MUS 221
Jazz Ear Training
Last Offered Spring 2008
Division I
This course is not offered in the current catalog

This tutorial is designed for jazz performers, composers and arrangers who have taken Music 212 and who seek further work in the area of aural development. The focus of the tutorial will be on the development of advanced aural skills specific to the disciplines of jazz performance and arranging/composition.
Its format will involve two weekly meetings. In the first, tutorial pairs will meet individually with the instructor to present transcriptions of approved improvised solos, which will be thoroughly notated and performed by the students. A critique of both the performance and notation of these transcription projects will be offered by the partnered students for one another, as well as by the instructor, with revisions and corrections incorporated into an edited performance the following week. In the other weekly meeting, all of the tutorial pairs will meet jointly with the instructor in order to do group assignments involving sight-singing (both rhythmic and melodic), and advanced harmonic and melodic dictation. During these sessions the instructor will offer a critique of the past week’s performances as well, based on the following criteria: 1.) notational technique, 2.) observations relating to performance practice, 3.) how such factors contributed to the evolution of the given soloists’ style, and, 4.) historical significance of the given performance and its relationship to the overall evolution of the given performer’s personal voice.