Musicianship Classes

Online Aural Skills with Claire Jones: Claire is a former official examiner for the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music (2011-2020). This course follows the ABRSM syllabus. Aural skills is about developing the student’s musical ear and their ability to identify pitches, tempo, intervals, melody, chords, rhythms and time signatures. As they progress through the ABRSM levels, they focus on identifying musical detail such as articulation, dynamics, and description of the style and character of pieces, rhythmic repetition and sight singing. The higher levels involve all the skills mentioned previously with the addition of repeating upper or lower 3 part melodies, identifying cadences, naming cadential chords, modulations, sight-singing 6-8 bar melodies and finally listening to a piece and providing a detailed verbal description with regards to musical detail, tempo, texture, structure, harmony, style and period. Saturdays: 11:00-11:30 EST

Online Music Theory with Claire Jones: As a musician’s skills progress, development in music theory becomes extremely important. It supports their understanding of the music they are playing enabling them to perform with confidence. This class will teach the analytical aspects of music. In this class the student will improve their musical reading skills, understanding of how to notate and express music on the page. Claire follows the step-by-step formula following the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music syllabus. Saturdays : 11:30- 12:00 pm EST

Hybrid- both online and in-person- Music History: This 45 minute class is based on the philosophy that in-depth study of masterworks will enable the student to develop an understanding of the musical, cultural, historical context of the piece, era and composer. Students will develop highly refined listening skills, an advanced musical vocabulary, sophisticated musical understanding and, through practical application, be able to apply knowledge of musical style in performance on their own instrument. Offered in the Spring of 2021 only