Conversations about music pedagogy, music theory, ear training, and music technology with members of the uTheory staff and thought leaders from the world of music education.
Notes from the Staff
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20 episodes
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Podcast Overview
Conversations about music pedagogy, music theory, ear training, and music technology with members of the uTheory staff and thought leaders from the world of music education.
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Publishing Since
1/4/2022
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Recent Episodes
November 22, 2024
Teaching Intonation
Music education expert Leah Sheldon shares actionable tips for teaching intonation to beginners, emphasizing the importance of developing clear tone and listening skills.
January 15, 2024
Tuning Systems
In this episode we explore the difference between just intonation and equal temperament, and take a field trip to learn about an organ with 15 keys per octave (instead of the usual 12), that makes it possible to play purely tuned chords in almost all of the keys. Links: Tuning systems synthesizer: https://utheory.com/experiments/tuning-systems Organ demo field trip video: https://youtu.be/A9Enpt8hREg Chrome Music Lab: https://musiclab.chromeexperiments.com/ Intonation/Tuning System "Puzzle Pieces": https://casfaculty.case.edu/ross-duffin/just-intonation-in-renaissance-theory-practice/benedettis-puzzles/ Show Notes: 0:00:20.9 - Introduction 0:01:03.5 - Topic Introduction: Tuning SystemsGreg Ristow explains the complexity of tuning systems and opens the discussion on various aspects related to them. 0:01:58.4 - Just Intervals and Singing in ChoirsDiscussion on how choirs tend to move towards just intervals in their performances. 0:02:43.2 - Historical Context of Tuning SystemsWe delve into the historical variations of the A note’s frequency and introduces the concept of just intonation tuning. 0:03:22.2 - The Law of Superposition and Sound WavesExploration of how sound waves interact and affect what we hear, using sine waves as an example. 0:07:00.8 - Beating in Sound Waves and TuningDemonstration of how close frequencies can create a beating effect in sound, relevant to tuning and intonation. 0:11:25.7 - Constructing Scales with Tuning SystemsExamining how scales can be formed using different intervals, like perfect fifths, and the issues that arise in tuning systems like Pythagorean tuning. 0:21:16.4 - Assigning frequencies to notesA practical approach to assigning frequencies to piano notes, highlighting the challenges in tuning. 0:24:00.8 - The Pythagorean Tuning System and the Wolf FifthUnderstanding the Pythagorean tuning system, its implications, and the infamous 'wolf fifth.' 0:27:24.5 - Equal Temperament Tuning SystemDiscussion on equal temperament tuning, its compromises, and comparison with just intonation. 0:28:27.3 - Comparison of Major and Minor Thirds in Different Tuning SystemsExploring how major and minor thirds differ in various tuning systems, including just intonation and equal temperament. 0:31:04.3 - Just Intonation and Chord TuningDemonstration of how chords are tuned in just intonation, contrasting with equal temperament. 0:35:56.5 - Field Trip to Oberlin's Brombaugh OrganGreg Ristow and David Kazimir discuss the unique features of the Brombaugh Organ at Oberlin, demonstrating quarter-comma meantone tuning. 0:41:12.1 - Split Black Keys and Specialized Tuning on the Brombaugh OrganExploration of the organ's split black keys and how they impact tuning and playability. 0:47:08.4 - Musical Composition and Tuning SystemsDiscussion on how composers historically wrote music with specific tuning systems in mind, affecting the musical expression. 0:49:00.3 - Wrapping UpWe preview the next episode's topic, focusing on teaching intonation, and Leah Sheldon's experience in this area. Transcript: [music] 0:00:20.9 Greg Ristow: Welcome to Notes From the Staff, a podcast from the creators of uTheory, where we dive into conversations about music theory, ear training, and music technology with members of the uTheory staff and thought leaders from the world of music education. 0:00:35.4 David Newman: Hi, I'm David Newman. I teach voice and music theory at James Madison University, and I write code and create content for uTheory. 0:00:42.4 Leah Sheldon: I'm Leah Sheldon. I'm head of teacher engagement for uTheory. 0:00:45.7 GR: And I'm Greg Ristow. I'm the founder of uTheory, and I direct the choirs at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. 0:00:51.9 DN: Thank you listeners for your comments and episode suggestions. We love to read them. Send them our way by email at notes@uTheory.com. And remember to like us and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. 0:01:03.5 GR: So, today our topic is tuning systems, and thi
