I teach an 11 year old boy who is doing Grade 2 piano this term and is generally an excellent student, in fact he's about the best Grade 2 student I've ever had with regard to his scales and sight reading ability. He is clearly very musical, so i can't understand why he has difficulty with the aural tests especially the singing. He can sing in tune, he just doesn't seem to be able to remember a pattern of 5 notes. He's not particularly shy, and not a typically macho lad who might think singing is not for him as many lads do around this age. Any suggestions of how i can help him would be gratefully received!

Start with shorter patterns, also repeating back one note after a pause, then two notes, etc.

Can he repeat back rhythms without the melody?

Hi Madge,

Can he sing short songs? Any songs? try teaching him to play songs with words, He might have some idears himself. there are some great books out there in the shops, how about the music shop on the corner, your music corner shop, oops.

How about doing some tonic solfa? write the words, doh ray me fah soh and have him play and sing the tune.

1. Doh ray me
2. me ray doh
3. me doh ray etc.
then add

1. doh ray me fah
and mix up etc.

The brain uses all sorts of pathways and sooner or later his brain will catch on and the problem will be solved. Try lots of different things.

I have every sympathy with your student - I have always found aurels difficult. I can sing in tune, I know lots of songs from memory, yet when confronted with a string of notes with no words attached, no real meaning, I simply can't remember them. I can do a couple of bars fine, but any longer and I lose the tune and can't remember it. I usually get the start and the end correct, apparently.
Oddly, when I'm teaching a piece, I'll often leave the lesson humming something one of the pupils is learning!

This problem is so common and is certainly present in many of my own pupils although I have to say it usually doesn't fully manifest itself until around Grade 4 when the melodies get longer. Almost always it's nothing to do with musicianship but short-term memory capabilities. If you said a few unconnected words to him and asked him to repeat them back, could he do it?

I do a lot of work with my pupils who struggle with this, working on getting back one or two notes and then taking it to a longer length as they become more confident. We also look at clapping back rhythms (something, again, that comes in at Grade 4) and counting bars as we go so they know how long they've got to sing for.

It is a hard one this because it's usually due to the pupil's natural make-up and skills rather than musicianship.

I'd just keep encouraging all you can, learning short tunes from memory both to sing and play back and also take a broad look on life which says if you cannot do one small section of the Aural, you'll probably not fail the whole test completely if the rest is OK.

As a matter of interest how does he get on spotting the change in the 3rd test at Grade 2? There is a memory element there - hear and remember the first playing and then spot the change. If he can do this then his problems are possible related to his own ability to manipulate his voice to sing back what he can remember as much as to with the memory itself.

I'm sure with your encouragement he'll win. Best of luck.

SuzyMac - I used to be just like you - there was no way I could remember this long amorphous string of sounds.

If you ever get the chance to get yourself trained in solfa, then do! It is the most tremendous aid to memory.

Now I can work out the solfa to a tune fairly quickly - and once you've done that, you won't forget it. It provides 'words' to the tune and therefore the memorisation is so much simpler.

Thanks for the advice, I'd always just assumed I'd never get much better than I am!! It's reassuring to know I'm not the only one.
How do I go about solfa learning, is there a book you'd recommend? Or should I be looking for a teacher? (Am a poor student...) It's a new method to me.

Hi Suzymac,

Keep it very simple, tonic solfa really is easy and will soon be second nature.

The tonic is 'doh', the second 'ray', just like the 'sound of music.'

A good book to compliment the AB Aural test book is 'Aural Time' by David Turnbull. These are practice tests for ABRSM. The one I would recomend for the tonic solfa is Test B. Sight-singing in free time on page 6. David Turnbull recommends singing their letter names or tonic sol-fa names. I use tonic sol- fa as it works every time.

The tests are written in treble and bass so that pupils can choose the ones suitable for their own voice.

I give my pupils a dozen exercises a week to learn on their own at home, out of the book, giving themselves keychords and checking their notes with their own instruments. I show them how to do it at the lesson and then they happily get on with it. It really is easy and they soon become very good at it!

The first exercise is in G major and is doh, doh, doh, ray, doh. It very gradually progresses up to the standard for the AB exam and your pupil will get full marks and suprise themselves!!!

Lesley gives very good advice, SuzyMac. It's really hard to learn solfa from a book but what she suggests sounds good.

What part of the country are you in?? You need to find a good Kodaly course as it's much easier to learn solfa by doing it with others!

QUOTE (Cyrilla @ May 23 2005, 09:56 PM)

You need to find a good Kodaly course as it's much easier to learn solfa by doing it with others!

Cyrilla, sorry I didn't make it to the Kodaly course in Birmingham. I'd still like to watch one of your Saturday sessions or are there any other courses in the near future - (London or anywhere)? My email address is on the yahoo thingy below if you want it. The lack of PM's is a nuisance at times.
Thanks.
PS hope you have recovered from your birthday!

Heehee - right now I'm in Cape Town!! I usually live just north of Birmingham though. Thanks a lot for the advice guys.

QUOTE (Madge Woollard @ May 21 2005, 04:39 PM)

I teach an 11 year old boy who is doing Grade 2 piano this term and is generally an excellent student, in fact he's about the best Grade 2 student I've ever had with regard to his scales and sight reading ability. He is clearly very musical, so i can't understand why he has difficulty with the aural tests especially the singing.

My take on this would be that there are many musical activities for which the skill of remembering a tune on first hearing is unnecessary. It is useful in some sorts of jazz; in choirs only if you don't read music. Its main usefulness is in passing ABRSM exams, to prove musical skill to the people who can't rely on, or lack time for their own assessments. For myself, I suppose I must have had this ability to some extent when I took my piano exams, but I have never needed it in the 50 years since then.

Far more useful are the related abilities of sight singing and internalising pitches from notation. In conducting, the essential skill is detecting that what one hears is different from what one sees in the score.

The difficulty with aural tests is that many of us tend to just "do them" rather than find a way to help a student gain the required skills to be able to understand what they hear aurally. I have found that the best way by far is to look into the "Kodaly" approach - a systematic approach to musicianship training that was developed by the Hungarian composer Zoltan Kodaly during the 20th centuary. This is applicable to all instruments. Do have a look at their website, www.britishkodalyacademy.org and perhaps consider going on one of their courses.

I use the Kodaly approach with great effect