Aural Skills In Jordon's Warm-Up Farewell

Jordon emphasizes that aural skills are best taught within a harmonic context rather than a melodic or linear approach. He argues that intervals have a different function depending on their placement within a specific harmonic context. Jordon espouses that aural skill warm-ups should employ at least two parts and be disseminated from easy to hard in all modes. Jordon believes that establishing the “anchor note” or resting tone is of upmost importance when teaching intonation. For example, sol-mi has a different function when compared to do- la and is intuitively tuned by the choir as it relates to the “anchor note.” Therefore, it is essential for the choir to audiate the resting tone in order to tune the interval correctly.
Shaw’s warm-up
This is due to the fact that each voice is different and uniquely sensitive that it would be difficult to individually attend each singer. Finally, he advocates very quiet singing in the warm-up and introduces count singing to the group.
Carrington has the choir audiate wide leaps (minor 7ths) and also had the basses move down by whole-steps while the rest of the choir held a sustaining pitch. He then has the choir sing arpeggios on open vowels where he emphasizes roundness and forwardness. He is also pointing out some theory and wants the choir to visualize the notes on the staff as they sing the arpeggio. He then has the group audiate a change from major to minor (tough for amateur choirs).
Carrington and Shaw pay particular attention to vowel placement and how it impacts timbre and dynamic shading. Finally, Carrington nicely rounds out the warm-up by having the choir descend from a B note to form a C#-minor chord. This approach relates to Jordon’s “hierarchy of aural difficulty” where Carrington starts the warm-up by audiating and singing the interval of a minor 7th and gradually raises the bar and has the choir audiate, sing, and aurally identify a C#-minor