent) part of the pattern.

Identify one person to improvise. The improviser comes up with and performs a short rhythm (perhaps 4–6 beats long) made up entirely of the rhythmic cells defined above, plus optionally notes longer than a beat. The other student(s) identifies/identify which cells were used and in what order. If this activity feels too easy, go ahead and add pitches at an appropriate difficulty level to the improvised rhythm. Goal: Notice when rhythmic cells occur in notated music. Before you start: You’ll need a source of notated melodies or rhythms that primarily use the rhythmic cells listed above. are a good source. You can do this activity vocally or on another instrument. Instructions: Look over the notation, note the meter, and set up an appropriate sense of meter internally. Scan over the notation, identifying rhythmic cells. Note that some notes in the rhythmic cells may be replaced by rests; you can still call up the “sense” of the rhythmic cell, simply experiencing the silence as part of the pattern. Perform the rhythm, with or without pitch.

Goal: Perform indicated rhythmic cells Before you start: This is a group activity. Instructions: Identify a leader. This person will display the defined rhythmic cells in a way that everyone else can see, such as in notation or protonotation on a board. The leader sets up a steady beat, perhaps by conducting, and everyone else aligns themselves with that beat. Once everyone is ready, the leader points at rhythmic cells, and the other participants perform them on rhythmic solfège, on “ta,” or by clapping or tapping. The leader should start by changing slowly, allowing the other participants to settle into each cell by performing it a few times in a row; as people get more comfortable, the pace of change can speed up until you are changing every beat.

Start one of the songs in the playlist below. Pick a rhythmic cell listed above and perform it to the beat of the song playing As you perform the rhythmic cell, listen for where significant changes seem to happen in the music. At these points, change to a new rhythmic cell! If you feel like you aren’t able to hear these points of change while performing the rhythm, that’s ok (we’ll work on listening for form later)—just change when it feels appropriate to you. Continue to switch patterns until you feel comfortable with each of the four cells. If you feel pretty comfortable with the rhythmic cells, you might start performing them one after another or even jumping

Figure 7.80 “C6 Protonotation” by Meghan Hatfield licensed under a . Figure 7.81 “C7 Protonotation” by Meghan Hatfield licensed under a . Figure 7.82 “C8 Protonotation” by Meghan Hatfield licensed under a . Figure 7.83 “C9 Protonotation” by Meghan Hatfield licensed under a . Figure 7.84 “C10 Protonotation” by Meghan Hatfield licensed under a .

Figure 7.15 “ti ti protonotation” by Meghan Hatfield licensed under a . Figure 7.16 “tiri tiri protonotation” by Meghan Hatfield licensed under a . Figure 7.17 “ti tiri protonotation” by Meghan Hatfield licensed under a . Figure 7.18 “tiri ti protonotation” by Meghan Hatfield licensed under a . Figure 7.31 “S5 Protonotation” by Meghan Hatfield licensed under a . Figure 7.32 “S6 Protonotation” by Meghan Hatfield licensed under a . Figure 7.33 “S7 Protonotation” by Meghan Hatfield licensed under a . Figure 7.34 “S8 Protonotation” by Meghan Hatfield licensed under a . Figure 7.43 “S9 Protonotation” by Meghan Hatfield licensed under a . Figure 7.44 “S10 Protonotation” by Meghan Hatfield licensed under a Figure 7.60 “C1 Protonotation” by Meghan Hatfield licensed under a . Figure 7.61 “C2 Protonotation” by Meghan Hatfield licensed under a . Figure 7.62 “C3 Protonotation” by Meghan Hatfield licensed under a . Figure 7.63 “C4 Protonotation” by Meghan Hatfield licensed under a . Figure 7.64 “C5 Protonotation” by Meghan Hatfield licensed under a . Figure 7.80 “C6 Protonotation” by Meghan Hatfield licensed under a . Figure 7.81 “C7 Protonotation” by Meghan Hatfield licensed under a . Figure 7.82 “C8 Protonotation” by Meghan Hatfield licensed under a . Figure 7.83 “C9 Protonotation” by Meghan Hatfield licensed under a .

In this section, we’ll work on mixing simple and compound beats in different ways. We’ll do so while working primarily with the rhythmic cells we’ve studied so far. It’ll help to have begun internalizing them, since we’re now focused on their relationships. When moving back and forth between simple and compound beats, there are two possible approaches we could take. When every beat is the same length, we typically decide which beat type we consider “primary” (simple or compound), then call the other beat type a “tuplet” when it occurs. If our primary beat type is simple but then there’s a compound beat inserted, we’ll call that compound beat a “triplet.” In the opposite case, where our primary beat type is compound but then there’s a simple beat inserted, we’ll call that simple beat a “duplet.” A triplet typically feels “sped up,” since compared to the surrounding beats it has more divisions in the same amount of time; a duplet typically feels “slowed down” for the opposite reason. When, on the other hand, every beat division is the same length/speed, we typically call this “mixed meter.” In mixed meter, beats will simply be different lengths based on how many divisions they have. Now, instead of compound beats feeling “sped up,” they will be longer; and instead of simple beats feeling “slowed down,” they will be shorter.

Goal: Generate or identify the rhythmic cells with triplets/duplets or in mixed meter. Before you start: This activity works best with at least one other person. But you can also do it on your own; just skip step 3. Instructions: Identify one person to improvise. The improviser comes up with and performs a short rhythm (perhaps 4–6 beats long) made up entirely of the rhythmic cells defined above, plus optionally notes longer than a beat. The rhythm should either use the

Look over the notation, note the approach to meter, and set up an appropriate sense of meter internally. You may wish to go once through the excerpt simply “feeling” the meter and the ways it changes without worrying about the exact rhythms. Scan over the notation, identifying rhythmic cells. Be sure that you are keeping either the beat divisions or the beats the same length, as appropriate to the excerpt. Perform the rhythm, with or without pitch.

So far, we’ve addressed rhythmic cells as if you must know the meter type first, and then you relate the rhythmic cells to that. But sometimes, especially when listening, we notice rhythmic cells first, and because they are so strongly associated with a specific meter type, we figure out the meter from there. Cells particularly associated with certain meters include:

Note that numbers 1 and 2 are both long-short patterns. To distinguish them, you will need to determine whether the ratio of the long note to the short note is the more lilting 2:1 (compound meter) or the more “snappy” 3:1 (simple meter). One helpful way to distinguish is to get up and skip along to the rhythm: it should be easy (depending on tempo) to skip

Each person privately comes up with a short (perhaps 3–8 beat) rhythm in simple or compound meter. Choose one person to perform their rhythm on neutral syllables while tapping or otherwise indicating the beat. The other members of the group repeat back the rhythm on a neutral syllable while also indicating the beat. These other members figure out the rhythm, either identifying the relevant rhythmic cells or repeating the rhythm back on appropriate syllables.

Goal: Develop sensitivity to rhythms associated with different meters Instructions: Listen to the songs in the playlist below, listening especially for rhythmic cells associated with specific meters. Use these clues to help you quickly identify a meter type (e.g., “simple triple”).

So far, the way we’ve worked with rhythmic cells might suggest that every beat is always a unit unto itself and always divided evenly. Of course, that’s not the case! And one particularly important exception—especially in contemporary popular music—is syncopation, where something important- sounding happens at a metrically-unexpected moment. Many syncopations can be tracked without too much trouble by keeping track of the beat and, when necessary, subdividing to figure out exactly where notes are occurring/ should occur. However, we have noticed that students often struggle too with a situation that is particularly common in the melodies of contemporary popular music, where something important happens right before an important beat, such as the downbeat. When this happens, many people mentally associate that important event with the important beat and have a difficult time figuring out where it actually occurs. In many cases, the answer is half of a beat earlier than the important beat; subdividing is generally a good way to check.

Goal: Get used to performing syncopation from notation. Before you start: You’ll need a source of syncopated melodies. are a good source; many have chapters dedicated to syncopation. You can do this activity vocally or on another instrument. Instructions: Start by noting and setting up the meter. Scan the notation, looking for syncopated notes. These are often apparent from ties (especially over barlines). Practice (silently or aloud, as appropriate) performing the syncopated passage, focusing on the relationship of the notes to the beats and using your subdivision skills as necessary. Perform the whole excerpt, with or without pitches.

Listen to one of the songs below and figure out its meter. Listen to and memorize the first melodic phrase of the song, optionally conducting or tapping along to the beat. Play back the melody in your head or sing it aloud while conducting or tapping the beat, slowing the melody down as necessary. Notice where the notes occur relative to your physical motions tracking the beat. Optionally, notate the passage.

In a , we looked at how 3s and 2s can interact through mixed meter and tuplets (triplets and duplets). Here, we’ll take a look at a few additional ways 3s and 2s can interact. The first, called “hemiola,” is particularly associated with (broadly defined) classical music. Hemiola technically just refers to the ratio of 3:2, but it is most often used to describe a shift, usually temporary, from “two groups of three” to “three groups of two.” In notated music, this most often means one of the following: When in a compound duple meter such as 6/8 (two beats of three eighth notes each), there may be a shift to a simple triple meter such as 3/4 (three beats of two eighth notes each). This might be notated as a meter change, or there might simply be an implication of 3/4 by the use of three quarter notes within 6/8. In music notated in a simple triple meter like 3/4, measures/cycles often seem to group in pairs, creating “two groups of three” (two measures with three beats each); hemiola in this case would mean suddenly using half notes and pairs of quarter notes tied across the barline, since now two measures will be filled with “three groups of two.” The second type of 3/2 interaction we’ll address here is particularly associated with popular music. In this type, a simple meter melody uses a bunch of “threes” (dotted notes), syncopating or contrasting against the beat, only to use some number of “twos” at the end of a cycle to “reset” to the downbeat. For example, in 4/4, the rhythm might be dotted quarter-dotted quarter-quarter (3-3-2, measured in eighth notes) or dotted eighth-dotted eighth-dotted eighth-dotted eighth-eighth-eighth (3-3-3-3-2-2, measured in sixteenth notes). rhythms or melodies with hemiolas. Many have chapters on hemiola; hemiolas are also reasonably common in triple- meter music by Johannes Brahms and some varieties of European Medieval and Renaissance music. You can do this activity vocally or on an instrument. Instructions: Note the meter and set it up internally. Scan the notation for a hemiola, looking for a spot where groups of three (typically dotted notes) are supplanted by groups of three (likely undotted notes). Practice transitioning into the hemiola; it may help to practice abstractly at first, counting 1-la-li-2-la-li-1-and-2-and-3-and. Make sure your beat divisions remain the same length. Perform the rhythm. Goal: Identify hemiolas and other contrasting 3s and 2s in sounding music. Instructions: Listen to a song from the playlist below. Each song features either hemiolas or, within a simple meter, several “three” notes followed by 1–2 “two” notes; the latter case is usually a cycle that repeats over and over. Identify which device you hear in each song. Optionally, notate the relevant phrase.

