Jazzem Music

Margaret Brandman’s ’Contemporary Aural Course’ consists of audio files providing verbal instruction, musical examples, and audio questions with accompanying workbooks. The workbooks provide the format in which to write the answers to the questions heard in the audio files, together with some instructional material relating to each lesson. The accompanying MP3 audio files are available for purchase from Margaret Brandman’s website.

Apart from the Preparatory Level, there are another eight books in the series. Levels seven and eight, subtitled Hear Your Chords! andHear More Chords!, work in tandem with Book One of Margaret Brandman’s Contemporary Chord Workbook providing the sounds of each of the chord types.

Set Eight is the highest level of the course. The topics in this level, include the sounds of the Minor 6th and Half-diminished chords, along with the altered Dominant and Major 7th chords (raised and flattened 5ths), the Minor(Major 7th) chord, and the Dominant 7th sus4 chord. The chords are heard in context within well-known songs. In addition, the sounds of the standard classical chromatic chords, the Neapolitan 6th, and the German, Italian, and French 6ths are covered and heard in samples from standard classical works.

The audio track references are printed in the book, and the book includes the answer keys so teachers can check their students’ results or students can self-check.