A Ccurriculum to Cultivate Whole Musicians: A New Approach to Aural Skills Instructions Promoting Student Success in Other Music Classrooms

The following thesis is founded on the construction of a new undergraduate aural skills curriculum. While many aural skills methods may exploit some varieties in exercise and assessment formats, this method attends to and prioritizes the advantages of those formats more purposefully, thus being more transparent toward students in their learning and introducing certain agency they may hold in their studies. Students undergo a 5-semester curriculum in this method, organized into a fundamentals semester, and Aural Skills courses 1, 2, 3, and 4, the last of which is split into two modular options. Students who participate in this curriculum are shown the importance of cross-study in aural training, whereby they not only synthesize exercises and the skills those activities nurture, but grow to understand a deeper connection between their experiences in aural skills courses and those in academic and professional music practice elsewhere. Optimally, students learn the process of catalyzing the concepts they encounter in a variety of genres and contexts. Students also develop the metacognition of their musical practice as a whole, perhaps a goal and outcome of other methods but one that is attended to with more purposeful and organic scaffolding here. This metacognitive understanding of their own capabilities supports students as they synthesize skills in order to distill theoretical concepts and extrapolate the various applications thereof. Students who are able to achieve these objectives become more competent and creative musicians as a whole. The curriculum to follow shows the expansion of musical selection and use, as well as the blending of skill development and practice approaches. It maintains certain standard assessments that offer the clearest manners in which students show their proficiency and understanding of concept and practice, whilst implementing personal instrument and keyboard use alongside a greater variety of creative opportunities for students. Optimally, this approach works to bridge the gap between the mindsets held by the student and instructor, as well as the materials they collectively investigate and concepts they distill. The more effectively this gap is narrowed, the more thoroughly learning and synthesis of skills may take place. Advisor: Stanley V. Kleppinger