Thus far in this book, we’ve worked on fundamental skills. Now we move to a section focused on application: to improvisation, transcription, sight reading, and dictation. We’re starting with improvisation for a few reasons. First, we believe creativity is a fundamental right and responsibility of all musicians. Second, improvisation is one of the best ways to enrich your knowledge structures and then demonstrate mastery of them. (“Create” is considered the most sophisticated way of demonstrating learning in .) Third, we simply find it fun. Not all musicians will improvise in public performances. But we hope all musicians play around with music regularly, simply for the joy of it. Some musicians, particularly those trained in the “classical” tradition, may find improvisation daunting. If that’s you, don’t worry—we’ll start by tying it to skills we’ve already worked on, and we’ll give you specific ways to approach “making stuff up” that should be helpful. Other musicians may have already been improvising for some time and may wonder what this chapter will do for them. In some cases, focusing your attention on important aspects of improvisation that you have been doing more intuitively may help you improve your skills. But we also invite you to consider how your expertise in improvisation, and the ways we will use it here, help you build other skills such as internal hearing, determining key, etc. We invite you to commit to the importance of creativity by making up some music now. Grab your instrument or just hum. Make something up. If you’re not enjoying it to at least some extent, change what you’re doing until you do! Describe strategies for approaching improvisation. Effectively use time-based parameters of music: orienting to the meter, choosing rhythmic ideas, and planning out pacing. Effectively use pitch-based parameters of music: orienting to the key and planning out melodic shape/contour. Improvise a second phrase in response to a given first phrase. Improvise embellishments around a melody. Improvise a countermelody that parallels an original melody. Improvise a bass line to a given melody Improvise a single-phrase melody that clearly reflects a specified chord progression.

Anytime you’re creating, you’re going to have some frustrating experiences of “writer’s block” where you feel like you just can’t come up with anything “good.” What do we do when this happens? First, we can try to get rid of the internal “judge” that wants to avoid making any mistakes. Judging what you’re about to make as “good” or “bad” before it even comes out can really hold us back. Unfortunately, many musicians have a perfectionist streak and have a really hard time letting go of these internal judgments. Still, it can help to center yourself in the moment with mindfulness exercises, and to try to adopt an attitude of curiosity (“I wonder what I am about to play!” or “I wonder what would happen if I…”) rather than judgment (“Is what I am about to play good enough?” or “This is probably going to be terrible but…”). Beyond this, there are some more technical methods people sometimes use to generate material. Here are a few ideas. Many of them rely on the interplay of patterns and novelty, which generally work together to both give us something familiar and easy to understand (patterns) and catch our attention with something new (novelty). Don’t be afraid to use common patterns, especially at beginnings (like scale degree 5/sol on a pickup leading to scale degree 1/do on a downbeat) and endings (like cadence patterns). Sequences, or pitch/rhythm patterns that repeat starting on a different pitch each time, are a really useful way to structure a melody. Often, the “motive” that is repeated is about a measure/cycle long, so if you can come up with something interesting that lasts about a measure, try repeating down a step in the next measure. If down a step doesn’t feel right, try a different spot (up a third?). Rely on things that either feel good to you or intrigue you.

Start by centering yourself. It may be helpful to close your eyes and take a few deep breaths. Acknowledge any emotions you may be feeling and give them permission to stick around if they wish. Come up with a minimal plan of how you will begin and end. This may include a key, meter, an effect you’re going for, a starting idea, a set of notes you particularly enjoy playing that you’d like to start with, an ending note, and more. Perform something at a tempo that allows you to feel as comfortable as possible and confident that what you are performing sounds intentional. Consider: how did that feel? If you were nervous, how can you address this the next time through? If your improvisation felt wandery, how could you give it more structure? Ideas might include a planned-out contour or rhythmic shape. Repeat as appropriate, implementing your new plan.

One of the most important aspects of improvisation is to think about pacing, or the rate of speed at which stuff happens. A common issue in beginning improvisers is to play constantly, never letting the music “rest” or feel like it has “highs” and “lows.” To have effective pacing, we’ll want to both orient to the meter and have a bit of a plan for how the music will go. Given our focus, we will avoid pitch variation: you can perform on a vocal “ta,” with clapping/tapping, or on a single tone on an instrument, as you and your instructor prefer. First, let’s orient to the meter. The meter may be clear if you have an ensemble playing along with you. If so, just make sure you are feeling it—literally, as in able to move to the beat, the downbeat, and the beat division. If you’re improvising solo or with something more ambiguous, then use our familiar steps to set up an internal sense of meter. Once you can feel the meter, you’re ready to come up with a plan for pacing. There’s lots of advice on the internet, so it may help to do a search for “improvisation pacing” and see what’s out there. Here’s some basic advice: Consider a few rhythms appropriate to the meter. Having some consistency in your rhythms—coming back to some of the same ideas over and over, perhaps on different beats—will usually help the improvisation feel “unified.” Plan out how many phrases are appropriate for the length of time you will be improvising, and consciously decide to make space between the phrases. Plan where the climax of the improvisation will occur, a basic idea of how you will make it feel like the climax, and a basic idea of how you’ll lead up to it. Goal: Develop habits of planning out pacing in improvisation Before you start: We encourage you to use your primary instrument, even though we are working on rhythm alone without pitch variation. Decide whether you will be improvising solo or with an ensemble. Though we are focusing on rhythmic improvisation without pitch, it’s fine if you have an ensemble performing some pitch-based backing music such as a twelve-bar blues to help you think about where you are in the improvisation. Instructions: Decide on a meter type and tempo, and make sure you internalize these following the instructions above. Decide on one or two different basic short rhythms (just 1–3 beats each is great). Plan out a number of phrases appropriate to the amount of time you have. If you’re just starting out, one or two phrases is plenty. Consciously decide to make space between the phrases. Plan where the climax will occur, a basic idea of how you will make it feel like the climax, and a basic idea of how you’ll lead up to it. Take a deep breath, and perform your improvisation! We encourage you to use only rhythm, with no pitch variation. If time, come up with a plan for improvement, focused on rhythm, meter, and pacing. If your relationship to the meter was tenuous, make sure you are internalizing the meter and revising rhythms as necessary to make it clearer. If your improvisation felt like it wandered around aimlessly, make sure you leave space between ideas and plan out a dramatic shape. Then repeat, trying out your new plan.

In the previous section, we considered rhythm, meter, and pacing. Here, we’ll add pitch. If you’re having trouble with pitch, however, we encourage you to make sure your rhythmic/metric foundation is strong. Your pitch structures contribute to an improvisation in several ways. Most obviously, they set up the key context. But pitches can also convey a sense of “shape” or contour as they go up and down, and they can convey tension and release as we use more and less “clashing” notes (relative either to the key or to a sounding chord). First, let’s orient to the key. The key may be clear if you have an ensemble playing along with you. If you’re improvising solo or with something more ambiguous, then use our familiar steps to set up an internal sense of key before you start. Even if you’re performing on an instrument, this will help you imagine the pathways you’re setting up for yourself. Orienting to a major key:

Once you’ve established your key context, you’re ready to make some music! There are some very specific approaches to choosing pitches in improvisation that you can take, including chord-scale theory, the idea of “guide tones,” and basing your improvisation on an existing tune. Here, however, we focus on basic advice that we hope is useful across different approaches. Remember that (especially at first) you may wish to come up with your rhythms first, then add pitches. Particularly if we follow the procedures in the previous section, this can help us focus on pacing—which we can then try to match with our pitch structures. Think about how to end your phrase in a way that is appropriate to the key. It’s particularly common for melodies to end with downward, stepwise motion, and to end on scale degrees 2/re, 1/do, or 7/ti, at the end of each phrase. Decide on a “shape” that is appropriate to your chosen starting point and the key. If you start on scale degree 1/do, then unless you choose to perform it relatively high in your range, you may wish to start by ascending (likely followed by descending). If you choose to start on scale degree 5/sol, you might start with a leap up to scale degree 1/do or simply do a slow descent across the whole melody. Whatever you choose, make sure you have an intention before you start. Rhythmic patterns often go with pitch patterns, but most often those pitch patterns are moved to a new place in the scale with each repetition—often down a step each time. Goal: Develop habits of planning out pitch shape/ contour in improvisation Before you start: We encourage you to use your primary instrument. Decide whether you will be improvising solo or with an ensemble. You may also wish to start by coming up with a rhythmic improvisation using the activity described in the previous section and only then use the following instructions (adapted to remove redundant steps) to add pitches. Instructions: Decide on a key and a starting note. If appropriate, set up your internal sense of key using the steps above. Plan out a number of phrases appropriate to the amount of time you have. If you’re just starting out, one or two phrases is plenty. Consciously decide to make space between the phrases, and how you want them to relate. The relationships among phrases are particularly apparent by how they contrast (higher/lower, louder/softer, more/less active, etc.) and how they end (particularly whether they end on more or less stable scale degrees). Plan where the climax will occur, a basic idea of how you will make it feel like the climax, and a basic idea of how you’ll lead up to it in terms of pitch and rhythm. It’s most common for the climax to be a high point in the melodic shape. Take a deep breath, and perform your improvisation! If time, come up with a plan for improvement, focused on pitch contour/shape. If your relationship to the key was tenuous, make sure you are internalizing the key and consider important notes of the key that you might more clearly emphasize. If your improvisation felt like it wandered around aimlessly, refine your plan based on your intention for how phrases will relate to each other, making sure to leave some space between melodic ideas.

