Arthur Gottschalk
A
man whose music has been described as “vital and original” (American
Record Guide) and with “undeniable integrity” (The Village Voice),
award-winning composer Arthur Gottschalk is Professor of Music
Composition and Theory at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music.
With the number of compositions in his catalog now approaching two
hundred, his music is regularly performed domestically and overseas,
and his works are recorded on New Ariel, Crystal Records, Summit,
Capstone, Beauport Classical, ERMMedia, Colden Crest, MSR Classics,
Ablaze Records, and AURecordings. His works are published by Subito
Music, Shawnee Press, European American Music Distributors, Alea
Publishing, Trevco Music, Potenza Music, and The Spectrum Press. Dr.
Gottschalk has worked in diverse areas of music, including composing
and arranging music for feature films, television scores, numerous
industrial films and commercials, music publishing, and artist
management. He continues to work as an expert in music copyright cases
and as a forensic musicologist. In 2006, Dr. Gottschalk’s Concerto for
Violin and Symphonic Winds won the First Prize of the VVX Concorso
Internazionale di Composizione Originale (Corciano, Italy), and in 2011
he was awarded a prestigious Bogliasco Fellowship for further work in
Italy. Dr. Gottschalk’s many other awards include the Charles Ives
Prize of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and composer
residencies at the famed Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center and
at the Piccolo Spoleto Festival. Since 1980, he has been the recipient
of annual awards from the American Society of Composers, Authors, and
Publishers. A student of renowned American composers William Bolcom,
Ross Lee Finney, and Leslie Bassett, Professor Gottschalk carries on
this important lineage by producing students who compose original and
innovative music in various forums throughout the world.
FUNCTIONAL HEARING
(updated January 6, 2012)
A Contextual Method for Ear Training

Going far beyond traditional topics and approaches, FUNCTIONAL HEARING
incorporates numerous unique and groundbreaking ways to train the ears of
developing musicians and to encourage them to acquire a high level of skill.
Principal among these features are:
An integrated approach, strongly dependent upon the
perception and awareness of tendency and function, in which ear-training
and sight-singing are taught within specific diatonic contexts.
Separate units devoted exclusively to teaching specific techniques for
taking melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic dictation.
Pitch puzzles, pitch patterns, and error detections that help students
bridge the gap between their cognitive and aural perception od intervals.
Use of familiar melodies as a means of remembering the sounds of intervals
and establishing a diatonic context.
Deatiled explanations of composite rhythms: how to perceive and notate
them, including the use of the least-common-multiples method.
Unique home exercises that challenge students to think about and practice
the skills presented and drilled in class.
Several units devoted to hearing, analyzing, and performing sequences.
A logical and systematic approach to transposing at sight and reading
standard instrumental clefs that relates these skills to each other.
Careful descriptions of assymetric meters and subdivisions.
Specialized instructions for writing, hearing, and performing canons,
hockets, and catches.
An organizational plan that facilitates coordination with the general
outline of most undergraduate theory courses.
Compatibility with all commonly used syllable systems.
A convenient lay-flat binding that allows the book to stay open on a
music stand.
Generous amounts of blank staves bound on perforated pages for convenient
use in class and homework assignments.
Recommended Software
MacGamut and Practica Musica. These are versatile and user-friendly
Macintosh-compatible programs which work well with personal computers in
a variety of configurations. (A Windows '95 version of Practica
Musica should be available from Ars Nova by the end of 1997.)
Both software companies have agreed to make available on the internet a
set of supplemental materials for their programs that will make them more
directly compatible with the methods of instruction encountered in Functional
Hearing.
Internet
Information about Practica Musica may be obtained from
Ars Nova Software at 1-800-445-4866,
by fax at 206-889-8699, or from the World Wide Web at http://www.ars-nova.com.
MacGamut Music Software International
may be contacted by phone at 1-800-305-8731 or by fax at 614-263-9359. To
ask questionsor to offer any comments about Functional Hearing,
please contact the authors at gottsch@rice.edu,
or contact the publisher, Scarecrow Press, Rowman & Littlefield Publishing
Group, 4720 Boston Way, Lanham, MD 20706.

