AMS/SMT 2025

From Chunking to 8-Bit Soundworlds: Aural skills foundations & musicianship through video game music

Program Link
Time: Saturday November 8, 2:15pm - 3:45pm
Room: Lake Bemidji

This year we are excited to be hosting a session featuring Dr. Timothy Chenette (Utah State University) and Dr. Thomas Yee (The University of Texas at San Antonio).

Drawing on his OER textbook Foundations of Aural Skills, Dr. Timothy Chenette will unpack strategies for cultivating internalized knowledge, and address concepts such as musical memory, intonation and tonic perception. He will also share methods for engaging students with creative tasks including improvisation, to provide holistic pathways for aural skills development.

Dr. Thomas B. Yee will explore how video game music from the 8-bit era to contemporary soundtracks offers fertile ground for ear training and musicianship. Thomas will demonstrate strategies to leverage game music’s unique timbres and structures to inspire students’ ears and imaginations.

Participants will experience live walkthroughs of related Auralia & Musition worksheets that map these strategies to core music theory concepts, fostering both fundamental skills acquisition and creative exploration.

2025 Showcase Sessions

Supercharged Sight Singing with PracticeFirst

11.00-11.15am, Friday Nov 7, Exhibit Hall Stage

Explore this revolutionary sight singing assessment tool featuring a modular curriculum that can be mapped to your course sequence; stepwise pitch sets, through melodies outlining specific chord vocabulary, to modulating melodies with accompaniment. Empower your students to sight sing with accuracy and confidence.

Teaching Music Fundamentals the Easy Way

11.00-11.15am, Sat Nov 8, Exhibit Hall Stage

Make music theory inclusive, engaging, and effective with Auralia and Musition. This session showcases how these powerful tools can simplify the teaching of rhythm, pitch, scales, intervals, chords, and more—through interactive tasks, instant feedback, adaptive learning and curriculum aligned content.

SMT 2024 Recap

Integrating global & popular music into the theory curriculum

At this year's SMT annual meeting, we had the pleasure of hosting Integrating global and popular music into the theory curriculum with special guests Adem Merter Birson PhD (NYU Steinhardt) & Trevor de Clercq PhD (Middle Tennessee State University). Adem and Trevor discussed the challenges of meeting the real-world needs of their students and their experiences of integrating global and popular music into their courses.

We are also proud to have worked with Adem and Trevor to curate Auralia and Musition worksheets to include global music and support Trevor's undergraduate music theory textbook 'The Practice of Popular Music'.

Theory & aural championship

Congratulations to Joon Park from University of Illinois Chicago who was the winner of our 2024 Theory & Aural Championship at the SMT Annual Conference.

Honorable mentions go to entries from University of Rochester, Florida State University, University of Florida, Shenandoah University, and Morehouse College.

AMS/SMT 2023 Recap

Reframing the Music Theory Curriculum

At the 2023 Society for Music Theory conference in Denver, we had the pleasure of hosting Reframing the Music Theory Curriculum with special guests Dr. Sarah Louden (NYU Steinhardt) & Dr. Paula Maust (Peabody Institute, ‘Expanding the Music Theory Canon’). Sarah & Paula shared their incredible work and thoughts on making music theory courses more relevant, engaging, and inclusive. Download the session slides here.

We are also proud to have partnered with Paula and SUNY Press to provide worksheets to accompany Paula's anthology 'Expanding the Music Theory Canon'.

Music Theory & Ear Training

Auralia^® & Musition^® provide comprehensive ear training and theory units for Fundamentals, and Theory & Aural I - IV courses. With thousands of questions drawing from the literature (including 900+ questions based on compositions by women composers and composers of colour plus 1000+ YouTube driven pop music questions) students can practice key skills within a real, musical context, anywhere on any device. Get in touch to request a trial.

Cloud Trial

Features

Fundamentals
Theory & Aural I - IV Worksheets
Placement exams
Harmony & Analysis
Diversity Content
YouTube Integration
Automatic Assessment
Access anywhere, on any device

Get in touch to discuss your curriculum requirements.

Results

Four-Part Writing with Automatic Assessment

Musition includes four-part writing with automatic assessment!

Let’s face it, this is going to save you loads of time (no more marking) and give your students clear, annotated feedback to guide their learning.

Learn more..

Sight Singing & Recording

Now your students can record and submit audio assessments directly in Auralia!

This is perfect for sight singing drills, keyboard and piano tests, plus developing imitation and improvisation skills. You could even use it for submitting performance recordings (entrance exams etc), sight-reading or sight-transposition questions.

Learn more..

YouTube Integration

Auralia now includes integrated YouTube video support with hundreds of questions. This is great for incorporating pop and contemporary based content in your ear training curriculum. You can embed any YouTube videos in your Auralia questions, worksheets and syllabi, and teach theory and aural concepts using diverse musical examples.. world music, movie soundtracks, video game music, musical theatre, pop music, western art music, and much more.

Learn more..