Welcome! This Berklee Ear Training 1 course is designed for entering Berklee freshmen, or aspiring Berklee students who are preparing for their Berklee auditions. Ear training skills are a part of all potential Berklee students’ auditions. Ear Training 1 is also a required class at Berklee, but many do test out of it in their ESPAs (Entering Student Proficiency Assessments). 

To be successful in this course, you will need to be able to have a basic understanding of western music notation, and you will need to be able to match pitch (i.e accurately sing a note that is played for you.) If you have issues with any of these, please contact me and we can discuss your next steps. 

The act of “training one’s ear” is where a musician learns to identify sounds, or more specifically, pitches (notes) and duration (rhythm). These can be presented in several ways: a rhythmic extract, pitches, a melody (a combination of pitches and rhythm), or harmony (many pitches at once.) A “trained ear” is therefore able to notate sounds (i.e dictation or transcription), or vice versa: produce sounds that have been notated (i.e singing/chanting rhythms). This course will practice both dictation/transcription and singing/chanting rhythms.

Please note that all singing/rhythm chanting at Berklee comes with the expectation of concurrently conducting.