One of the most common approaches to improvisation is to embellish or decorate a structure. For example, jazz musicians often improvise over chord progressions associated with classic tunes, sometimes even just decorating the tune itself, while Baroque opera singers were generally expected to improvise during their arias in ways that both made the music more beautiful and showed off their vocal skills. To embellish a structure in this way, we need to build a vocabulary of common decorative patterns and then practice applying them to music. Decorative patterns differ widely among different musical traditions. Here, we’ll focus on a core set of relatively simple patterns that are common among classical and popular music, but the more you work with an improvised tradition, the more you will internalize the patterns people use for it. Stepwise embellishments may be the simplest to apply. These fall into two main categories: neighbor tones and passing tones. To apply a , start on a structural note, move to a note right next to it in the scale, and then back to the structural note. This decoration is appropriate anytime a structural tone lasts long enough to fit in this whole pattern, or where a structural tone repeats with enough time in the middle to fit in a neighbor tone. Neighbor tones can also be extended into a In this case, a structural tone is decorated by both the note above and the note below in the scale. typically require two successive structural tones to be either two or three steps apart. In this situation, we can fill in that distance by step—with “passing tones.” We will introduce one embellishment that is not stepwise: chordal skips. Anytime we have an explicit or intuitive sense of the chord appropriate to a part of a melody, we can skip from wherever we are to other notes of that chord. Finally, there’s a technique often used by jazz musicians: choosing some characteristic rhythmic or melodic idea from one part of a melody and playing it somewhere else—on a different beat, in a different measure, and/or starting on a different scale degree. Goal: Develop a “vocabulary” of melodic embellishment techniques Before you start: Decide if you wish to use your voice or another instrument. Either is fine. Instructions: Practice each type of embellishment listed above: Neighbor tones: perform a short string (3–7 notes) of even, medium-length pitches. Then repeat the string, giving each pitch an upper, lower, or “double” neighbor. Passing tones: perform a short string (3–7 notes) of even, medium-length pitches that includes at least 1 skip of a 3rd or 4th. Then repeat the string, filling in each skip with passing tones. Make sure that the original pitch plus passing tones do not take any longer than the original pitch without passing tones. Chordal skips: come up with a short (3–7 chord) chord progression with a number of beats per chord (ideally 3–4). Optionally, listen to the progression played on a chord instrument. Then work your way through the progression, skipping between notes of the

“Call and response” is another common approach to improvisation in a wide variety of musics around the world. Call and response can work many different ways, with either the call, the response, or both being improvised. Here, we build on the skill of working with a pre-existing melody begun in the previous section, by working with pre-existing calls and improvised responses. The very idea of call and response relies on the fact that musical phrases often feel like they group in pairs (here, the “call” and the “response”). For us to feel this connection, clearly there must be some kind of relationship between the two phrases. That will be our primary goal in this type of improvisation. One of the most common types of connections is often called “question and answer” or “parallel period.” In this approach, the call and the response both start the same, but then they end differently. The call should feel “incomplete” in some way, often by ending on scale degrees 2/re or 7/ti (a “half cadence”), while the response should feel like it completes the thought, most often by ending on scale degree 1/do. On the other hand, it is also possible to create a relationship among phrases by making them complementary—that is, making them do different things that seem to go together. For example, perhaps the call starts on scale degree 5/sol and makes its way down to scale degree 1/do, while the response starts on scale degree 5/sol and makes its way up to scale degree 1/do. It is harder to advise on creating complementary phrases than on question-and-answer phrases.

Goal: Improvise music that has a specific relationship to the music that comes before. Before you start: You’ll need a source of “call” melodies. These can be improvised by a friend or yourself, or selected from notated “periods” (pairs of phrases) such as and performed by yourself or someone else. If selecting from notated periods, use only the first notated phrase as the “call.” You may use your voice or another instrument, as you wish. Instructions:

For some reason, one of the most blissful experiences in music is to perform a satisfying countermelody, or additional melody that differs from, and enriches, the main melody. Countermelodies, also sometimes known as “harmony lines,” can feel sophisticated and beautiful. There are different approaches to countermelodies. In one approach, the improviser seeks to “complement” the main melody, filling in with short notes when the main melody is “sitting” on long ones and “getting out of the way” with longer notes when the main melody is moving more quickly. Here, however, we’ll focus on a simpler method, which we call “parallel.” This approach to countermelody will create a sweetness or richness around a main melody while not distracting from it. In this method, we create a harmony line that is generally a third above or below the original melody. Goal: Develop instincts for how to harmonize a melody. Before you start: You’ll need a melody to harmonize with, and optionally an accompaniment/chord progression to clearly define chords. The original melody can be improvised by someone else, read by someone else from a notated melody in a , or played from a pop song recording (as long as there isn’t already a countermelody)—or you may have additional ideas. You may choose to harmonize either vocally or on another instrument, although there’s something particularly delightful about vocalizing a countermelody (especially if the original is also vocal). Instructions: Consider the notes a third above and a third below the first note of the main melody. (Make sure to use major or minor thirds as necessary to stay within the scale.) Choose which one you think will sound better based either on your hearing and instinct or on your knowledge of which notes will work best in the harmony. If either will work, you can either choose arbitrarily or consider the third above/third below for the next note or two in the melody. (Note: we are talking about thirds here, but if the main melody is in a different octave from your countermelody, you may end up a sixth or tenth away instead.) Once you’ve chosen “third above” or “third below,” you’re ready to perform your countermelody! Play or have someone play the original; simply follow the contour (up/ down motions) of the main melody yourself, remaining a third above or a third below, using the same rhythms as the melody. Occasionally it may sound better to be a fourth or (even less common) a second away from the main melody. Usually this is because that note is in the appropriate chord while the third away from the main melody is not. You may be able to use your instincts or your knowledge of chord progressions to choose when to do this; if not, parallel thirds usually sound fine even when they don’t technically fit. Finally, to make your countermelody even a little more sophisticated, you could choose

As a form of musical “play,” improvisation often involves significant amounts of iteration and experimentation. Think of a child who begins designing an airplane out of LEGOs. At first, the basic structure is formed, and over time, new bricks are added to create special features. Sometimes, a child must try different combinations of bricks to get just the right result. None of the choices made along the way are right or wrong, but they are all essential steps to getting a satisfying result. Similarly, improvising a bass line to a given melody is a creative, playful activity that will involve significant iteration and experimentation. As you begin trying different possible approaches, you may find that a simple melody admits seemingly countless possible bass lines. Before you begin, it is important to remember three functions of a bass line, the last two of which are unique to this line as the lowest in the texture. First and foremost, the bass line should itself be a beautiful and musically appropriate addition to the melody. While defining these criteria is somewhat subjective, for now, it is worth noting that the process of improvising a bass line should avoid defaulting to formulas or patterns. Further, we are improvising a bass line, not just the bass notes to whatever harmonies you think the melody calls for. Often, a good bass line will create harmonic possibilities that you hadn’t considered, so at this stage, it is best to think of the bass line as a second melody that will complement the given melody. As noted, there are two special functions that the bass line plays. The first is to establish a beautiful contrapuntal relationship with the melody. Contrapuntal writing has a long history stretching from the Renaissance through the compositions of contemporary composers. While counterpoint is sometimes approached as a rules-based compositional practice, the basic aesthetic values of contrapuntal writing, including balance, flow, and independence of voices, are typical across styles. When improvising a bass line in a tonal context, consider some of the musical qualities that are associated with each of these aesthetic qualities:

Does my bass line complement the rhythmic structure of the melody by using similar rhythmic durations? Does my bass line have a clear overall shape, with points of arrival? Does my bass line use mostly stepwise/conjunct motion? Does my bass line approach large leaps with care (often following them by stepwise motion in the opposite direction)? Does my bass line use different rhythmic patterns from the melody? Does my bass line establish a contour that is unique from that of the melody? Does my bass line use some contrary motion by sometimes moving in a different direction than the melody? Does my melody establish mostly consonant relationships with the main, structural notes of the melody? When I use dissonance, does the dissonance resolve satisfyingly? Are there places in which a chromatic passing tone between scale steps could add a special color to the bass line?

Establishing an authentic cadence would typically demand ending the bass line with scale degrees 5-1/sol-do. Before the cadential scale degree 5/sol (which suggests a root position V chord), you might consider whether or not scale degree 5/sol can be preceded by scale degrees 2/re, 4/fa, #4/fi, or some combination of these scale degrees (e.g., scale degrees 4-2/fa- re, scale degrees 4-#4/fa-fi). These bass notes are often, but not always, used to prepare for the arrival of the bass note sol. Once you have a sense of how your bass line will end, consider how your bass line will establish and prolong the opening tonic. Also, consider whether your bass line will wander far from tonic before arriving at the predominant and cadential bass notes. Taking those contrapuntal and phrase-specific considerations into account, it is time to begin the process of improvising! Here are some strategies to get started: Try using a minimal approach by singing and sustaining only do from the beginning until you get to the cadential dominant. Then, switch to scale degree 5/sol, and then return to do in the bass when the melody concludes (usually on scale degrees 1/do or 3/mi). Try this a few times, and as you improvise, consider if there is a fitting location to add a predominant note in the bass (scale degrees 2/re, 4/fa, or #4/fi). Begin iterating on the minimal approach by listening for structural notes in the melody (often notes on strong beats) and finding consonant intervals below them that you could move to from the sustained do. As you sketch out basic contrapuntal possibilities, consider some of the aesthetic questions above and use these considerations to spark new ideas and approaches. For example, if the melody started with an ascending gesture, can you move in the opposite direction and descend to the next structural note? Is there a shape you would like your bass line to take? Are there any moments where you can use a dissonant interval and resolve it satisfyingly? Once you have a basic contrapuntal structure established, begin to increase rhythmic variety by adding embellishing tones to your bass line. Try to create movement in your bass where the melody is less active and vice versa. Ideally, the bass line will project independence from the melody without stealing the show. That said, this is your music, so have fun and see how far you can push the music’s boundaries…and your own! As with all musical performances, improvisations should strive to exhibit poise and control. As you improvise a bass line on your voice or instrument, always keep your ear in control by audiating each note before you perform it. Letting your ear guide your performance will ensure that this activity results in maximal growth. Below are two simple melodies. The first melody includes several possible bass lines that demonstrate the first four steps above. The second melody is provided for you to try! For further practice, take any simple song (e.g., a children’s song or folk tune) and learn to play it on the piano. As you play the song, try singing an improvised bass line to the melody. Try each melody several times so that you can work through the strategies above. You can also flip the part assignments by singing the melody and playing the bass line on the piano. Feel free to use a device to record your performance of the melody if performing two melodies proves too difficult. Another excellent use of this skill is to improvise a bass line along with the music you are learning in private lessons, large ensemble, and/or chamber music. After you create different bass lines, return to the original score to study the composer’s bass line. Often, engaging creatively with the music you are learning can reveal new things about the choices made by the composer.

Improvisation is one of the best ways to experiment with the relationships between melody and harmony. These connections are crucial to how music works, and if you start to make those connections internally, it’ll help all of your musical skills. We’ll work on this connection more in depth in a future chapter, but for now, we’ll learn some of the basics and start to hone our instincts. Improvising over a chord progression starts with an understanding of which notes are in each chord. These “chord tones” will almost always sound in some way “right” when we play or sing them over the chords themselves. Of course, using only chord tones is very limiting, and there are styles of improvisation where sticking to the chord tones is considered boring. But even there, it makes sense to start by understanding the chord tones. Focusing on chord tones like this is in a sense a “vertical” way of understanding improvisation. That is, it’s like slicing the music into discrete chords and stacking the right notes for each moment. But music is usually more compelling when it also has a “horizontal” sense—the sense that each thing leads naturally to the next. To structure the “horizontal” in our improvisation, it can be useful to start with a “guide tone” line. (The term guide tone is adapted from jazz pedagogy, though we won’t necessarily focus on chord 3rds and 7ths as jazz musicians typically do.) To construct a guide tone line, choose one or occasionally two chord tones per chord. Most often, it is nice if these “guide tones” move from one to the next by step, though sometimes a small skip or staying in the same place is also nice. Once you’ve come up with a guide tone line, then, you can elaborate it using the skills of elaboration we worked on in .

Goal: Develop a sensitivity to how melody relates to harmony, and balance “vertical” and “horizontal” aspects of improvisation. Before you start: You’ll need some kind of accompaniment that clearly conveys a chord progression. This can be played by someone else or from a recording. You can use your voice or some other instrument, as you wish.

