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Marianne Ploger
(musician, composer, teacher, author and musical scientist)

Marianne Ploger (born 4 October 1953) is an American musician, pianist, composer, teacher, author, and musical scientist specializing in how the brain perceives and recognizes musical sounds in real time (at the speed of music). Her work resulted in three discoveries that improve the connection between the ear and the mind. The first discovery involves the instant perception of musical intervals in real time and is based on three acoustical factors. The second discovery is new theory of how seamless harmonic modulations, employed by composers such as Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, and Brahms who used the tonal language, are perceived aurally in real time without visual references. Ploger’s real time theory of modulation results in a more objective reliable harmonic analysis of music than the customary visual method of harmonic analysis. Third, is Ploger’s discovery of Frequency Associated Timbre in which each of the 12 pitches in the tonal language may be identified aurally by a unique vowel or combinations of vowels using the standard of A-440 in Equal Temperament. Ploger uses these discoveries to teach musicians, from neophytes to composers and conductors, to become more fluent in their ability to know what they hear at the speed of music and to understand the meaning behind the notes and rhythms observed in a musical score.

Early life and education
Ploger was born in Fort Lewis, Washington a daughter of US Army Major General, Robert Riis Ploger. She received her Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance from the St. Louis Conservatory of Music where she studied with Dean Boal, Jane Allen Ritter, and Joel Revzen. While still a student there she was asked to become an Instructor of college level Solfège and precollege Theory. She continued her studies with Jules Gentile at the École Normale de Musique in Paris, France. She later studied privately with Nadia Boulanger in Paris, France as well as at the American Conservatory at Fontainebleau, France. She subsequently received her Master Private Study with Nadia Boulanger - Paris, France; continued studies at the American Conservatory at Fontainebleau, France. She subsequently received her Master of Music in piano performance in 1980 from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan where she studied with Eugene Bossart, Benning Dexter, Robert Hord.

Career
In 1980 Ploger opened her private studio in Ann Arbor, Michigan tutoring students from the University of Michigan School of Music who needed more personalized instruction to pass their ear training courses. This experience quickly led to her developing passion for understanding how the brain processes, perceives, and recognizes heard musical information in real time. She learned from teaching over a thousand students about how most learning difficulties originated in erroneous traditional methods of teaching music students. The flaw in the traditional method was that it very clearly favored only the most gifted and talented students. Those less gifted and talented yet highly devoted music students have been cast adrift to wandering aimlessly relying solely on their passion for music to make sense of what they are hearing. The Ploger Method became her trademark approach to helping all musicians learn, irrespective of their level of talent, to become fluent at recognizing and understanding music as it is heard in real time and as read from a score.

It was her success in transforming students, often given up as hopeless, to surpass many others judged to be more gifted or talented that led to her appointment to the University of Michigan School of Music Conducting Department as Adjunct Lecturer II teaching Aural Skills for Conductors from 1996-2008, where she developed the core curriculum for the graduate level orchestral, wind and choral conducting programs. In 2008, Ploger was appointed to the position of Director of the Musicianship Program at the Vanderbilt University Blair School of Music as Associate Professor of Music Perception and Cognition until 2021.

Musicianship Intensives
Modeled on the practice of concentrated language instruction, Ploger began to offer Musicianship Intensives of 6 hours a day for 4 days, held in her home in which musicians wishing to improve their skills at reading, performing or composing music could gain greater fluency at these skills. Here the basis of her unique approach is best expressed in her pithy epigrams: “The Ears are Never the Problem, it’s the Mind that needs Training!!!”, “The mind is a slowpoke compared to the ears.”, “There are only 11 intervals and 12 pitches!”, “Learn to stay in Eagle Vision.” She refers to the traditional ear training methods as “Fear Training” and “Fright Singing”. Her Musicianship Intensives are designed to provide the students an opportunity to grasp an imagination for how much they can achieve.