The Musicianship Intensives provide musicians with practical skills such as singing, playing, reading, writing and teaching music more effectively. Within the program, musicians will have the ability to develop spontaneous musical creativity at every step in the learning process.

Musicianship Intensives Course Content

Overview

The Musicianship Intensives are designed to instill the maximum degree of musical fluency at three different skill levels. In contrast to a linear model of teaching and learning, where knowledge, once obtained, is not often re-addressed or put into practice, The Ploger Method® is modeled on the spiral-shape: previously introduced material is consistently put into use and re-incorporated into new topics so that learners are continually applying their knowledge and coming closer to skill fluency on each application. Though each successive level covers new and progressively challenging topics that expand breadth of knowledge, the intensives also continually aim to increase depth of understanding of the basic musical elements of meter, rhythm, melody, and harmony, creating a unique, multidimensional approach to musicianship training.

Who Attends The Ploger Method Intensives?

• Professionals who perform in classical, jazz and popular music genres

• Composers

• Conductors

• Music Educators

• College theory instructors

• Qualified undergraduate and graduate students

Subjects

All three levels use the vocabulary of the fixed-doh solfège system, numerical scale-degree system, and di-chord interval naming system. Marianne's instruction is unique in that it uses concrete sound properties and acoustical markers to provide students with the means to identify musical elements in real-time, as they are heard. Several topics and strategies for application are addressed throughout all three levels, including:

• the cultivation of a firm sense of orientation in pitch-space

• emphasis on real-time recognition and identification

• analysis and understanding of how the mind works to process music

  • how to divide, map and count rhythmic beats in real-time

  • how to aurally identify and visually track musical intervals and pitches in real-time in tonal, atonal, melodic and harmonic contexts

  • how to learn, use and aurally identify modes and scales

  • how to identify chords by ear in the flow of music

  • how to track multiple musical lines simultaneously by eye and ear

  • functional harmony

• causes of error in performance and how to avoid them

• how functional strategies for taking dictation

• improvisation as a critical tool for learning

Level I

Level I focuses on fluency in recognizing, at the speed of music, intervals and chords, as well as the development of rhythmic skills. Develop foundations for hearing of rhythms, pitches and di-chords by ear in real-time using Ploger’s discoveries. Foundational for other levels.

Level I Emphasis:

• develop a sense of orientation in pitch space using keyboard visualization and employ the fixed-do solfege, numerical scale degree, and di-chord (interval) naming systems.

• learn how to become quickly fluent in the fixed-doh solfege system in harmony with moveable numerical scale degree system and the di-chord interval naming system.

• learn to count and divide beats in groups of 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 equal parts to provide a sense of orientation in time space.

• identify scale degrees instantly using principles of di-chord perception in major and minor scales

• learn to read fluently in all seven clefs.

• how to use clef-reading for transposition

• explore the diatonic modes and Western scales

• use improvisation at every step to aid learning

• learn how to organize music-related information

• tuning and temperaments

Registration Information

More Information about the Intensives

Marianne Ploger's philosophy of teaching is that there is no such thing as a "bad musical ear," only inadequate training. All musicians can learn to know, recognize and understand what they are hearing in music, at the same speed that they know, recognize and understand what they hear and read in their native language. The key, she believes, is to have correct information and good attitudes. Correct information is an accurate description of the sound properties of rhythm, pitch and interval; a good attitude is a way of holding one's awareness so that one can perceive accurately in real time.

Students have described Marianne Ploger's workshops and master classes as the opportunity for Olympic-level training aimed at getting their minds to move at the speed of their hearing. The intensives offer an opportunity for total immersion in instant recognition and understanding of musical elements. Real-time musical fluency is the cornerstone of Marianne Ploger's method.

The Ploger Method® uses Marianne's revolutionary ideas and discoveries about the elements of music to help you become better at reading, performing, learning, teaching, and composing music. Marianne's theories and learning strategies are based on how the brain perceives sound, sound combinations (intervals), and sound patterns. The Ploger Method® offers unique strategies for developing musicianship; instruction is based on the hearing and identification of concrete sound properties of musical elements and the cultivation of a firm and consistent sense of orientation in pitch space. Skills and training are always relevant and practical for musicians of any genre.

Each Musicianship Intensive addresses how to more effectively convey the meaning of music through a deeper understanding of perceptual principles and the implementation of specific skills. Specific techniques are provided that enrich musical artistry and expression and help ensure that audiences feel touched, inspired, and energized by the music they hear.