Consider the chord progression. (You may be given it in notation, have it described to you, or listen to it and try to figure it out by ear.) For each chord, figure out which notes are chord tones. For each chord, choose one or (for a long-ish chord) possibly two chord tones to act as your “guide tones.” As you choose, make sure to think “horizontally”—in particular, it’s nice to have stepwise motion as you move to new guide tones between chords. Optionally, perform your “guide tone line” along with the accompaniment. Now, consider how you can make your guide tone line a little more interesting. You may wish to use simple embellishments, or you may be inspired to do something much more complex. Perform your embellished melody along with the accompaniment.

Another way to spontaneously create music is to take a keyboard, guitar, or other chord instrument, choose a simple harmonic progression, and then activate each harmony with as inventive a figuration as you can create. Few things are as energizing and enjoyable as riffing freely on a chord progression. You can explore figurations that are metered or unmetered, structured or atmospheric, simple or complex. You can create figurations within a narrow range or those that expand to include the entire range of the instrument. Playing with contrasting registers, dynamics, articulations, embellishing tones, rhythms, harmonic durations, and other effects are all on the table in this activity. As always, work to integrate your ear, mind, and body by letting your ear guide the creative act as much as possible. Listen ahead, and try to anticipate and prepare harmonic changes. Goal: Freely improvise patterns and other figurations on a chord instrument. Requirement: A keyboard, guitar, or other chord instrument Choose a simple chord progression two to four chords in length. Some good patterns to start with include: I–IV (one-chord to four- chord), I–V (one-chord to five-chord), I–IV–V (one-chord to four-chord to five-chord), or I–V–vi–IV (one-chord to five-chord to six- chord to four-chord). The last progression is used in numerous popular songs. Make some preliminary decisions about how you want your improvisation to sound. Decide the key, meter (or if it will be ametric), tempo, register, rhythmic groove (if applicable), and the intended duration of each harmony. Begin improvising over your chord progression. Play through the harmonic pattern five to ten times to get comfortable with the pattern, voice leading, and the feel of the pattern in your body. As you improvise try manipulating one or more elements to change the feel of your

North American aural skills training often focuses heavily on music notation, but many of the world’s rich musical traditions do not rely primarily on notated music. This is true in many approaches to composition, where musicians simply improvise or compose at an instrument, and in passing down oral traditions, where experienced musicians might perform songs and exercises for less-experienced musicians, who learn them by ear. In this chapter, we’ll be working directly with music, and without notation. We’ll listen to music and play it back, and think about what we can add to it. This way of working with aural skills—when it’s working—can feel delightfully spontaneous and immediate. In addition to the benefits of working directly with sound, playing music back also has benefits for other aural skills—including those that use notation. Many of the best transcribers of music, for example, are constantly imagining what it would feel like to play the music they are transcribing. It gives them yet one more way to think through the sound and how to represent it. We’ve used the word “play” here, which might suggest that we’re more interested in external instruments rather than voices. For the most part, that’s true. There are benefits to singing music back, as we’ve experienced in the chapter on internal hearing and tuning. But when we want to conceptualize the relationships within a piece of music, it is beneficial to use an instrument with discrete parts (frets, keys, valves, finger positions, etc.) that help us associate sounds with specific motions and locations. As a result, we’ll consistently use language in this chapter that suggests playing this kind of instrument, and we encourage vocalists to use a secondary instrument even if it’s not terribly familiar. But if you feel you can get similar benefits from singing back, by all means, adapt this chapter to fit your needs. Finally, in this chapter, we’ll mostly be working with small portions of music—a phrase or small section, for example.

Determine an appropriate meter and key for music they hear. Play back the rhythms of heard music. Compare heard pitches to the key center in order to come up with an appropriate representation in pitch notation. Replicate heard bass lines. Replicate heard inner voices when appropriate.

Sometimes we can play something back without thinking too much about it. But it is also usually useful to have some idea of the context we’re working in and in particular those important contexts of key and meter. Fortunately, we’ve already gone through the processes of determining and key. You may wish to return to those now, but here’s a quick review.

Once we’ve found the tonic, we turn to our instrument and try to find that note. Once we’ve found the note on the instrument, it may help to either play or visualize the scale, too, to think about what notes we’re likely to need as we try to play the music back. In this section (and throughout this chapter), we urge you to embrace your intuition! You may be able to simply play rhythms back without thinking about them. Where this doesn’t work, we have a few suggestions. First, don’t forget about meter! When you’re having difficulty with a rhythm, make sure you’re tracking the important pulses of the meter. Beat is usually most important, followed by downbeat/cycle beginning, and finally beat division. Pay attention to where sounds start regarding the meter. Once you’ve got that figured out, make sure you’re tracking the meter yourself as you try to play it back. Particularly tricky rhythms may need to be clapped or tapped before transferring them to an instrument. Second, remember that anything we can do to group the music into “chunks” will help us remember it. One of the most helpful ways of thinking about chunks is through rhythmic cells—you may wish to .

As you figure out the pitches to play the music you’re working with, yet again, embrace intuition! When intuition isn’t working, the best way to figure out pitches is by thinking about their relationships. Most often, that means thinking of them in scale degrees—that is, in terms of their relationship to the key. For people without absolute pitch, this may be the only way to figure out what’s going on. For people with absolute pitch, it makes sure we’re building “tonal” hearing skills, which help us understand and track the relationships among pitches and between pitches and keys. We’ll be mapping two different but related things onto each other: our internal understanding of scale degrees or other pitch relationships, and our physical motions/locations on the instrument. We’ll give some advice below about how to figure out the scale degrees, but it may be helpful to start by making sure you have a physical sense of the context (usually a key) before doing so. You might quickly play or imagine playing the song’s scale, or even just its tonic triad (scale degrees 1/do, 3/mi or me, and 5/sol) to orient your brain to where these will be on your instrument. Once you’ve oriented yourself, it is usually helpful to start by figuring out which scale degree the melody starts on. Of course, to figure out the scale degree, you need to know where the tonic is, so it may be helpful to re-find the tonic and hum it to yourself. Then, hum or subvocalize the beginning note, and then walk down through the scale until you get to the tonic. Counting the number of pitches you need to go through will help you determine that starting pitch’s scale degree. Find that scale degree on your instrument. From that first pitch on, you’ll typically find two different kinds of situations, which call for different approaches: Melodies often simply step through the scale, up or down. Where this occurs, it may be obvious to you. If so, great news! Simply follow the up-and-down motion of the melody and as long as you’ve started in the right place, you’ll be thinking the correct scale degrees/solfège and—if you’re well-oriented on your instrument—playing the right notes. Of course, melodies can also leap around. At first, we strongly recommend that when you notice a leap, you treat the second note as a new “starting pitch” and vocally walk it down through the scale until you get to tonic to figure out what it is. Over time, as you get used to more musical patterns, strengthen your internal models of scale degrees, and develop more sensitivity to harmony, you should be able to rely on intuition more often.

Goal: Replicate heard pitches Before you start: Make sure you have access to a non-voice instrument. Voice will also work but will not help you focus on pitch relationships in the same way. Instructions: Listen to the songs in the playlist below. For each, listen to the first 1–2 phrases, optionally make sure you can sing them, and then try to play them back on an instrument. If you are having difficulty, make sure you are thinking in scale degrees. It’s fine to repeat the phrases as necessary to learn them, but make sure you are practicing your memory skills.

If you play an instrument that can sound multiple pitches at the same time and you’re trying to play back music with multiple simultaneous lines, the next thing to add is usually the bass/lowest part. As we discussed in the chapter on attention, “Of all the non-melody lines we could listen to, bass lines may be both the most important and the most well-defined.” Since they are often so prominent and associated with chord progressions, adding the bass can make your playback sound much fuller and more like the original. People who play single-line instruments can still take on the challenge of playing back bass lines, too, even though they can’t play the melody and the bass line simultaneously. Being able to play both back, even separately, helps us hear each of them in a fuller context. And following different lines within the texture helps us develop our attentional focus. In a way, bass-line playback is the same as playing back melodies. As long as you can follow the line and figure out its scale degrees and rhythms, you can just figure it out the same as a melody. Indeed, for some people, it’s just that easy. If that’s you, awesome. There are plenty of people, however, who find that first part—”as long as you can follow the line and figure out its scale degrees and rhythms”—challenging when applied to bass lines, in a way that melodies are not. This is probably for two main reasons. First, evidence suggests that most people’s attention is drawn first to the highest voice sounding, so we need to practice directing our attentional focus to a different part of the texture. In the chapter on attention, we worked on directing our attention to the bass through a series of practice exercises. You may wish to now. Second, we are best at paying attention to familiar objects, so the more acquaintance we have with the common patterns associated with bass lines, the easier it will be to follow them. different keys in order to internalize them. If you sing, sing on solfège syllables to help direct your attention to how they relate to the key. The more these patterns are internalized, the more success you will have in following these bass lines. scale degrees 1-4-5-5-1/do-fa-sol-sol-do; if you go up from scale degrees 1-5/do-sol, consider dropping the octave on the second scale degree 5/sol scale degrees 1-5-6-4/do-sol-la-fa in a major key starting on a relatively high pitch and going down for the next two pitches, scale degrees 1-6-4-5-1/do-la-fa-sol-do in a major key and do-le-fa-sol-do in a minor key the “circle of fifths”/”circle of fourths”: scale degrees 1-4-7-3-6-2-5-1/do-fa-ti-mi-la-re-sol- do in a major key and do-fa-te-me-le-re-sol- do in a minor key

Goal: Listen for bass lines and replicate them Before you Start: A non-voice instrument is recommended; voice will also work. Instructions: Listen to the songs in the playlist below. For each, listen to the first 1–2 phrases, and try to play back the bass line on your instrument. It may be helpful to try to sing the bass line first. It’s fine to repeat the phrases as necessary to learn them, but make sure you are practicing your memory skills.

If you play an instrument that can sound multiple pitches at the same time, then it’d be great to add the chords to your playback, too! As always, embrace your intuition here, and if you’ve figured out melody and/or bass, you can use your knowledge of their pitches to figure out likely chords. But if you’re having difficulty figuring out what’s going on in the chords, you’ll want to skip ahead to the later chapter on harmony and try out techniques such as and .

So there’s not really anything new to teach here; instead, simply practice your attentional focus exercises, and learn as much about the style you’re working with as possible. For example, the more you work with bluegrass harmonizing, the better you’ll be able to guess what a harmonizing line is doing; the same is true of fugue countersubjects.

Goal: Replicate inner voices Before you start: A non-voice instrument is recommended; voice will also work. Instructions: Listen to the songs in the playlist below. Each one has at least one prominent line/ voice that has some melodic identity but is not the main melody or the bass. Listen to the first 1–2 phrases, identifying and trying to follow that inner voice. Optionally try to sing along. Then try to play or sing the inner voice independently. Optionally, either perform both the melody and the countermelody together on your instrument or perform multiple parts (melody, countermelody, bass, chords) with a group.

