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Book Review: Colin R. Wright. Aural and the university music undergraduate

This book sets out to examine the nature and importance of “aural” particularly for the university music undergraduate, combining a literature review (Chapters 1–4) and four empirical research projects (Chapters 5–9) to address this topic. In unpacking the meaning of “aural”, Wright gives emphasis to inner musical thought processes; he sees these as forming the basis both of “aural ability”, an integral component of musical ability, and of “aural skills”, specific competencies that can be seen as “evidence” of aural ability. “Aural” thus encompasses aspects both of inner processing, which may progress both deliberately and automatically, and of external application, which derives from attentive listening and responding to music and its elements. The author proposes a diagram which synopsises these aspects and identifies five phases of aural processing: passive hearing; active listening; assimilating and interpreting; accessing; and, practising and developing. Pedagogical literature on “aural training” typically treats the subject in applicational terms, despite repeated calls for the need of pedagogical approaches to be informed by psychological principles (e.g. Butler & Lochstampfor, 1993; Karpinski, 2000; Klonoski, 2000; Musumeci, 2000). Wright’s diagram, encapsulating understandings of “aural” in terms both of music psychological operations and of practical/educational applications, offers a useful tool in bridging these different perspectives on “aural” and organizing its understanding into one continuous function. Stemming from Wright’s wide definition of “aural” as described in the previous paragraph, the exploration of its various components, undertaken in Chapters 2 through to 4, is of necessity wide: it encompasses a number of different topics, pertaining to psychological, pedagogical and historical aspects of “aural”. These include the many uses of inner hearing; various types of musical imagery; the nature of musical ability (inherent versus learnable); the importance of motivation for music learning and particularly for the developing of aural skills; the role of singing in developing the “inner ear” and musicianship; uses of information technology in relevant courses; the operations of musical memory within activities such as improvisation, playing by ear and sight-reading; issues pertaining to possessing absolute versus relative pitch; and the relationship between music and language processing. Other subjects discussed include the historical development of British music education and the resulting socio-cultural contexts or “aural” teaching, the relationship between aural ability and musical notation, as well as the highly problematic character of aural skills assessment, resulting in tension between assessability and relevance. Treatment of all these topics in the course of only three chapters means that certain separate issues which are in themselves complex but also critical, such as the benefits versus the possible detriment to aural ability of learning notation early, are only mentioned in passing. In 763238 POM0010.1177/0305735618763238Psychology of MusicBook review book-review2018