The Day the Ear Stood Still: Aural Skills with a Theremin

One of the most defining characteristics of Mary Wenner-strom’s legacy is her commitment to pedagogy at the highest level. But above and beyond simply advocating for excellence in teaching, she also advocates for and supports innovation. Though Prof. Wennerstrom maintained a commitment to upholding the highest standards of aural- and keyboard-skills pedagogy, she continued throughout her career to explore new and exciting ways to connect with students and to expand their hearing. At times, these innovations were not across-the-board general strategies, but highly individualized solutions designed to tackle unique learning obstacles. Thus, it was not surprising that she wholeheartedly supported the project that we describe in this article: using a Theremin to assist in sight-singing for a student with a severe disability. The pedagogical vignette presented here is not intended to make grand claims about aural-skills pedagogy or disability studies, but rather to present a simple case study in one student’s experience, in the hopes that it might encourage future pedagogues to consider similar routes.

The challenge presented by this student’s disability forced us to consider the factors that make the human voice the best instrument for in-class sight-reading activities, in order to enable us to find an adequate substitute for it: the voice lacks a consistent pitch spectrum, a discrete set of fixed pitches, and any visual representation of available pitches. When singing, the aural-skills student cannot rely upon any external cues for arriving at the correct notes. Keyboard and string instruments do not fully replicate the conceptual challenges of singing in an aural-skills context. The Theremin, while not without its own limitations, also lacks consistent visual pitch cues, and as such seemed uniquely capable of substituting for the human voice as a sight-singing apparatus.

In an academic environment ever more cognizant of various forms of disability, music programs increasingly require customized approaches to instruction and assessment. The following study is exactly that: a customized solution, demonstrating how a willing student, armed with an unconventional instrument, achieved academic success and overcame a formidable physical barrier.

Part One: Singing without breathing?

Cecilia was a first-year student at Indiana University with a bright, engaging manner.¹ The level of maturity that she projected was borne out in her interactions with other students and professors; while not overly bookish, she was devoted to her studies and respectful in her interactions with her peers and superiors. We mention these personal characteristics because she was the sort of student who showed all the signs of a promising future in higher education and in her career. Cecilia’s major, recording arts, required only two music theory courses: Rudiments of Music, and Music Theory & Literature 1. She enrolled in Rudiments in September 2008, and, while not the strongest student, seemed on track to complete the course with a grade well above passing. Like similar courses in other programs, Indiana’s Rudiments of Music contains both written and aural skills.² In order to pass the class, students must show proficiency at the fundamentals of both written and aural theory, the latter of which comprises both singing and dictation.³

By the second week of classes, it became clear that the singing component of the course posed an enormous challenge for Cecilia because she suffers from severe, uncontrolled asthma. She had had asthma for over a decade, but it generally did not interfere with her childhood and young adulthood. At the age of 15, however, Cecilia had her first “uncontrolled” attack, requiring the use of a rescue inhaler in addition to medication. She described her experiences during these attacks as being “like a fish out of water”: she felt unable to take a full breath, experienced numbness in her limbs, and was forced to stop whatever activity she is engaged in and rest, sometimes for up to fifteen or twenty minutes. Cecilia did whatever was necessary to keep her condition in check, and by August of 2008, her doctor felt that her asthma was under control...