Music Exam Candidate Listening Sprint Written Tutorial

Author: Shu Zechi / Wang Mei
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-05-01
Features: This guide will lead you to the path of the musical! Listening is the foundation of learning music, the difficulty of learning music, and the necessary path of learning music! Written specifically for countless music candidates, this music college entrance examination guide teaches you the basic methods of listening training, guides you through listening exercises, and helps you assess your auditory level. Complements the same-name software tutorial—to quickly improve music listening! This is China's first music listening training tutorial developed using computer multimedia technology, consisting of a written tutorial (one book) and a software tutorial (one multimedia CD). It includes two major sections: "Listening Practice" and "Listening Test," covering the eight most important listening topics, three levels of listening tests, hundreds of level-specific listening exercises, and thousands of flexible resource calls. The training can lower the threshold, refine the steps, vary in speed, and combine and separate, creating truly personalized music courses.
[Preface] For years, the music college entrance examination has shown a clear "knowledge gap" phenomenon. As everyone knows, whether it's mathematics, physics, chemistry, literature, history, or geography, the content of the college entrance examination is all taught, practiced, and prescribed in high school. The only exception is music, where the basic courses of music theory, listening, and sight-singing were never taught in primary school, learned in junior high school, or even mentioned in high school. Yet, during the exam, they are tested as important content, with such a wide scope and depth that it's impossible for those who don't know the way to understand. This practice can truly be called "killing without teaching," and it's very unfair!—This is my first reflection. Schools don't teach it, so self-study is the only option! There are dozens of music learning books in bookstores, and just study them hard. But music is an art of sound, and learning music without the sound of music is like grasping the branches to catch fish. For beginners who don't understand music, the many musical examples in the books are like hieroglyphics. Even if you memorize every definition by heart, what's the use?—This is my second reflection. Self-study doesn't work, so you have to find a teacher. But as everyone knows: it's hard to find a good teacher, and it's hard to seek one. Even if we don't mention the difficulty of finding one, every day, dedicated parents bring their children thousands of miles by train to Beijing or Shanghai to take lessons with a good teacher. Let alone the difficulty of finding one, the cost of each lesson ("tuition") is so high that it's beyond the reach of ordinary middle-class families. Moreover, under heavy financial pressure, the actual results often don't match the expectations, and many talented children miss their chance to enter the world of music forever!—This is my third reflection. These are the motivations and driving forces that prompt me and a few friends to engage in a task that no one else has done—developing music education software and creating a new combination of music learning media. There are many singers, composers, theorists, and experts, so let's do something that others don't have time for. As the old saying goes, "Man proposes, God disposes." We are just willing to work hard and not worry about the outcome, willing to do our best and not care about praise or criticism. That's all. Therefore, instead of following conventional thinking or academic "systems," we start from the current state of music education in China, from the actual needs of music teachers and students in the teaching and learning process, to design and develop the "New Approach to Music Theory" software tutorial and written tutorial, as well as this "Music Candidate Listening Sprint."
In the preface to the "New Approach to Music Theory" written tutorial, we have already explained that a complete music learning process should include listening, theory, notation, and keyboard, and that an ideal music learning process should always involve the coordination of auditory and visual functions, as well as the integration of imaginative and logical thinking. Now, from the perspective of curriculum, every lesson should include three aspects: knowledge, ability, and skill. Knowledge is the foundation, ability is the core, and skill is the link. Whether constructing the tutorial, designing lesson plans, or assessing learning, all should revolve around these three elements, supporting and motivating each other. This breaks the old habit of prioritizing knowledge and blindly studying books, as well as the prejudice of ignoring theory and mindlessly practicing. Both points are easy to understand, but why is skill elevated to such a high position as the "three-legged tripod"? In fact, one idiom can answer this question: "Practice makes perfect." "Perfect" refers to skill; "perfect" can only be built on the foundation of "practice," that is, extensive experience and practice; "perfect" manifests as methods and speed. Without methods, there is no speed, and methods and speed can only be built on the integration and mastery of knowledge and ability; "perfect" is not a dogma and cannot be (imposed); it must be personalized and creative. Only when "perfect" is achieved do knowledge and ability truly become one's own, rather than belonging to the teacher or the book. Therefore, knowledge is "learned," ability is "practiced," and skill is the result of "understanding" based on "learning," "practicing," and "practice."
I believe that music is different from natural science and social science. The essence of music lies in "understanding," which is reflected in the learning process as "skill." The design of the "New Approach to Music Theory" tutorial incorporates the three elements of knowledge, ability, and skill. Due to the difference in media, the written tutorial is more conducive to knowledge learning, while the software tutorial is more conducive to ability development. However, as a tutorial, a common framework and process are essential, and it's not easy to address the special and individual needs of teaching and learning. But specialization and personalization are the strengths of the "Music Candidate Listening Sprint."
The "Listening Sprint" tightly grasps the core of music learning—listening—and focuses on decomposing the eight topics of music listening into difficulty levels, lowering the threshold, refining the steps, varying in speed, and combining and separating. In this way, regardless of the differences in learning foundation or conditions, as long as you are determined and willing to put in the effort, you can discover "yourself" and find the most suitable path to the musical palace through the two major sections: "Listening Practice" and "Listening Test." The abundant questions also provide the most basic conditions for "practice makes perfect."
I believe the greatest benefit of the "Music Candidate Listening Sprint" is to play a significant role in breaking the obvious and widening urban-rural and east-west gaps in music learning. Only a small number of lucky students can benefit from learning under a good teacher. If you are not one of the lucky ones, if you have this opportunity but are geographically separated or financially constrained, if you can't afford tutoring classes or find a teacher, if you can't find even a single former examinee in your surroundings to tell you what to do in the exam, if you can't find or afford a piano necessary for learning music theory and listening, or if you can't find even a single sheet of five-line staff paper in the entire city (let alone a tuning fork), then the task we have done that no one else has done will surely be of help to you—if so, please let me know by any means possible, and I will be deeply grateful to you!
Of course, we also believe that the "Listening Sprint" can, like the "New Approach to Music Theory," provide some help to all hardworking music teachers across the country, whether in preparing lessons, teaching, creating tests, or grading them. Even if it can just save you from the laborious and exhausting task of playing rhythms, intervals, chords, and functional progressions hundreds of times in the classroom, we will feel very relieved (we also included countless such "low-level tasks" in the process of making the software). Or, students who have already entered music schools can also find the exercises they need to face their professors' exams with more confidence and ease? Or, countless music professionals can use it to review and consolidate their existing musical knowledge and continuously improve their musical abilities in their work and creativity? If this is the case, it will be our encouragement, our reward, and our motivation. Here, we have only one thing to say: Thank you!