Welcome to the APME Memphis 2025 conference. Here, you’ll be able to register for the conference and update your Sched profile. The conference schedule will be available in late spring 2025. At that time, you can view the schedule and select the presentations you’d like to attend. If you have any questions, please visit our conference website or contact us at conference@popularmusiceducation.org We look forward to coming together as a community June 4–7, 2025.
Music literacy is considered an important aspect of musicianship, and developing both auditory and written music literacy is a major component of undergraduate Ear Training (ET) courses. Unlike many college-level music programs in the U.S., contemporary/popular music schools, like Berklee College of Music, see a highly heterogeneous group of students. The daunting task for contemporary/popular music educators is how to develop music literacy skills in students with diverse musical backgrounds. In the current research, we identified two major groups of students who enter into our introductory ET courses: visually-trained musicians needing to develop auditory literacy, and aurally-trained musicians needing to develop written music literacy. There is a paucity of research considering the acquisition of ear training skills when coming from aural versus visual music backgrounds, and an incomplete understanding of best pedagogical practices to support student skill development. Considering prior research, two components were identified as being critically important to ET success for both aural and visual musicians: a) musical memory (remembering), and b) schematic knowledge (understanding). Over the course of one year, the current study implemented pedagogical techniques developed to target these areas, and considered the impact on musical working memory, schematic knowledge, and course-related skills including melodic dictation.
