Product Description

The title of this new publication is "Ear Training: Scale Forms through Six Basic Tetrachords. This first volume (Volume I) of three is presented as A Comprehensive Approach to the Systematic Study of Melodic and Harmonic Structures in Music. This book contains a Table of Contents with four chapters entitled, Materials for Study; Guidelines for Study; Singing Drills & CD Lessons (Dictation); and CD Answers. In addition to these clearly defined chapters, the book contains 72 pages and two (2) CD's of 114 minutes of Lessons, Studies, and Drills; it also contains a Compact Disc Reference section and an Index.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #392537 in Books
• Published on: 2002-05-01
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 72 pages

From the Publisher
This new title is meant for the serious-minded musician. This comprehensive approach involves the study of melodic dictation and aural memorization. It is based upon the presentation and study of Six Basic Tetrachords and their relationship to different scale forms found in melodic invention. The fragmentation of scale construction is also explored. The following areas of study include: Major Scales; Minor Scales with the Aeolian, Harmonic, & Melodic Forms; Chromatic Scales; Modes: Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian, & Locrian; Whole-Tone Scales; Pentatonic Major & Minor Forms and the Six Basic Tetrachords: Major #1, Minor #2, Phrygian #3, Whole-tone #4, Dominant Harmonic Minor #5, & Chromatic #6.

From the Author
Volume I involving the study of scale forms represents the ideal starting point for the musician interested in preparing and developing a fine ear. Through this study, one may secure and provide the foundation for excellence in music performance, insights into improvisation, and an understanding of melodic and harmonic intentions. It is the optimum study for enhancing one's ear. To a very large extent, the degree of musicianship is most often, directly-related to one's ability to hear and capture the essence of melodic and/or harmonic invention. This volume on ear training clearly sets the direction for excellence in music.

About the Author
Elvo S. D'Amante is the former Department Chairman of Music at Laney Community College and the author of other fine books on music theory, including Music Fundamentals published by Ardsley House Publishers of New York and the very successful best seller All About Chords.

Music Fundamentals and All About Chords can also be purchased through Amazon.com.

Customer Reviews

Useful, but students need reinforcement.
Sight singing / ear training with tetrachords is nothing new; Sacred harp, being one outstanding example. I find this to be an excellent beginning method and I use it with many private students. My one criticism is that there is no sight-singing material to accompany the tetrachords. After students become familiar with the first two or three tetrachords they need material to practice. Singing the twenty four permutations is a great exercise but not representative of real world examples. If Mr. D'Amante would consider adding some graded sight singing material-or put out a supplement-he would have the best book on the subject.

Lousy audio support
This set would be much better if the author had hired a concert pianist to play on a superior piano. Just because you only intend to play one note at a time, doesn't mean any ol' meat handed lounge player can make the recording. On the contrary, on an ear training set you want to take care not to have distracting overtones caused by an inferior instrument and a careless touch. I can't recommend anything so sloppy for the purpose of training the ear.

I'm afraid to say that none of these focused ear traing methods are very good. If you want to do it right, get Schiff's recordings of the Well Tempered Clavier along with the Dover scores. First analyze the score, then listen to the CD while following along with the score. Schiff has the good taste to play only the Bosendorfer piano (nothing else comes close) and he won't rattle your brains with buzzing, hammered overtones.

The Definitive Ear Training Book
The study of ear training has always been an arduous and difficult task for musicians. There have been myriad of books wriiten on the subject, usually leaving the untrained with a feeling of emptiness, never fully attaining the intended goal of the author, that of training the ear to recognize certain chords, scales, modes, or various intervallic patterns. This has all changed with the arrival of Mr D'Amante's book, "Ear Training....Volume 1 Scale Forms through Six Basic Tetrachords". I found this book engrossing from the begining to the end. The emphasis is on the practical fundamentals of the six basic tetrachords and how scales are derived and formed from this series of four-note patterns (which is what 'tetra' means). The understanding and memorization of the seven modal scales are easily recognized when application of the basic tetrachord is applied. The material is not only presented in a cogent manner, but it allows the student to also practice what he/she has absorbed by presenting drills after each lesson, using the two CD's that are provided with the manual. This has been an invaluable experience for me and I'm looking forward to purchasing the other volumes that Mr D'Amante has so kindly written. This book is a MUST for any serious minded musician. I wish this book had been available when I started composing and performing some twenty years ago. It collects and presents so much painfully acquired knowledge that it is a signal advance in the study of ear training.