Sound On

If you’re familiar with the musical aptitude tests developed by Dr. Edwin Gordon, you’ll appreciate this “aptitude test:”

Advanced Measures of Contemporary Music Audiation.

Joke Background

To celebrate the end of our Level 1 GIML Certification in Early Childhood Music, I developed the joke. I wasn’t going to do it, but then they lured me with research money.

Karlheinz Stockhausen

One day during class, Dr. Gordon told the following story [I paraphrase]: “I was at a music conference in Europe with composer Morton Feldmen. Karlheinz Stockhausen was explaining one of his pieces using mountains of charts and graphs. Morty told Karlheinz to ‘just sing it!’ Karlheinz couldn’t do it and was very embarrassed.” The musical excerpts in AMCMA are from Stockhausen’s Gruppen for 3 Orchestras (1955-57). Also, many have asked – yes, that is your author’s voice on the recording.

Audie

AMCMA is based on Audie, a musical aptitude test for children ages three through four. The fact that the Advanced Measures of Contemporary Music Audiation uses the same format as a test designed for children ages three through four further pokes fun at contemporary music practices.

It’s All A Joke

The biggest joke here is that I am a huge fan and composer of contemporary music, including the likes of Stockhausen, Cage, and the June in Buffalo festival. Stockhausen’s Helicopter String Quartet is beautiful and magnificently spellbinding. Further, in accordance with the results of Dr. Gordon’s research, I believe that tonality is always perceived, and that learning to audiate helps one to make sense of contemporary music, where tonality may be subjective and or transient. So, Karlheinz, please don’t take my test the wrong way.

Explore

If you want to get in touch with the modern music scene, tune into Counterstream Radio, a product of the American Music Center, which I wrote about in July.