Rosalyn Amo's A.P. blog

April 3rd.

2008-04-03T20:59:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I got on Auralia for an hour. I did the inteval exercises for a while. I got 37/47 right. I tried level one first. They played an interval. Then I was supposed to chose whether it was a 4th, 5th, or 8th. I wasn't using the piano. I used the different interval songs that I have in my notebook. I'm getting a better grasp on intervals. 5th and 8th are still tough though, even with the songs, they are hard for me to pick apart. Then I tried level 3. It gave me 5 different interval choices and I got 17/20 right. Then I tried a level one rythym exercise. It played a beat for me and gave me the choice of 2:4 or 3:4. I didn't know how many measures it was because they didn't tell me. That made it really tough. I got 4/9 on those. That was really tough. Yep there's my A.P. practice for you. It's about as interesting as a peeled orange.

March 14th

2008-03-14T17:13:00.000-07:00

I got on Auralia on Wednesday. I did various rythym exercises. There were 3 different ones I tried. I did one where they would play a few meters and then ask you what the time signature was. I tried level 1. They gave me a choice between 2:4 and 3:4 for the first question. I got it wrong . I listened to it over and over, trying to figure out why it was 3:4 and not 2:4. I think I finally figured it out. I wrote down all of the beats, then tried to figure out what note values to give them. Then I moved on to a different set of rythym exercises. On these exercises I was asked to listen to a rythym with a metronome behind it. Then I was supposed to tap the rythym back on a space bar, with the metronome still beating on the backround. Afterwards I went on to another set of exercises where they had you listen to a rythym and then dictate the rythym on a staff that was provided. There were various notes, with there values at the bottom of the page to add to the staff. There were 4 measures. I got one note wrong on the second measure. I was pretty proud of myself. Of course, I had written the whole thing down on my staff paper first and listened to it about 7 times before I added the notes to the staff lines

Mar 5th.

2008-03-05T06:55:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I practiced solfege for about 10 minutes. I found a random page in Krueger and tried to site read it. I did pretty well. I neglected to give my self a starting pitch at first, so that threw me off a little. I feel like I'm really getting solfege down, just from practicing it a little bit this week. Later in the night I went to the piano lab and got on Auralia. I was on it for an hour and 10 minutes. I was doing interval comparisons. They play an interval and ask you which one is smaller, or larger. You have to read the directions because they switch it up. In the end I got 47/ 57 right, which is good. I wrote down the notes and intervals of all of the pitches I got wrong. And I wrote down everytime I spaced off slightly. By the end I wasn't spacing off much at all, because I didn't want to deal with writing it down. I'd be like, no Rosie, stop spacing off. Anyways. I got some really good practie in!

Mar. !st

2008-03-01T23:47:00.000-08:00

Last Friday I worked on some A.P. material. I worked on the intervals and scale differentiation. I also worked on some timing., Mostly I worked on solfege. I picked a random page in the book and tried to figure out the solfege in my head. I also tried to work on some solfege in my head during Williams class on Friday. I started spacing off about the Bach chorale writing, so I decided that working on something else would be more productive than spacing off. Yep, I feel like I 'm getting significantly better at solfege

Feb 24th

2008-02-24T18:42:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I went over a bunch of A.P. terms. I went over Largo(very slow), lento(slow), vivace(lively) and presto(very quick). Then I copied down the spectrum of time marks from Largo to moderate and on. I looked those terms up in Chapter 4 and wrote them down. I wrote down what the tempo markings meI ant in my voice lesson music. Then I went over some harmonic minor scales in my head. Then I went over some of the ways to remember intervals that I learned. I spent about an hour and a half doing this stuff. I think that I got it all in my head.

Feb 23rd

2008-02-23T14:17:00.000-08:00

On Thurday I got on Auralia for 45 minutes. I was going over the exercises that help you distinguish between scales, nat., harm., and melodic. Harmonic is really easy to tell, but the melodic and natural are hard to distinguish between. Then I tried to pick which interval they were playing. I could tell the 4th well, but the 8th and the 5th were hard to distinguish between. So I figured I better think of a way to distinguish between them. I tried to think of the songs that Kimberly taught us to use last semester. I wrote down the ones I could remember. I tried to think of some myself , relating to my songs or other songs that I enjoy. I only thought of two. Then I went downstairs. I found Suzanne. She wrote down 4 more for me. I need to dig out my A.P. notebook from last semester, so that I can write down the pneumonic devices that Kimberly gave us. My practicing went well. I feel like Iam doing better in sight singing class. This makes me happy!

