Final exam for Aural training VI- MacGAMUT?

Hi all.

I'm entering college in less than two weeks, and one of the things I want to do is to place out of all the ear training courses so that I can take other classes and make better use of my time there.

I have perfect pitch and I'll be using the fixable do system, because that's easier for me to learn.

My question was just for anyone who has gone through all of their aural training classes: what are the hardest types of things you would be expected to do at the end of aural training 6 (the final course)?

I want to make sure I'm fully prepared to place out of these exams. I've looked around but I can't find any sample finals on the net, and the only syllabi I can find aren't specific, or all they do is talk about the MacGuffin program (not sure what this program covers)

Thanks a lot. This will be a huge help if anyone can give me some pointers.

-Joe

I'm not familiar with how it's at other colleges, specifically in the US. I've had 4 semesters of aural training that everyone studying music had to attend, and two semesters aural training that also everyone had to attend, but in a specialised field that one could choose (mine was "Music in France in the first half of the 20th century"). Additionally I've had two semesters of aural training specifically for students of composition, music theory and conducting and I will have another four of these. Is this aural training 6 something for all music students, or something specific for composition students? If it's the former, it will probably go up to 4-voice music dictation from a tape (or maybe just piano) of a not too complex piece, rhythmic dictation (think Messiaen's quatuor pour la fin du temps, for example), formal dictation (say, a Beethoven sonata movement), harmonic dictation, probably something atonal (say, a line of a single instrument in a Webern piece), maybe some other kind of dictation like writing down the instrumentation of a piece. Then some clapping/speaking of rhythms (again, say, Messiaen in a fast tempo, or something that involves polyrhythm), sight-reading and singing something tonal and atonal, maybe memorizing a short piano passage and playing it back. That's just the kind of stuff we did, I don't know how its at other places. We already did this stuff (except 4-voice dictation) after four semesters of aural training, but, as I mentioned, the next two semesters were basically the same thing, just specialised on a specific topic and depending on that topic the final exam was quite different, but not actually harder than the one after two years. (In my case it involved a formal dictation of electronic music, harmonic dictation of Debussy, stuff like that.)

Thanks for your comments.

I think all music majors have to take aural training through level 6.

From the syllabus:

AURAL TRAINING VI

Objective: To develop the student

MacGamut!!!! The devil himself designed and programmed it himself using one of his many aliases, Ann Blombach.

It is a nightmare. Not so hard at first, but it quickly becomes quite a challenge, and especially since it uses crappy midi and it can be hard to differentiate what is going on when there aren't human players voicing the chords. Basically, it starts with diatonic small intervals.... and progresses to chromatic intervals that are beyond the span of an octave. I'm sure your instructors will show you how to use it.

I didn't think it helped me at all. It takes an ungodly amount of time to finish, and is totally not worth it. Not to mention that fact that you actually have to pay good money to torment yourself with a rather simplistic program.

But I suppose music software has a tendency to overprice it self *ahem*.

I actually just got so frustrated that I didn't finish it and got a B in my last ear training class. Oh well. At least I got to spend 10 or 12 hours on something more productive.