When I was an undergraduate, we had “music theory” class five days a week for two years. This was essentially a mixture of part writing and ear training. The ear training included sight-singing, “melodic dictation”, and “harmonic dictation”. It’s my impression that this was standard fare at music schools (universities and conservatories) across the country (the United States) and beyond. Boulez doesn’t actually specify what sort of things Messiaen had him transcribe-maybe they were particularly difficult-but just the circumstance that there was regular dictation is not in itself remarkable or unusual. What I find discouraging is that after those first few years music students tend never to go back to ear training. You don’t stop practicing your instrument after you graduate; why should you stop training your ears?

I have heard some stories about Boulez' incredible ear perception; hearing student's pieces performed for the first time, then sitting down and playing them back to make a point, getting the voicings and timings correct.

I used to sit with an acoustic guitar in front of the TV late at night while studying classical composition at university. I'd try and play along with the hideous infomercials that interrupted our film viewing as the same ads would appear frequently. This ended up being a surprisingly efficient educational tool as I always got 100% in every ear training dictation test.

The great thing about Messiaen's music and his modes in particular is the fact that they are indeed not that difficult to hear and very plausible as their own frame of reference, if you've studied music for a few years of course. You can really get used to thinking and listening in his 'tonality'. This is why I'm actually very skeptical of many 'avantgarde' composers of the youngest (my own) generation in particular, most of them being trained in my country, Germany. A lot of them don't have an instrumental background and most of them compose on the computer these days or apply the abstract techniques their teachers preach on the paper without really using pitched audiation, many just have a very abstract sense of what the sounds and timbres will sound like if played, resulting sometimes in really painful listening experiences. They don't really learn anymore to really think and listen their music through, often hiding behind this really pretentious l'art pour l'art conceptual bullsh*t where concerts will have at least 45 minutes of podium discussion before you get to listen anything. I remember one composer who was honestly baffled at the premiere rehearsal by the fact that oboe and clarinet as chamber instruments sound deafeningly horrid and loud when trilled in the 2' registers. This is what we get wrong: Music should be treated as a craft. We should stop treating composition, modern or historic alike, as this completely inexplicable act of getting divine inspiration. It isn't. It's hard work, even for the most gifted people. Even f***ing Mozart wouldn't have written a damn piece if he happend to be too lazy to write scores, organize gigs and of course practice. That said: The French conservatory system is actually almost totalitarian and strict about its solfège courses, they are essentially a drill, and most teachers I met insisted on 'forcing' absolute pitch onto their students, which is of course a bit easier if you start with solmisation. This system has of course its downsides and is a bit exclusive, I don't have absolute pitch. But the phenomenon of avantgarde composers with terrible ears is luckily not as common on the other side of the Rhine.

Brilliant. Brilliant man.

It's worth saying that, when it comes to musical dictation, those with perfect pitch have a significant advantage over those who don't, to the point that it becomes unfair. This is particularly true if the musical excerpt you're using is atonal or highly chromatic. If you're going to grade people on it, it would make sense to separate those with and without perfect pitch and grade them differently. It's as if, in math class, you had a portion of students who instantly knew the answers to problems without having to think or work out the solution.

Boulez y Messian Grandes comp.

still love it!!

So happy this came up on my KZfaq feed (which is often useless🤷🏻‍♂️). Nice! To me there’s also a big relationship between your ear and improvisation. “Classical” or “serious” or “academic” music - no good word for it in English - seems to have lost some of this ability... maybe sometime shortly after the generation of Chopin/Liszt? But it’s not been lost in blues or jazz or rock yet. I remember over 40 years ago now seeing a concert & interview documentary on early Pink Floyd and the interviewer asked guitarist David Gilmour about his guitar solos. He just looked puzzled and said “Well, you can’t play what you can’t hear, right?”

C'est très vague comme explication. Est-ce possible d'obtenir plus de détails en quoi consistait la formation auditive? Je crois que c'est vraiment d'une grande importance pour les futurs compositeurs et ceux actuellement. Merci

The Parisian building where Messiaen lived, and at the very end of the video a Japanese blackbird. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/j9-imt2Estq8f3U.html

精神矍铄

Fortunately he doesn't dishonour the french tradition of english accent.

A great ear indeed. Wasted on "condemning" other composers and writing trash music.

I know persons who can write down everything they hear. they are totally un-musical. 😂

There's surely a limit to how much you can improve. You could dedicate your life to ear training but only have modest improvement - unfortunately