Tuesday Tools

Music Learning Theory is an explanation of how we learn when we learn music. Based on an extensive body of research and practical field testing by Edwin E. Gordon and others, Music Learning Theory is a comprehensive method for teaching audiation, Gordon’s term for the ability to think music in the mind with understanding. Music Learning Theory principles guide music teachers of all stripes–early childhood, elementary general, instrumental, vocal, the private studio–in establishing sequential curricular goals in accord with their own teaching styles and beliefs. The primary objective is development of students’ tonal and rhythm audiation. Through audiation students are able to draw greater meaning from the music they listen to, perform, improvise, and compose.

Audiation is a term Gordon coined in 1975 to refer to comprehension and internal realization of music, or the sensation of an individual hearing or feeling sound when it is not physically present. Musicians previously used terms such as aural perception or aural imagery to describe this concept, though aural imagery would imply a notational component while audiation does not necessarily do so. Gordon suggests that “audiation is to music what thought is to language.” His research is based on similarities between how individuals learn a language and how they learn to make and understand music. Gordon specifies that audiation potential is an element of music aptitude, arguing that to demonstrate music aptitude one must use audiation.

Audiation and language

Gordon describes that audiation occurs when an individual is “listening to, recalling, performing, interpreting, creating, improvising, reading, or writing music.” Audiation while listening to music, he describes, is analogous to the simultaneous translation of languages, giving meaning to sound and music based on individual knowledge and experience.

Gordon also emphasizes that music itself is not a language as it has no words or grammar, but rather has syntax, an “orderly arrangement of sounds, and context.

Types of audiation

Gordon differentiates different varieties of audiation and categorizes them into 8 types and 6 stages.

• Type 1, Listening to familiar or unfamiliar music.
• Type 2, Reading familiar or unfamiliar music.
• Type 3, Writing familiar or unfamiliar music from dictation.
• Type 4, Recalling and performing familiar music from memory.
• Type 5, Recalling and writing familiar music from memory.
• Type 6, Creating and improvising unfamiliar music while performing or in silence.
• Type 7, Creating and improvising unfamiliar music while reading.
• Type 8, Creating and improvising unfamiliar music while writing.

Stages of audiation

In addition to outlining types of audiation, Gordon also differentiates between stages of audiation 

• Stage 1 Momentary retention
• Stage 2 Imitating and audiating tonal patterns and rhythm patterns and recognizing and identifying a tonal center and macrobeats
• Stage 3 Establishing objective or subjective tonality and meter
• Stage 4 Retaining in audiation tonal patterns and rhythm patterns that have been organized
• Stage 5 Recalling tonal patterns and rhythm patterns organized and audiated in other pieces of music
• Stage 6 Anticipating and predicting tonal patterns and rhythm processes

To describe how students learn music, Gordon outlines two main categories of learning based on his research on audiation: discrimination learning and inference learning.

Discrimination learning

Discrimination learning is defined as the ability to determine whether two elements are same or not the same. Gordon describes five sequential levels of discrimination: aural/oral, verbal association, partial synthesis, symbolic association, and composite synthesis.

Aural/oral

Gordon describes that the most basic type of discrimination being aural/oral, where students hear tonal and rhythm patterns and imitate by singing, moving, and chanting patterns back to the instructor. Students listen in the aural portion of discrimination learning, while performing represents the oral portion. At this stage, students use neutral syllables to perform tonal and rhythm patterns.

Verbal association

After students are more able to audiate and perform basic rhythm and tonal patterns and become comfortable with imitating songs and chants in introduced tonalities and meters, Gordon explains the next step is verbal association, where contextual meaning is given to what the students are audiating and imitating through tonal or rhythm syllables (such as solfege or the names of concepts students may be audiating through tonal patterns such as tonic and dominant).

Partial synthesis

At both aural/oral and the verbal association level, students identify familiar tonal and rhythm patterns performed on neutral syllables by their verbal association.

Symbolic association

Symbolic association is the point at which students are introduced to notation, learning to associate written symbols and notation describing familiar tonal and rhythm patterns that had been introduced in the aural/oral and verbal association level of the skill learning sequence.

Composite synthesis

At the composite synthesis level, students give context to familiar tonal or rhythm patterns by reading and writing them and identifying their tonality or meter as introduced in the symbolic association stage.

Inference learning

At the inference learning level, students take an active role in their own education and learn to identify, create, and improvise unfamiliar patterns. Similar to discrimination learning, Gordon delineates separate categories of inference learning that students logically follow in the course of music learning: generalization, creativity/improvisation, and theoretical understanding.

Generalization

As aural/oral learning is the most basic element of discrimination learning, generalization is the basic element of inference learning. Generalization consists aural/oral learning, verbal learning, symbolic reading, and writing. At the generalization level of learning, students may listen to sets of familiar and unfamiliar tonal or rhythmic patterns and determine whether the patterns are the same or different, ultimately reading familiar and unfamiliar patterns, as well. 

Creativity/improvisation

The creativity/improvisation level of the above learning sequences has aural/oral and symbolic levels. At the aural/oral level, teachers present familiar or unfamiliar patterns and have students respond with patterns of their own, first on neutral syllables and later with the verbal association. At the symbolic level, students learn to recognize and sing patterns within written chord symbols, as well as learn to write their own responses to tonal patterns and rhythm patterns.

Theoretical understanding

The final level of inference learning is theoretical understanding, in which students gain further understanding of music theory concepts in aural/oral, verbal, and symbolic contexts. Students may learn concepts such as pitch letter-names, intervals, key-signature names, or concepts such as cadences and learn to recognize and perform patterns that apply such concepts.