Feb. 16th, 2008

2008-02-17T00:46:00.000-08:00

So I tried to get into the computer lab on Thursday. Fern Glass let me in. I got in the computer, but Auralia was grey and wouldn't do anything when I clicked on it. I tried to get to it different ways and I tried 4 other computers in the room. They didn't have Auralia. So anyways. Today, Saturday the 16th I went over the rythyms on pg. 153. I went over the 2nd exercise we had worked on in class. It was a 4:2 measure. Took me awhile to figure it out. My mind kept spacing it out because it didn't want to deal with a 4:2 meter. Then I broke it down. I compared it to a 4:4 meter and a 2:4 meter. I got the first line down. It wasn't very complicated. The second line stumped me a bit . I only got through the first 2 measures. But I got them. down. I could stomp and clap those rythyms anytime., and I'll got over the 4:2 meter again next time that I practice. I played some harmonic scales after that, A, and D. I think my ear is starting to be able to hear the difference between harmonic and nat. minor. Sadly though, harmonic is what sounds right in my ear, and not natural. I pracitced about 25 minutes.

Feb 6th, 2008

2008-02-06T23:27:00.000-08:00

Today I got on Auralia for an hour and a half. I went over intervals mostly. I stayed on level one most of the the time, and ust worked o my 4ths , 5ths, an 8ths. I found that after spending all thwat time picking out the intervals and trying to figure the out on the piano, I could still do okay without the piano. I don't know wh but it took me a while to relize I could just sing solfege quietly to figure it out. I only missed one doing that . About the the same as when I used the piano. When I didn't use any tools( piano or voice) the results were somewhat disastrous. Anyways, I love Auralia, I can feel myself improving. I also worked identifying scales. It was easy for me to distinguich between harm, and nat. scales, but once I switched levels and added meldoc, I didn't really get anything right. I tried to figure it out on the piano. Those are tough ones, but I'll work on it. That will one of my focuses next time I got on Auralia. I can't wait until I actaully have all of this ear training on my head.

Jan 31st, 2008

2008-02-02T20:17:00.000-08:00

On thursday I got on Auralia for an hour. That program is simple. Getting the right answers is not simple, but working the program is very simple. It's helpful to have the piano right by me too. I went in two sections of the program. The first was scale recognition. So I kept playing the D harmonic scale over and over, the example on the program. O realized that my backround knowledge of A.P. is not very significant. So most of the time I spent reviewing the features of a D harmonic scale, such as the raised 7th and the parallel majors. Then I moved unto the interval recognition. That was kind of fun, but nothing I would've been too clear on if the piano wasn't right beside me. So I liked the program, and I will continue on it. So there you go, I studied A.P. quite a bit today. Another guy who was in the room told me that Auralia is only on the back left computer from the door. I don't know if that's true or not!!

Jan. 29th.

2008-01-29T14:53:00.000-08:00

Today I got together with Brooke to go over the rythyms on pg. 69 in the Krueger book. During class I realized I was a bit clueless about how to tap the rythym that I was assigned. It was the same rythym that I messed up on during my jury. So I asked Brooke to explain the rythym to me. The thing that had confused me was the 8th note connected to the 2 16th notes. She explained that it would've been the same if the notes weren't tied together and. The 8th was the same value as the two 16th notes. We went overabout 7 examples on the page. I wrote down the rythym and we tapped them together. We worked on A.P. for a half hour.

Jan 27th

2008-01-29T14:52:00.000-08:00

January 26th, 2008
Today I went over the first page of Ch. #9 again. I tapped the rythym in my legs. Left and Right keeping the beat and Right keeping the off beats too. I went over the largo lento allegro stuff again. I think I should be able to have them all in order by the time a practice tomorrow. It should be cool. I spent about 15 minutes tapping the rhythyms. I was major self displine training to keep tapping those rythyms, but hey, I got through it, and I will get through it tomorrow, and before I know it I will be a rythym master. Am I spelling rythym right?

Jan. 25th * 26th.

2008-01-26T21:56:00.000-08:00

Today I looked over the first page in Chapter 9. I wrote the rythym above the first two rythmic examples. I also reviewed the Italian tempo language. I tried to think of things to help me remember what largo and lento etc. meant. I was thinking well Largo rhymes with cargo and cargo can go really slowly, and Lento rhymes with pento, like pento beans. Cooking Pento beans might be a quicker process than unloading cargo, so that's my logic. Take it or leave it. I've taken it. I tapped the rythym below the rythym language a few times. Yesterday I also went over the Italian rhythm words also. So I've almost got those all completely in my head. I probably spent 10 minutes on A.P. on each of these days. Odios amigos