Musical Listening and Aural Skills Development Training

Learning Outcomes

• Demonstrate the ability to identify and notate rhythmic patterns, intervals, chords, and melodic phrases through aural analysis.
• Apply aural skills to transcribe short musical passages accurately using standard notation.
• Analyze harmonic progressions and cadences by ear, identifying key centers and chord functions.
• Evaluate performances and recordings for intonation, dynamics, articulation, and expressive elements.
• Implement strategies to improve memory recall of musical sequences and structures.
• Demonstrate the ability to sight-sing simple melodies and rhythms with accurate pitch and timing.

Target Audience

This course is designed for musicians, music educators, sound engineers, and anyone seeking to improve their musical listening and aural skills for professional or personal development.

Prerequisites

None — open enrollment

Course Outline

Practicals

Overview

Practicals provide hands-on experience with pitch and rhythm exercises, keyboard work for harmonic identification, and ensemble listening. Learners apply theoretical concepts in supervised practice sessions to build accuracy and speed in aural perception.

Practical Activities

• Pitch and Interval Drills — Learners practice pitch discrimination, interval recognition, and melodic dictation using software and instructor-led exercises. (20h)
• Rhythmic Dictation and Performance — Learners clap, tap, and notate rhythms in simple and compound meters, including syncopation and polyrhythms. (20h)
• Harmonic and Chord Progressions — Using keyboards and software, learners identify chords, inversions, and progressions, and notate harmonic dictations. (20h)
• Comprehensive Aural Skills Integration — Learners analyse full musical excerpts, identifying melody, harmony, rhythm, form, timbre, and dynamics in a supervised setting. (20h)

Summatives

Each delegate is assessed continuously throughout the course via daily exercises, scored practical assignments, and a final summative test at the end.

Practical Assignments — 30%

Practical assignments are observed and scored against a rubric during the practical sessions. Each delegate's practical mark is averaged into a single 100% score and contributes 30% to the final total.

Daily Exercises — 20%

Every training day ends with a multiple-choice exercise scored out of 100%. The scores from each daily exercise are averaged across the duration of the course to produce a Daily Average mark, which contributes 20% to the final total.

Final Test — 50%

On the last day a final summative test is written. It is a multiple-choice paper with multiple-answer questions: each question may have more than one correct option, and a single wrong selection on a question marks the entire question wrong — no partial credit. The final test is scored out of 100% and contributes 50% to the overall mark.

Final Total

Component	Out of	Weight
Practical Assignments (rubric-scored)	100%	30%
Daily Average (multiple choice)	100%	20%
Final Test (multi-answer multiple choice)	100%	50%
Final Total	—	100%

All marks are recorded on the AATICD LMS and visible to each learner under their account.

Certificate

How it works

• Certificates are auto-generated on the AATICD LMS as soon as the marks pass the 50% threshold.
• Each certificate is a branded PDF with the delegate's name, the course title, the unit standard ID, NQF level, credits, and the date of issue.
• You can download or print your certificate from your LMS dashboard at any time after issue — there's no reissue fee and no expiry date.
• If you scored under 50% you can sit the final test again at the next scheduled session at no extra cost.

Where to find it

Sign in to the LMS, open your dashboard, and your certificates appear under My Certificates. Each entry has a View / Download button and a print option.

Training Discounts

Group discounts apply automatically — the more delegates you enrol, the greater the saving. Discounts are calculated at 3% per 5 delegates, scaling up to 40% off for 100+ delegates.

Delegates	Discount
5	3% off
10	6% off
15	9% off
20	12% off
25	15% off
30	18% off
50	30% off
75	35% off
100	40% off

3% discount per 5 delegates, up to 40% off for 100+ delegates. Contact us for a custom group quote.