Auralia (Part 1)

Much has been mentioned in pedagogy concerning theory and aural skills textbooks and their accompanying materials, particularly the addition of digital and computer related materials to nearly all textbooks.  The ubiquity of personal electronics in the form of computers and smart phones that are capable of supplying information normally reserved for the classroom at any time makes these valuable commodities in the continued attempts to find teaching materials outside of the classroom.

At Penn State, we have recently transitioned to using Auralia, a spot previously held by MACGamut.  As I was the sole instigator of this transition—and really the only one attempting to integrate it into aural skills classes this past year—and I will soon be leaving, I though I would share the ups and downs of using Auralia.  What is it good for?  What needs improving?  What can we no longer live without?  Should we continue using it?  Because this will turn into quite a long entry, I will split this up over a week of journal entries.  The first entry will focus on highlighting the negative and positive aspects of Auralia.  The second will concern overall student reaction to the program and where we can go from here.

Let me begin by saying that yes, we should pursue continuing to use Auralia.  That said, I’ll start with some of the downfalls of the program.  First of all is the universal issue of sound quality.  To ensure compatibility with all computers, all of these programs use MIDI as the supporting sound engine.  Therefore, while you can change instruments, each sounds a bit fake.  While this is not an issue for single lines or isolated pitches, it becomes an issue in distinguishing individual pitches of a chord, which can make chord recognition and chord progression topics more challenging than they should be.

The other issue, associated with chord progressions, is the idea that the progressions are created based upon a bank of chords and their relative associations.  As expected, this doesn’t always result in the best voice leading examples or overall chord progressions.  Even if one million chords are available for a two bar phrase, the possibility still exists that your progression will be I-V-I-V-I.  I believe this can be improved through linking with Sibelius but that is something to discuss with the developers.

Which brings me to my last dislike, which is the location of said developers: Australia.  Which means support, if necessary, can take a bit of negotiating, most especially phone support (14 hour time difference).  That said, my requests or suggestions I have made have been promptly addressed and even quickly integrated into the program, and possibilities for collaboration with the programmers (Penn State SOM Syllabus?) exists.

And now for the positive aspects of Auralia.  As mentioned in a prior journal entry, the cloud integration is one of its strongest assets.  This makes test creation, administration, and scoring incredibly easy, and also allows for teachers to view how at-risk students are coming along during practice, or if they are practicing at all.  The ability to create customized topics and integrate new chords and scales (CCRs?) means it is quite flexible and able to adapt to many course topics.

The user interface of the program is really outstanding, especially when compared with MACGamut.  While it may seem superficial, this really has an impact on whether or not students feel as if they can work on these skills even if there is no quiz looming on the horizon.  It’s as simple as logging in to your account, and you’re ready to go.  No dealing with preset files, no command prompts, just some nice intro music and you’re off and running.  Also, what you are running into is incredibly varied, and although we may not use some of the topics for aural skills (tuning, jazz chords, chord clusters, etc.) they are still worthwhile for the student to check out, something made that much more possible because of its ease of use.