There are many situations where it’s useful to write down music you hear. Marching band directors and a cappella group arrangers, for example, transcribe popular music for their ensembles. Jazz musicians transcribe their idols’ solos to learn about their approach to improvisation. There are also benefits to transcription that are less immediately practical. In particular, it can strengthen the connections between what you hear, your internalized models of how music works, and notation, in ways that can make all of your music-making more intuitive and effective. Fortunately, we’ve already worked on all the skills we will need to do transcription. Unfortunately, transcription involves a lot of components, making it potentially overwhelming. We’ll take it a step at a time; anytime you feel stuck or unsure of what to do, comes back to these steps. There are times when we transcribe with the aid of an instrument and maybe even software playback, and other times when we need to make do with just our ears and maybe a pencil and paper. As practice activities, both have benefits for building your skills. Nevertheless, it is more common that instructors ask students to work without an instrument or playback because this requires you to stretch your skills more. Finally, when doing transcriptions, melodies tend to be easiest, while transcribing inner voices or bass lines often requires the addition of different, specialized skills. Much of this chapter will address transcription skills in general; the additional skills needed for non-melody lines will be reserved for later in the chapter. Since this chapter is long, here’s a quick outline (repeated in the section “Understanding the Process of Transcription Step- by-Step”): After reviewing , we start by isolating the “memorize and analyze” steps separately for rhythm and pitch in three sections on “protonotation/shorthand” (, , ). If you are new to transcription, we strongly encourage you to start here and go through the whole chapter. Even those who have transcribed before may find this way of clarifying their understanding useful. We then move to notation—again, separately for and for . Readers who are very confident in their understanding of staff notation may wish to start here. Finally, we . Readers who have done transcription before and are confident in their understanding of staff notation may wish to start here; for others, this section will help you synthesize everything you have read so far. Then we add additional sections on transcribing , , and .

Determine an appropriate meter and key for music they wish to transcribe. Describe the processes necessary to transcribe. Use protonotation to represent pitches within a key and rhythms within a meter. Compare pitches to the key center in order to

When you care about transcribing a piece of music, the best place to start is to do some listening to get a general “feel” for the music. Of course, many instructors do not require this step, and many students are busy enough that they may feel it necessary to jump right into the more technical processes outlined in later sections. But if you have time for this step, especially if you want to arrange a song for another ensemble, it can be really helpful. These more general perspectives can inform all the technical elements we’ll go through in the coming sections. And of course, the more you’ve listened, the more familiar everything will be. Goal: Gain a baseline understanding of a song that will prepare you to transcribe it Before you start: Choose a song you’d like to transcribe! You may want to think about your goal. Is your end goal a transcription? an arrangement? a new understanding of a style or approach? These will affect exactly what you pay attention to. Instructions: Come up with some general descriptions of the song. These could be a few sentences or merely a set of adjectives. These can be especially helpful if you’re going to arrange the song for a different ensemble, because they’ll let you focus on the general effect (which can hopefully be translated into whatever ensemble you’re going for) rather than the specific details (which may not translate well). Note the layers used in the song. Most songs have a melody and a bass line. Is everything else just supporting harmony? Are there prominent countermelody instruments? Is there a percussive line? And is there anywhere in the song where these change?

Now we’re ready to start on the technical elements that are necessary for notation! But first, let’s talk through the process. Transcription involves several steps. If each one is already pretty automatic for you, that won’t be a problem; but for people who have to really work at any of these steps, putting them all together right away can be challenging. Fortunately, we can focus on them one by one to make them more manageable. We always start by setting up the context: determining meter and key. These help us set up the beginning of our notation and also provide measuring tools to figure out exactly what’s going on in pitch and rhythm. Next, we listen to and memorize a bit of the music. It’s theoretically possible to go note-by-note with trial- and-error at an instrument, but this can be painfully slow and not helpful for skill-building, so we typically work a phrase or half-phrase at a time. Plus, memorizing these fragments helps us continue to work on our focus and memory skills. Then we analyze the music. We should come up with rhythm information like “there are two equal notes in beat 1, then a note that lasts 3 beats, then a long-short rhythm across the next two beats,” etc. And we should come up with pitch information like “It goes scale degrees 1-3-5/do-mi-sol,” etc. It’s often useful to jot this information down in a “protonotation” or “shorthand” that efficiently records our understanding of what we hear without the complications of traditional notation. Then we take the music we’ve analyzed and use our understanding of notation to write it down. It can be tempting to do this at the same time as #3, and for some people that works well. But notation can have unexpected complications that distort our understanding, so it’s often useful to separate out the steps, especially at first. We repeat steps 2–4 as necessary to get through the whole piece! When transcribing bass lines or inner voices, we repeat steps 2–5 while focusing on the relevant lines. As we do so, there are some new challenges for our ability to perceive what’s going on, but we can also use whatever knowledge we may have about music theory and harmony to think about the relationships between the

Now, to be honest: it’s very difficult to keep these steps fully separate. For example, maybe some rhythm so strongly activates our understanding of rhythmic cells that we immediately picture what the notation would look like without memorizing and analyzing first. But it’s useful to separate them at first so that we can practice each on its own. As we get more and more used to the process, we can jump around more intuitively. This chapter of the text is long, so here’s a quick outline to help you decide which sections are important for you: After reviewing , we start by isolating the “memorize and analyze” steps separately for rhythm and pitch in three sections on “protonotation/shorthand” (, , ). If you are new to transcription, we strongly encourage you to start here and go through the whole chapter. Even those who have transcribed before may find this way of clarifying their understanding useful. We then move to notation—again, separately for and for . Readers who are very confident in their understanding of staff notation may wish to start here. Finally, we . Readers who have done transcription before and are confident in their

Goal: Memorize a structure that will help you keep track of the steps involved in transcription, reducing the load on your working memory. Instructions: Memorize the process described above. It may be useful to memorize it in short form: meter, key, memorize, analyze, notate (MKMAN). This may seem silly and unnecessary, but remember, transcription can be overwhelming. The more you feel you understand the process, the less stressed you’ll feel and the more efficiently you’ll be able to move through the steps.

Our first priority should always be to determine the context: key and meter. Key signatures and meter signs are of course written at the beginning of notated music. But beyond the niceties of writing, key and meter are also the “measuring tools” we use when figuring out exactly what we’re hearing. Figuring them out at the beginning of the process will make everything else work more smoothly. Fortunately, we’ve already gone through the processes of determining and key. You may wish to return to those now, but here’s a quick review.

we’ll wait to worry about the bottom number until we get to notating rhythm). Recall that sometimes what one person identifies as the beat, someone else may identify as the measure or division, and vice-versa. So disagreements about time signatures may not mean one person is right and the other is wrong (though this is possible); they may just indicate that you’re focusing on different layers.

need to use full notation, we will either receive that information from an instructor or write in an arbitrary key. One more step for now: we should also determine whether the key is major or minor (or, if this is a possibility given the music you’re working with, a mode). You may have an intuitive sense of this; if not, walk up through the scale, focusing on scale degree 3/mi or me’s relationships to the notes immediately above and below.

Goal: Develop listening habits that prioritize context (key and meter). Instructions: Listen to the songs in the playlist below. For each, determine key and meter. We will continue working with these songs over the next few sections, so it may be helpful to get comfortable with each meter and locate the notes of the appropriate key on an instrument.

As you may recall, the next steps in the process of transcription are to memorize a bit of music and then to “figure it out” (analyze). We’ll focus a bit more on the “memorize” step when we talk about the special case we call “dictation” in a future chapter, but for now, we will assume that you can memorize a phrase or other fragment of music simply by listening to it as many times as necessary, perhaps singing it back to test your memory until you know you’ve got it. So we’ll focus here on the “analyze” step. As we mentioned above, notation can involve some unexpected difficulties. In our experience, students often struggle with the following, among other issues:

your understanding, so we will first use something called protonotation/shorthand. Protonotation/shorthand is designed to represent your analysis as clearly as possible, to be quick to write, and to be easy to translate into staff notation. People use several different methods. However, in the next few sections we’ll focus on two: Gary Karpinski’s “protonotation” (description , about 3/4 down the page) and Jenine Lawson Brown’s “notehead shorthand” (description , starting p. 85). Both have benefits: protonotation is less tied to notation, while notehead shorthand allows more precisions with beat divisions. Other methods are also helpful. In the end, use either your preference or your teacher’s instructions about what to use.

We start with the time element of music: rhythm and meter. In our experience, this is a little bit more helpful than starting with pitch. Of course, when actually doing full transcriptions, you may go back and forth between rhythm and pitch. Recall that meter is important in setting up context, so we will always start . In protonotation, every beat is represented by a vertical line. Every downbeat is represented by a longer vertical line. Be sure that you have a vertical line for every beat that you hear, and that you don’t start with a longer vertical line unless the music starts on a downbeat. Finally, since this system doesn’t typically represent beat divisions, you should write, up above your metric grid, either “simple” or “compound.” Once you’ve set up the meter, either listen again to the music or play it back in your head while tracking your vertical lines (as beats). Fill in the actual notes as horizontal lines. In notehead shorthand, every beat is represented by a symbol showing how it divides. We can use something similar to barlines to show downbeats. Once you’ve set up the meter, either listen again to the music or play it back in your head while tracking your beat divisions. Give the symbols noteheads where a new note occurs. See the examples below for how this should look.

Goal: Develop the habit of orienting to meter, and practice systems of writing down your metric/ rhythmic understanding quickly. Before you start: You’ll need some way to write things down. You may also wish to work with a group, though this is not necessary. Instructions: Listen to some of a song from the playlist below and determine its meter. Draw up a metric grid appropriate to the system of protonotation/shorthand you prefer. Listen to the first phrase or two of the melody of the song, trying to memorize it. Writing while you listen may interfere with your ability to memorize, so we recommend that you simply listen and memorize first without writing.

Figure 10.2 “Simple Protonotation Rhythm” by Meghan Hatfield licensed under a . Figure 10.3 “Simple Shorthand Rhythm” by Meghan Hatfield licensed under a . Figure 10.4 “Protonoation Compound Rhythm” by Meghan Hatfield licensed under a . Figure 10.5 “Shorthand Compound Rhythm” by Meghan Hatfield licensed under a .

Regardless of whether you use protonotation, shorthand, or something else, the best way to represent the pitches of music in a key is almost always with scale degrees. For people without absolute pitch, this may be the only way to figure out what’s going on. For people with absolute pitch, it makes sure we’re building “tonal” hearing skills, which help us understand and track the relationships among pitches and between pitches and key. As always, we start by determining context. Because neither notation shorthand nor protonotation directly represents the key, make sure to write “minor” or “major” above.

speed, when writing solfège syllables, we often simply use the first letter of the syllable. We can represent raised and lowered pitches with sharps or flats, with up and down arrows, or, in moveable-do solfège, by adding the relevant second letter of the syllable (“i” for raised, “e” for lowered, except “re,” which becomes “ra” when lowered). These can simply be written above or below the rhythmic protonotation/shorthand.

