Preparing for Listening Exams

Hello again, dear colleagues!

I’ve taken quite a few listening tests in my time here at Redlands, and I’ve been asked to supply some advice in preparation for those of you who haven’t experienced them before. I realize our test is two days away, so sorry for the timing, but hopefully you will find a few of these pointers helpful in your final preparations and for future studying. Here are some techniques that I use and that I find beneficial, in no particular order:

1) Listen, listen, listen. I can’t stress this enough. I try to start listening through the works as soon as they are posted, a few every couple of days until I’ve made it through all of them. Then I repeat, many times. You can listen at your desk, while you’re walking between classes, in your car, wherever—I tend to use the pieces as “background music” when I can, perhaps so that they work their way into my subconscious more, but I make absolutely sure that I have spent time just listening as well. Your most attentive and comprehensive listening will not be accomplished while multi-tasking.

2) Make a list of all the compositions and their respective composers, and organize them into categories based on their instrumentation. Don’t be afraid to research the pieces if you are unsure! This helps me identify the likely “problem” pieces—the ones that share the same instrumentation, and therefore cannot be identified by instrumentation alone, and that will most likely require more attention so that you can confidently distinguish them. Can you hum one of the main motives of Varese’s Density 21.5, and then the melody from Debussy’s Syrinx, without comparing them first? And what makes Takemitsu’s Voice clearly stand out from the previous two? Those are the kinds of questions I try to ask myself.

3) Identify parts of the music that are really striking to you, for better or for worse, and in any way possible. This can range from extramusical associations (such as Daugherty’s Desi, which immediately makes me think of Ricky Ricardo from I Love Lucy ever since I read its program notes) to musical references (Tower’s Tres Lent [in memoriam Olivier Messiaen] reminds me of a movement from Messiaen’s Quatuor pour la fin du temps). It can be as simple as the constant presence of nature sounds in Schafer’s Wolf Music: Aubade for Solo Clarinet, or more specific: the monophonic unison line toward the end of the first movement of Bartok’s String Quartet No. 2 really stands out to me personally, for example.

4) Check out the music score for study and listen along. A library of our size obviously isn’t going to have all or even most of them, but it’s worth a try. I actually have the three string quartets checked out—sorry, I definitely didn’t mean to hog them. Please let me know if you want to borrow them!

5) Familiarize yourself with the prominent motives of each piece. I was having some difficulty distinguishing parts of the Debussy and Ravel string quartets—the melodies tended to mush together in my mind, despite having listened to the works several times back to back. I finally tried to sing the melodies, along with the recording and then by myself, and I was surprised at how helpful that approach was. I had never tried that before, but now I can play through each in my head much more successfully. Some people find that writing out the motives is helpful, too; that was a popular method when our class had a test once on all the Beethoven symphonies.

6) Did I mention… listen? I personally would not be able to cram for a listening test, and I don’t think that many of us can. Listen well in advance, and listen often! And make sure to devote a fairly equal amount of time to each work. By this I mean that it’s all too easy to group them into the ones that you really like and the ones that you don’t like as much, and then “forget” about the latter group as you focus on the former. I’ve been there (…Beethoven symphonies…) and it can be pretty detrimental, so give them all a fair chance!

I’m sure I’m forgetting things, but that’s a basic overview of my process. Please feel free to contribute any study and preparation techniques that you find helpful!

Good luck, and happy listening!