Teaching Intonation with Auralia
Sometimes the only reason that you need to purchase a piece of software is ONE exercise or function. For me, it was the Tuning exercise in Auralia from Rising Software.
Back in 2004 I was teaching at the Franklin Avenue Middle School in Franklin Lakes, NJ. When I was being interviewed for the job, I was asked if I taught strings. “Of course!” I said. While I was certainly certified to teach strings, I never had, but sometimes you do what you need to do to get the job. One of my many shortcomings as a string teacher (eventually I was pretty good) was that I was unsure of the best way to teach my students a simple skill - how to tune. For some strange reason, no matter how hard I tried, I could not get the concept of flat and sharp across to the students. Further, if a student knew they were sharp or flat, I couldn’t get them to grasp the concept of knowing what to do to correct their intonation. I’m sure that there is a string teacher(s) somewhere with the keys to unlock this concept in a students’ mind - but I had NO idea how to do it. I tried everything from making different distorted body moves for sharp and flat, getting students to repeat mnemonic devices like “righty tighty, lefty loosey” - but students would always end up staring at me with a bewildered look.
Then one day I attended a conference and met Peter Lee from Rising Software. He was showing a feature from one of his products, Auralia. It was the tuning section. I remember instantly thinking - THAT’S IT! The AHA moment came when I saw the Level One exercises. It was simply a reference note played that was in tune, followed by another note that was out of tune. The student had to identify whether the second note was sharp or flat. BINGO! Drill and practice exercises like these are perfect for skill building while being infinitely patient. If a student gets 10 or more questions wrong in a row, the software simply prompts them “Not quite. Would you like to try again?” If I was the one asking the questions, I might just pull the rest of my hair out.
What truly sold me on the product though, was the higher levels. Level Four had a slider on the interface. The first reference note was played, and then the second out of tune note was played. The students had to adjust the slider to either “sharpen” or “flatten” the note until it was in tune. They could compare their answer with the reference note as many times as they’d like. Absolutely brilliant.
I absolutely love when a simple interface solves a complex problem. I instantly purchased enough copies of the software to install it on each computer in my music tech lab at FAMS. The very next strings lesson I had, I took the students into the lab and had all of them try the tuning exercise. Now I know that this might sound unbelievable, but they instantly got it. Within 40 minutes, my students were answering every question correctly. I was thrilled. They realized that “righty tighty” meant “sharpen” and “lefty loosey” meant “flatten”. The next time they had a lesson, I brought them back into the lab to refresh their memories and then we went into the rehearsal room and they figured it out on their instruments. It was the best purchase that I had ever made in terms of actually seeing and hearing the results of using it with the students.
I cannot recommend Auralia enough for the many ear training exercises that are included. Ear training is an essential musicianship skill to help students build over time. But that tuning exercise. Wow. If you’d like to try this exercise out with your students, you can sign up for a FREE 30-day trial. MusicFirst sells a “cut down” version of the full Auralia, called AuraliaFirst. Remember that there are multiple Levels in AuraliaFirst - Introductory, Beginner and Intermediate. These levels will help you address the different needs of your students.
FUN FACT - did you know that the name Auralia comes from combining the word Aural with Australia (where the product was developed). Now you know…