As you figure out the pitches, it is very important to carefully consider which scale degree the melody starts on. Of course, to figure out the scale degree, you need to know where the tonic is, so it may be helpful to re-find the tonic and hum it to yourself. Then, hum or subvocalize the beginning note, and then walk down through the scale until you get to the tonic. (For most people, walking down from starting note to tonic is more reliable than walking either direction from tonic to starting note.) Counting the number of pitches you need to go through will help you determine that starting pitch’s scale degree. From that first pitch on, you’ll typically find two different kinds of situations, which call for different approaches: Melodies often simply step through the scale, up or down. Where this occurs, it may be obvious to you. If so, great news! Simply follow the up-and-down motion of the melody and as long as you’ve started in the right place, you’ll be writing the correct scale degrees/solfège. Of course, melodies can also leap around. At first, we strongly recommend that when you notice a leap, you treat the second note as a new “starting pitch” and walk it down through the scale until you get to tonic to figure out what it is. Over time, as you get used to more musical patterns, strengthen your internal models of scale degrees, and develop more sensitivity to harmony, you should be able to rely on intuition more often. Finally, we invite you to bring your playback skills into this activity! Sometimes, and particularly if you are very comfortable with your primary (non-voice) instrument, imagining what it would feel like to play the music you hear is really helpful in determining exactly what is going on.

Goal: Develop the habits of orienting to meter and activating instrument-based kinesthetic imagery, and practice systems of writing down your pitch understanding quickly. Before you start: You’ll need some way to write things down. You may also wish to work with a group, though this is not necessary. Instructions: Listen to some of a song from the playlist below, and determine its key. Make sure to write down whether it is major or minor. (If you already have rhythmic shorthand/ protonotation from the previous section, you can write this above and to the left.) Listen to the first phrase or two of the melody of the song, trying to memorize it. Writing while you listen may interfere with your ability to memorize, so we recommend that you simply listen and memorize first without writing. If you have not done so already in the previous section, write out meter and rhythm protonotation/shorthand for this passage. (See the for guidance.) Replay the first note in your mind, and figure out its scale degree. It may help to walk it down by step to tonic, counting the number of pitches required. Write the scale degree number or the first letter of its moveable-do solfège syllable above its rhythmic notation. Replaying the melody in your mind and slowing it down as necessary, figure out how the pitches relate to the key, and write down their scale degree numbers or the first letters of their moveable-do solfège syllables likewise. As you do so, do not hesitate to repeat step 4 for any note, particularly notes after a leap, and to imagine playing the music

Figure 10.6 “Simple Protonotation Solfege” by Meghan Hatfield licensed under a . Figure 10.7 “Simple Protonotation Scale Degrees” by Meghan Hatfield licensed under a . Figure 10.8 “Simple Shorthand Solfege” by Meghan Hatfield licensed under a . Figure 10.9 “Simple Shorthand Scale Degrees” by Meghan Hatfield licensed under a . Figure 10.10 “Protonotation Compound Solfege” by Meghan Hatfield licensed under a . Figure 10.11 “Protonotation Compound Scale Degrees” by Meghan Hatfield licensed under a . Figure 10.12 “Shorthand Compound Solfege” by Meghan Hatfield licensed under a . Figure 10.13 “Shorthand Compound Scale Degrees” by Meghan Hatfield licensed under a

It’s finally time to move to staff notation! First, make sure that the first line of your notation begins with a relevant clef, key signature, and time signature. (If it helps you remember the correct sequence, these are in alphabetical order—even if you call it a “meter signature” instead.) If you end up needing additional lines of notation, the clef and key signature are typically repeated on every line; because beaming often does a pretty good job of clarifying the meter, the time signature is usually only written at the beginning of the music and anywhere it changes. Then, we’re ready to start with rhythm and meter. Time signatures are described in some detail in a of the book. So far, our work has mostly focused on the top number of time signatures. Now that we’re moving to notation, we need to decide on an appropriate bottom number. The bottom number gives us a note value that we will use as a reference point. Because note values are represented by fractional multiples of 2 (whole, half, quarter, eighth, sixteenth, etc.), the bottom number will always be a multiple of 2. This number may be specified by an instructor, or you may choose it yourself. It is particularly common for this number to be 4 in simple meter and 8 in compound meter, but other numbers are possible and even common in certain repertoires. Note that the bottom number of the time signature is always a point of reference, but it means something different in simple meter and compound meter. The vast majority of the time… …in simple meter (top number usually 2, 3, or 4), the bottom number tells us what note value represents the beat. …in compound meter (top number usually 6, 9, or 12), the bottom number tells us what note value represents the beat division. In our experience, compound meter is the one students find confusing. Many have been taught that the bottom number of the time signature always represents the beat. But in 12/ 8, for example, you are likely to see a conductor waving their hand every three eighth notes, or to find yourself tapping your foot or nodding your head every three eighth notes. This is an indication that those eighth notes are probably (with a few rare exceptions) not the beat, but the division. The majority of what we transcribe rhythmically will be one of the patterns we studied in the chapter on “rhythmic cells.” We can use this to help us work quickly and with “chunks” of rhythm rather than individual notes. The main complication is that each rhythmic cell is represented differently in different meters. You may wish to review the to see how different cells look in staff notation. Where we don’t recognize rhythmic cells, we will use our to figure out exactly what is going on. One last piece of advice: use to show beats. Using best practices here is of course nice for making your notation look more professional, but also helps you immediately see rhythmic cells and beats in ways that will make it easier to double-check your notation.

Goal: Practice connecting your understanding of music to its written notation. Before you start: You’ll need to have some completed protonotation/shorthand. See the previous sections on and for activities that lead you through this process. You’ll also need staff paper to notate your transcription. Instructions: If you have not already, write the appropriate clef and time signature for the music, leaving space in between for the key signature. (Note: clef, key signature, and time signature go in alphabetical order, and if the melody continues onto additional lines, you only need to repeat clef and key.) Go through the rhythms in your protonotation/shorthand, identifying rhythmic cells and/or using your subdivision skills as daunting and/or you don’t feel totally fluent with staff notation, we encourage you to rethink your choice to go straight to staff notation and start with . This will help the process feel less overwhelming. With time and practice, it will get easier and more reliable to go directly to staff notation. Instructions: Listen to a song from the playlist below. If you have not already, . Write the appropriate clef and time signature, leaving space in between for the key signature. (Note: clef, key signature, and time signature go in alphabetical order, and if the melody continues onto additional lines, you only need to repeat clef and key.) Listen through the first 1–2 phrases of the song, doing your best to memorize it. Writing while you listen may interfere with memorization, so we encourage you just to listen and memorize at first. Play back the rhythm or full melody in your head while tracking the meter with conducting, tapping, or some other method. Use these motions to determine exactly when each rhythm happens, and use your knowledge of rhythmic cells and subdivision to determine what note values represent what you hear. If you have difficulty, try using protonotation/shorthand first. As you work out rhythms and their locations in the measure, write the appropriate rhythmic note values. Be sure that you are always thinking of the beat in reference to the bottom number of the time signature, which tells us the note value of the beat in simple meter and the note value of the beat division in compound meter. If you intend to add pitches, you may simply do so intuitively as you work or simply write these rhythm values above the staff until you go to the next section on pitches.

If you have been writing scale degree numbers or solfège syllables in protonotation/shorthand (or just above a staff), good news! These are fairly straightforward to translate into staff notation. You can simply skip right to the first activity at the bottom of the page—the rest of the advice here is for people who want to go straight to notation without protonotation/shorthand. If you have not been using protonotation/shorthand, then you’ll want to follow the following procedures. You’ll note that they are extensive; if you already feel fairly comfortable with some of the steps, that may be just fine, but if this is overwhelming, start with protonotation/shorthand instead. As always, we start by determining context. Once you’ve found the tonic, locate it on an instrument or with absolute pitch. If you have not already, write the appropriate clef and time signature—and, in between, add the appropriate key signature, remembering to keep in mind whether the key is major or minor. If you’re not yet feeling fluent with notation, we strongly recommend you start with protonotation/shorthand, but it may help to anchor your vision on the important notes of the key, particularly scale degrees 1/do and 5/sol. We describe in the sight-reading chapter. Start analyzing the pitches by determining which scale degree the melody starts on. Of course, to figure out the scale degree, you need to know where the tonic is, so it may be helpful to re-find the tonic and hum it to yourself. Then, hum or subvocalize the beginning note, and then walk down through the scale until you get to the tonic. (For most people, walking down from starting note to tonic is more reliable than walking either direction from tonic to starting note.) Counting the number of pitches you need to go through will help you determine that starting pitch’s scale degree. From that first pitch on, you’ll typically find two different kinds of situations, which call for different approaches: Melodies often simply step through the scale, up or down. Where this occurs, it may be obvious to you. If so, great news! Simply follow the up-and-down motion of the melody and as long as you’ve started in the right place, you’ll be writing the correct scale degrees/solfège. Of course, melodies can also leap around. At first, we strongly recommend that when you notice a leap, you treat the second note as a new “starting pitch” and walk it down through the scale until you get to tonic to figure out what it is. Over time, as you get used to more musical patterns, strengthen your internal models of scale degrees, and develop more sensitivity to harmony, you should be able to rely on intuition more often. Don’t forget that sometimes imagining playing the music on your primary instrument, or even actually doing so, can be helpful here. Then, making sure to use the appropriate rhythmic values (see ), simply write your scale degrees on the appropriate line or space on the staff. (Make sure, for leaps, you’re paying attention to whether they go up or down.)

Goal: Practice connecting your understanding of music to its written notation. Before you start: You’ll need to have some completed protonotation/shorthand. See the previous sections on and for activities that lead you through this process. You’ll also need staff paper to notate your transcription. Instructions: Make sure you have found the tonic, and locate it on an instrument or with absolute pitch. If you have not already, write the appropriate clef and time signature—and, in between, add the appropriate key signature, remembering to keep in mind whether the key is major or minor. (Note: clef, key signature, and time signature go in alphabetical order, and if the melody continues onto additional lines, you only need to repeat clef and key.) If you’re not yet feeling fluent with notation, anchor your vision on the important notes of the key, particularly scale degrees 1/do and 5/sol. We describe in the sight-reading chapter. Then, making sure to use the appropriate rhythmic values (see ), simply write your scale degrees on the appropriate line or space on the staff. (Make sure, for leaps, you’re paying attention to whether they go up or down.) Before you start: You’ll need staff paper to notate your transcription. In addition, if this process is daunting and/or you don’t feel totally fluent with staff notation, we encourage you to rethink your choice to go straight to staff notation and start with . This will help the process feel less overwhelming. With time and practice, it will get easier and more reliable to go directly to staff notation. Instructions: Listen to a song from the playlist below. If you have not already, . Determine the tonic and locate it on an instrument or with absolute pitch. If you have not already, write the appropriate clef and time signature—and, in between, add the appropriate key signature, remembering to keep in mind whether the key is major or minor. (Note: clef, key signature, and time signature go in alphabetical order, and if the melody continues onto additional lines, you only need to repeat clef and key.) Listen through the first 2–3 phrases of the melody, doing your best to memorize it. Writing while you listen may interfere with memorization, so we encourage you just to listen and memorize at first. If you have not already done so, . Determine the starting pitch of the melody as a scale degree number or moveable-do solfège syllable. From there, figure out the rest of the pitches by following contour, imagining playing the music on an instrument (or actually doing so), and when necessary, walking a pitch down to tonic. Using your knowledge from steps 2 and 3, write the appropriate note values on the correct lines and spaces of the staff. (In reality, you will probably find yourself moving freely between steps 3–5.)