March 15, 2023
Interval Ear Training
In this episode, Greg Ristow and David Newman talk about the value and role of intervallic ear training, why it's time to move beyond Here comes the bride, and ways of teaching intervallic hearing that build fundamental skills for sight singing and dictation. Links: Karpinski, Gary. "A Cognitive Basis for Choosing a Solmization System," Music Theory Online, Vol. 27, No. 2. June 2021. https://mtosmt.org/issues/mto.21.27.2/mto.21.27.2.karpinski.html Transcript [music] 0:00:21.2 Gregory Ristow: Welcome to Notes from the Staff, a podcast from the Creators of uTheory, where we dive into conversations about music theory, ear training, and music technology with members of the uTheory staff and thought leaders from the world of music education. 0:00:35.5 David Newman: Hi, I'm David Newman, and I teach voice and music theory at James Madison University. And I write code and create content for uTheory. 0:00:43.4 GR: Hi, I'm Greg Ristow. I conduct the choirs at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, and I'm the founder of uTheory. 0:00:49.9 DN: Thank you listeners for your comments and episode suggestions. We love to read them, send them our way by email at notes@uTheory.com, and remember to like us and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. 0:01:01.7 GR: So today we'll be talking about interval ear training. And interval ear training is central to many teachers' and textbooks' approaches to sight singing and dictation. But the title of this episode is maybe a little bit misleading because research in music cognition suggests that for most common aural skills, ear training tasks we process notes by their relationship to a tonic or by their position in a scale rather than by actually hearing adjacent note to note intervallic relationships. So in our conversation today, we'll look at this research on how we hear and the role that intervals play in that hearing. We'll talk about why classic techniques we're teaching intervals can actually undermine students' reading skills. And we'll look at ways of teaching intervals that instead compliment and strengthen students' aural skills. It's a lot to get through in the course of an hour. [chuckle] 0:02:03.2 DN: It is. 0:02:04.5 GR: But David and I have agreed to play particular roles on this. So I'm going to, I'm gonna be sort of the the playback, keep us on track role and David's gonna be the the color commentary, [chuckle] role. 0:02:14.0 DN: Playing to our strengths. 0:02:15.4 GR: Playing to our strengths for sure, for sure. It is hard to talk about or even to think about how we hear, so much of how we hear music is really innate, that we don't, especially for someone with a well-developed ear, "how do I know how I know what I'm hearing?" is a hard question to answer. 0:02:40.1 DN: Yeah. 0:02:40.8 GR: And fortunately we have scientists and researchers who've been looking at exactly this question for a little, I don't know little over 40 years now. And what they have pretty consistently found is that when someone who is experienced in a particular musical culture, and so let's say broadly Western music, music that exists within the notes on a Western piano. 0:03:17.7 DN: An equal tempered scale. 0:03:19.2 GR: Yeah. A tempered major-y minor-y or rotation of its scale as opposed to for instance, some of the Turkish collections that have more notes in the scale than we have and notes that don't exist on our piano. So when someone is encultured in a musical system, when first they start hearing notes, the primary thing that their brain does is seek to determine a central pitch, what we would call a tonic and that's known in music cognition as the primacy hypothesis. The idea being that David, if I throw a few notes at you, before you're going to do anything with those notes, your mind is going to say, "what could potentially be tonic given these notes?" And we're gonna hold onto them. 0:04:20.8 DN: We contextualize it. 0:04:22.5 GR: Exactly. We seek to find the context in which that's o
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