Autumn school: book of abstracts: “what we’ve been doing to get here...”. perspectives and practices on music theory and aural training in higher education

Music Theory and Aural Skills, with this or any other designation, is a disciplinary domain that, although it is a constant curricular element in the formal construction of higher music education, registers an irregular evaluative presence in the field of music training. A presence that I call volatile in view of the variable recognition that is assigned to it, in terms of programmatic autonomy, training identity and curricular dimension, in the multiple existing higher education courses.
In my opinion, there are several factors that contribute to this almost disciplinary subalternity, namely, i) the central role of learning individual or collective instrumental practice in music teaching curricula; ii) the historical and pedagogical curricular configuration of this subject as a unit of knowledge attached to another main course; iii) the strong component of a task and training character that the teaching of the subject uses systematically; iv) the absence of research on theory and practices in this field; v) or the (co)existence of a plurality of training profiles that teach and approach the subject in a specific way, which is in itself interesting and an benefit, despite being unknown to other teachers in this field.
It is precisely this last factor, the lack of knowledge of the work that is carried out by the numerous professors who teach this curricular unit in the national music higher education, added by a brief civic act commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the 25th of April, that motivated us and justified the holding of the This year’s Autumn School with the following title: “What we’ve been doing to get here…” Perspectives and practices on music theory and aural training in higher education.[...]