The previous sections have dissected the process of melodic transcription into many components: determining context (meter and key), using protonotation/shorthand to represent your understanding of rhythm and pitch, then actually figuring out the notation for these rhythms and pitches. We hope this helps demystify the process and make it less overwhelming. But at some point, if you want to go beyond studying the process and actually do transcriptions, you’ll need to practice putting this all together. We already outlined the full process of transcription in a ; it may be helpful to review that now, but we won’t repeat it here. Instead, here is some general advice: Don’t forget: the first step is always to determine meter and key. Always invite your instrument-based kinesthetic imagery into the process: imagining playing the music on an instrument, or actually doing so, can be particularly helpful in figuring out what’s going on. Whenever you’re struggling with pitches, relate them to the key. Whenever you’re struggling with rhythms, relate them to the meter, and make sure that you’re tracking the meter with physical motions such as conducting, tapping, or swaying, so that it is explicit.

Goal: Gain confidence in practicing the skill of transcription. Before you start: You’ll need staff paper to write down your transcription. Instructions: Transcribe the first 1–2 phrases of the melodies of the songs in the playlist below into staff notation. Whenever you have difficulty, review the advice above or a previous section of this chapter.

As we discussed in the chapter on attention, of all the non- melody lines we could listen to, bass lines may be both the most important and the most well-defined. Since they are often so prominent and associated with chord progressions, it is often useful to transcribe them alongside a melody to get a fuller picture of what’s going on in a piece of music. In a way, bass-line transcription is the same as melodic transcription. As long as you can follow the line and figure out its scale degrees and rhythms, you can just notate it the same as a melody. Indeed, for some people, it’s just that easy. If that’s you, awesome. There are plenty of people, however, who find that first part—”as long as you can follow the line and figure out its scale degrees and rhythms”—challenging when applied to bass lines, in a way that melodies are not. This is probably for two main reasons. First, evidence suggests that most people’s attention is drawn first to the highest voice sounding, so we need to practice directing our attentional focus to a different part of the texture. In the chapter on attention, we worked on directing our attention to the bass through a series of practice exercises. You may wish to to those now. Second, we are best at paying attention to familiar objects, so the more acquaintance we have with the common patterns associated with bass lines, the easier it will be to follow them. Finally, think about what your goal is in transcribing the bass. If it’s to figure out the bass line in detail in order (for example) to play it yourself, you’ll want to get whatever level of detail you can. But if you are using it as a tool to figure out the chord progression, you may not need every detail of the bass line in order to get most of the helpful information.

Goal: Internalize common bass-line patterns in order to identify them in heard music Before you start: Choose to use your voice or other instrument, as you wish. Instructions: Several common bass lines are described below. Play or sing these in several different keys in order to internalize them. If you sing, sing on solfège syllables to help direct your attention to how they relate to the key. The more these patterns are internalized, the more success you will have in following these bass lines. scale degrees 1-4-5-5-1/do-fa-sol-sol-do; if you go up from scale degrees 1-5/do-sol, consider dropping the octave on the second scale degree 5/sol scale degrees 1-5-6-4/do-sol-la-fa in a major key starting on a relatively high pitch and going down for the next two pitches, scale degrees 1-6-4-5-1/do-la-fa-sol-do in a major key and do-le-fa-sol-do in a minor key the “circle of fifths”/”circle of fourths”: scale degree 1-4-7-3-6-2-5-1/do-fa-ti-mi-la-re-sol- do in a major key and do-fa-te-me-le-re-sol- do in a minor key

So there’s not really anything new to teach here; instead, simply practice your attentional focus exercises, and learn as much about the style you’re working with as possible. For example, the more you work with bluegrass harmonizing, the better you’ll be able to guess what a harmonizing line is doing; the same is true of fugue countersubjects.

Listen to a song from the playlist below. Optionally, transcribe the melody’s first 1–2 phrase(s), making sure not to give your notation plenty of space so that any inner- voice activity that may be faster than the melody will be able to fit aligned with the melody. Even more optionally, transcribe the bass. This is great practice and will help add context, but we recognize you only have so much time and our focus is on inner voices. Then add another line of music to represent the most prominent inner voice. Give it an appropriate clef (as well as the same key and time signature as the other line(s)), and then transcribe this inner voice.

There are many reasons to transcribe the harmonies of a piece of music. Perhaps you are transcribing a jazz solo and want to understand the relationship between the improvised notes and the underlying chords. Or perhaps you’re transcribing a choral texture and an understanding of the chords will help you figure out what’s going on in the inner voices. It felt important to put this acknowledgment here, since harmony can be such an important part of transcription. But we will treat the actual skills involved in the later chapter on harmony. Something to look forward to!

You’ve likely read notated music before, and you might have already judged whether you are “good” or “bad” at it. We’ve seen this tendency in our students and in ourselves. Unfortunately, if we invest ourselves in a judgment like this, it can inhibit our willingness to take risks, grow, and learn. Fortunately, sight reading is a skill, and it has components that can be taught. That means that self- described “good” sight readers can continue to get better, and self-described “bad” sight readers can learn tools for improvement. Sight reading practice serves two purposes. First, we are trying to build the skill of internal hearing. Since the voice usually has the most direct connection to the brain, we will start by focusing on vocal sight reading of melodies (sight singing), as we did in the chapter on internal hearing. Second, and more obviously, sight reading is a practical skill that musicians use for different purposes, including taking auditions and learning new music efficiently. To support this, we will also discuss strategies for applying sight-reading skills on various kinds of instruments, including going beyond melodies, as well as advice on sight reading with “musicality.” Maintain tonic stability and tuning while singing notated pitches. Use solfège and stepwise connections to maintain pitch accuracy in sight singing. Use rhythmic cells, subdivision, and (if appropriate) rhythmic solmization to maintain rhythmic accuracy in sight singing. Perform music at sight with at least a basic sense of “musicality.” Look ahead in the music as they perform as sight. Apply strategies for instrumental sight reading as appropriate to their instrument type. Use their understanding of harmony to improve their “chunking” abilities and musicality.

I vividly remember a time when I auditioned to be a music theory teaching assistant at a graduate school, and accidentally sight-read an entire long melody in the wrong clef. Fortunately, not all applications of sight reading are high- stakes, with success based entirely on a first reading. But in any situation, sight reading confidence improves when we take the time to consciously set up the context for the notated melody. This means noting the clef, key, meter, and (if designated) tempo. It can help to speak these items out loud, at least at first, until we are more secure in this habit. Note that while most of the symbols at the beginning of a score are relatively straightforward in their meaning, a key signature only defines a collection of notes, not a tonic. There’s a lot that goes into a determination of key, but we particularly recommend looking for emphasized notes a fifth or fourth apart that could be scale degree 1/do and 5/sol. These notes are likely to be particularly prominent in bass lines (if given) and at phrase/section/piece endings. In some cases, and particularly when an individual is singing and/or when focusing on relationships within a key, it may be appropriate to perform a notated melody transposed to any comfortable key. In other cases, and particularly when performing on an instrument and/or when focusing on reading specific pitch names, it may be most appropriate to perform exactly the notated pitches. Make sure that you are clear on which of these is the priority for any given practice session or assessment. Once we’ve noted this information, we need to set up the key, meter, and tempo as aural realities. Fortunately, we’ve worked on these skills before! Be sure that you can really “hear” the key and “feel” the meter before you start. Meter:

While these procedures are particularly necessary when sight singing, setting up the key internally can be useful even when sight reading on an instrument. Our playing tends to be most musical and convincing when we have some idea of what sound is going to come out of the instrument even before it actually emerges. In addition, research suggests that we sight read with better accuracy when we can predict what might come next, and making the key an aural reality before we start can help with this. Goal: Develop the habit of first identifying the clef, key, and meter of a musical excerpt. Before you start: Find a containing melodies for singing. You may use any chapter/excerpt that has different keys, meters, and clefs. Instructions: Randomly select an example melody and verbally identify the following notational symbols: clef, time signature, and key signature (i.e. the number of sharps or flats). Study the melody, especially its resting-point notes and any accidentals, to determine the key (i.e. tonic note and mode). Conduct the beats per measure, tap beat divisions, and verbally identify the durational value of the beat note and divisions. Repeat the above steps with multiple melodies until it becomes habituated. Throughout your day, apply these steps when you encounter scores in other areas of your study.

The focus of this activity is on developing the ear, not providing a finished performance. The work of the ear takes place between the notes, as the ear and mind work together to anticipate the sound and solfège of the following pitch in the sequence. (The duration of the following pitch is important too, but the rhythmic element of performance is processed differently, often in an embodied manner.) Study the melody and locate the passages with the shortest durations as well as any spots that present difficulties. Establish the key, and then sing through any fast passages at a tempo that allows you to audiate each following note while singing the previous note. Similarly, sing through any difficult passages, noting the general amount of time it takes for your ear and mind to navigate the tricky spots. Set a tempo based on the amount of time needed to handle the fast and difficult passages in a melody. Practice singing the melody at the selected tempo, focusing between every note on hearing the following sound before you sing it in performance. If this activity is going well, you will likely find that your performance seems incredibly slow, but that your ear and mind are working quite fast between each note to hear the following pitch. Later activities and reading strategies in this chapter will help reinforce this process, enabling you to become a strong sight reader and laying the foundation for reading faster as you develop (without losing poise, control, accuracy, or expression). Ultimately, remember that there is no “default” tempo or “right” tempo that someone should always use. Rather, musicians need to learn how to set an appropriate tempo for the music they

Now it’s time to look at the notes! Inexperienced sight readers often find notated music to be overwhelming. There are a lot of symbols on the page, and they convey a range of information about pitch, duration, volume, articulation, phrasing, and more—often in a single symbol. If that doesn’t overwhelm you, great, you can just skim this section. But if it does, also great! We have some advice for how to start organizing and making sense of the many symbols on the page. The two parameters that are typically prioritized in sight reading are pitch and rhythm, so we’ll focus there. For each parameter, we can establish visual “anchor points”—some of the most distinctive and noticeable pitch/metric locations—within the notation. From there, we should be able to work out anything else that might occur as well, with reference to these anchors. In pitch, the most important locations to establish visually are typically scale degrees 1/do and 5/sol, so we’ll focus there. (Nevertheless, if other anchor points seem more useful based on your experiences and/or the way a particular piece of music seems to work, that’s fine; just adapt the methods we’re about to describe.) Once we’ve established the key, we will visually “call out” these scale degrees on the staff. Keep in mind that these scale degrees repeat at every octave; we’ll visually call out the octaves that seem most important to the melody we’re reading. In the example image below, we highlight these staff locations with colors; you can certainly highlight your scores at first, but over time you will be more flexible if you can simply do this mentally. In rhythm, we anchor ourselves primarily to the beats. Helpfully, standard notational practice uses beams on anything smaller than a quarter note to show the metric structure, so use these clues to help your eye quickly scan over the music. Even with these, however, at least at first it sometimes helps to draw in some kind of symbol such as a “tick mark” for each beat so that they are easily kept track of.

