ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the state of atonal music reading as it is commonly taught in aural-skills classrooms today. It begins with a description of the challenges that many atonal aural-skills teachers face and ways that these difficulties are addressed. It also describes the pedagogical approaches presented in three of the leading aural-skills textbooks: Lars Edlund’s Modus Novus, Ronald Herbert’s Tonal/Atonal, and Michael Friedmann’s Ear Training for Twentieth Century Music. It then suggests a revised pedagogy for atonal music reading that grows out of the techniques established in these pedagogies with additional methods based on current research in music perception.