Goal: Recognize and mark structural tone and beats Before you start: Find a piece of music. This could be a new piece of music that you are working on privately or in an ensemble, or music from a . Instructions:

with the key signature and that each key signature has at least two possible tonics, one major and one minor) and the meter. Using your determined key, identify the tonic (scale degree 1/do) and dominant (scale degree 5/sol) locations on the staff, as appropriate, and call out these locations visually in some way. Using the meter, identify how many structural beats are in a measure and what note value typically receives the beat, marking the beats in some way in your music

Sight readers are often incredibly worried about accuracy. That’s normal! We want what we do to sound and feel good. But this can go too far: when we’re so focused on getting each note absolutely perfect, we might miss that they can be perceived in small (and, sometimes, large) groups. Seeing those groups actually facilitates greater accuracy, since a three-note group requires less processing power per note than three individual notes. It also facilitates greater musicality, since this “chunking” helps us see the larger picture: not just each note in and of itself, but where it has come from, where it is going, and perhaps why. So ironically, focusing on the perfection of each note often actually distracts from each note’s true “perfection.” We covered chunking in detail in the chapter on Memory. You may wish to revisit that chapter. Now, we just need to put it into practice! Our chunking abilities probably improve over time merely by learning, reading, and performing a lot of music. But to make our learning more efficient and quicker, we’ll pair that intuitive, unconscious learning with a conscious effort. One way to focus on chunking is to choose a common chunk type, then scan some actual music, identifying that chunk type wherever you can find it as quickly as you can. Particularly common types of chunks include arpeggios, neighbor tones, and rhythmic motives (repeating rhythmic patterns). Another way is to look at a new piece of music and, given a short amount of time, simply describe it in as few words as possible. This forces us to think about how we might group the notes together. A certain number of chunks are common across many styles, and we’ve tried to focus on those. However, any given repertoire (based on composer, genre, historical style, ensemble type, etc.) will likely have its own characteristic chunks. As you learn more and more music in any given style, you will internalize more and more of its characteristic chunks, improving your ability to work with it efficiently. Don’t forget to note those chunks consciously as you learn, to strengthen whatever intuitive learning might be happening. Before you start: This can be a group activity or an individual activity. If working in a group, do step 2 individually and then discuss together to compare the ways different members of the group found to chunk the melody. Directions: The list below includes links to several melodies. Choose one, open the link, and then click the notated first note to show the full notation. Scan over the melody, looking for ways to group the notes together. Be sure to put these into words: for example, “tonic triad arpeggio followed by a repeated rhythmic motive on scale degree 7.” As you get comfortable with this skill, you may wish to give yourself a 20- or 30-second timer and see how many ways of grouping/chunking you can find in this amount of time. Optionally, try to sing the melody, and then use the embedded recording to check your performance. (Use the “starting pitch” sound file to make sure you’re in the same key as the recording. Repeat steps 1–3 as necessary.

Take about 30–45 seconds to look through the music, describing the relationship between rhythm and meter. For example, you might say, “Short pickup leading into long note on the downbeat; then short notes on beat 4 leading into another long note on the downbeat; then rhythm in beats 1–2 repeated in beats 3–4.” Take about 30–45 seconds to look through the music, describing any repeated musical ideas (“motives”). These often feature exact rhythmic and/or melodic repetition, but there may also be some more “hidden” repetition, such as similar rhythms on different beats of the measure or pitch patterns repeated at different levels of transposition. Take about 30–45 seconds to look through the music, describing any common melodic gestures you notice. It may be particularly useful to note scalar passages (e.g., “scale from 1 up to 5”), suspensions, and neighbor or double-neighbor tones. Look through the music one more time for 30–45 seconds, considering how the melody relates to underlying chords. This is most obvious when the melody is an arpeggio, but you might also notice that (for example) an authentic cadence is implied at the end of an excerpt despite some non-chord tones. Think back through what you’ve noticed about the music. Which ways of describing it seem most useful in understanding it in small groups? Optionally, sight-read your way through the music vocally or instrumentally. your primary instrument that you are not yet familiar with. It could be completely new to you, such as an excerpt from or it could be something (or a section of something) you are just starting to learn. Choose a manageable excerpt (likely 4–16 measures). You may wish to use your primary instrument or to sing. Instructions: Scan through the excerpt, looking for chunks. Remember to look at rhythm and meter, melodic contour, repetition of any kind, and relationship to chords/harmony. It may help to describe these out loud to make sure you have a clear idea of what groups them together. Sight-read through the excerpt. Evaluate how your sight reading went. If there were sections that gave you difficulty, be sure to look at those sections again, rethinking how you might chunk them. You might also consider how you’d play each chunk, imagining or practicing the physical motions associated with them. Repeat steps 3–4 as appropriate. If you wish to repeat steps 1–5, you might

We turn now to tuning, which we’ll do primarily with our voices. It’s probably obvious why vocalists should focus on vocal tuning when reading music. But what about instrumentalists? For instrumentalists, we’re trying to build our internal hearing and connect it to sight reading, and using our voice can be useful here even if our end target is instrumental. Being able to internally “hear” the sound that is about to come out of the instrument before it emerges is helpful for musicality; on certain instruments such as unfretted strings, it gives us a reference point from which to judge the sound; and on other instruments such as brass that have a single fingering for multiple notes, it helps us picture the sound that we want to hear to make sure we’re hitting the right note. There are two issues we face with tuning. The first is that our point of reference—which usually means our key—needs to be stable. The second is that individual pitches should also be well-tuned. Some people can sing in a stable key without much effort. But for people who are challenged by this, it can be helpful to work with a drone or consistently remind yourself of the tonic. When your key is stable but individual pitches are poorly tuned, sometimes the issue is simply having a hard time “picturing” the correct pitch. This should improve with time spent with solfège and practicing sight reading. In addition, sometimes students benefit from practicing singing scales with a pitch reference, to make sure their internal models match the desired tuning system. This is best implemented one-on-one.

Goal: Develop key stability when singing Before you start: Choose a melody. This can be something from music you are performing in solo or ensemble settings, a simple folk song, or the melody of music you like to listen to. You’ll also need a drone, which can be played by someone else or by a tuning app or drone website such as . Instructions:

Take note of which scale degree the melody starts on. It may be useful to sing up or down by step from the drone to that scale degree so that you start on the correct pitch. Sing the melody over the drone, taking note of where it becomes difficult to tune with the drone. This may not be because you are out of the key, as there are notes that are dissonances with the tonic, but most melodies will end on a note that should feel comfortable in relation to the tonic. If you find this getting more comfortable, you might try playing the drone only some of the time, and then eventually taking it away and trying to imagine it in your head. Before you start: Choose a melody. This can be something from music you are performing in solo or ensemble settings, a simple folk song, or the melody of music you like to listen to. It may be useful to choose a melody with a limited range if you are not someone who typically sings in different ranges so that you can do it in multiple keys. Instructions: Choose a tonic note and play it. Sing the melody in that key, and at good breaks in the music, sing the tonic note again. The tonic should be interspersed throughout the melody, and you should also end the melody by going back to the tonic if it didn’t already end there. Check that the tonic you sang at the end matches your original tonic. Twinkle Twinkle example ([ ] mark returns to scale degree 1/do that are not in the melody): do-do-sol-sol-la-la-sol-[do]-fa-fa-mi-mi-re- re-do-[do]-so-so-fa-fa-mi-mi-re-[do]-so-so- fa-fa-mi-mi-re-[do]-do-do-sol-sol-la-la-sol- [do]-fa-fa-mi-mi-re-re-do-[do] scale degrees 1-1-5-5-6-6-5-[1]-4-4-3-3-2-2-1-[1]-5-5-4-4-3- 3-2-[1]-5-5-4-4-3-3-2-[1]-1-1-5-5-6-6-5-[1]-4- 4-3-3-2-2-1-[1]

Research on improving sight reading can be confusing and contradictory, but one fairly consistent result of this research is that eye movements matter. Specifically, there are two principles that can improve our sight reading: When we’re taking in information from the notated score, we are most effective when we do visual chunking; that is, when our eyes don’t focus separately on each note, but rather can take in small groups of 3–5 at a single glance. To improve this, work on the exercises in the previous section on working for speed. As we’re performing, we are most effective when we are looking ahead at what we’re about to do rather than at what we are doing right now. This will be our focus here. We have all already built certain automatic habits of eye movements, and simply telling you to look ahead as you’re performing may or may not override these. To build new habits in something so intuitive as where our eyes are looking, it’s probably more effective to practice forcing them to do what we want for a while using a method such as the activity below. As this becomes more automatic, we can hopefully take away the mechanism enforcing the habit and still be able to use it. Note that our desired eye movements are the same whether we are sight reading vocally or on an external instrument. This is challenging if you don’t do it naturally! It places heavy demands on our working memory to store and implement some music while we’re scanning ahead and trying to plan for what we’re about to perform. Remember that we’re not aiming to make your life tough here—we’re simply trying to build habits. So use music at a level that makes this possible for you, and choose an instrument that you are comfortable with to reduce your cognitive load and focus on those eyes.

Goal: Develop the habit of looking ahead while sight reading. Before you start: You will need some notated music to sight read. You may wish to use a or music for your instrument. You can choose whether to perform the music vocally or on another instrument since we’re just working on eye movements.

Optionally, do any preliminary steps you or your instructor prefer, such as noting the clef, key signature/key, time signature, and tempo, scanning over the melody for chunks or challenging passages, etc. Determine the amount of music you will be able to consistently take in at a glance. Ideally, this is either a measure or a half measure. (Your instructor may determine this for you.) We’ll call this amount the “eye unit.” Look at the first eye unit’s worth of music without playing it. Then either cover it up with your hand/an object or have someone else do it so that your eyes can’t linger there as you perform it. (Having someone else cover it lets you focus your whole attention on reading and performing.) Perform the music! As you do so, make sure that the eye unit you are playing at any given time is always covered up, forcing your eyes to scan ahead to the eye unit they’re about to get to rather than the one they’re playing right then.