The book below is used at Juilliard and in a number of other programs in the US and abroad. It is all dedicated to reciting (saying, not singing) fixed do solfege syllables to a metronome in a variety of clefs and even across multiple staves at faster and faster tempi. To be clear, this is saying each note's name (no sharps or flats!) as they are encountered on the staff (Parlando means Speaking in Italian). It is not singing. By itself, this book is good for learning new clefs and training your eye to more quickly read ones you already know, but it doesn't deal with rhythm. Yes, no rhythm. Some reference points are in different rhythmic values, but they are just markers ("pointe de repere"). All exercises are essentially even streams of quarters, eighths or sixteenths. It is not music. It is really eye/brain training. It is used systematically with a metronome. You really get so you have a sort of "perfect tick," after a while in that you can name or produce certain tempi exactly. BTW-when I heard that last bit, I thought it was bull until I did it. It is not. Many a Juilliard student hates this book.
http://www.sheetmusicplus.com/pages...sic/detail/HL.50562759.html&t=&k=&r=wwws-err5
This one (below) is used at Mannes College of Music in New York, and probably in dozens of Italian conservatories (Conservatorio di musica Giuseppe Verdi, etc.). It does pitch, clefs (user imagined) and rhythm. There are tons of shorter more specialized books to be had from French publishers.
http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Method-Rhythmical-Articulation-Pasquale/dp/0825803748
Trivia: Essentially about 100 years ago, many European music conservatoire professors wrote their own exercise books (France, Italy Spain, etc.). These are still used. This is because they are contrived for a wide variety of levels, and are actually very effective at what they set out to do, if applied strictly. French views of education were very Cartesian at the time. Problems were dismantled into many sub-problems.
All of the above is pretty useless for self-study unless you have some idea of how to proceed. It is basically NOT explained in print anywhere I know of.
Trivia: There used to be a book (in the old card catalogue of a Library I used in New York) on ET pedagogy by Marie Powers, formerly of Mannes School, but I have never seen a copy (it had been stolen), though I used to look for it. Both Marie Powers and Renee Longy were influenced by Nadia Boulanger and a variety of other teachers/methods.
But forget that and try my two quick and dirty subway platform/bank line methods:
Method 1--to learn/practice an unfamiliar clef or speed up note recognition in a familiar one, assuming you can puzzle out what each pitch is from a known reference (any note you can accurately name and locate, and that you are able to apply to correctly identify, however slowly, all the other notes, on, above, and below a staff with the chosen clef).
1. Take ANY notated music. Decide what clef you want to imagine, let's say Bass (ha ha).
2. Imagine there are no rhythms, just note heads. Ignore all rhythm and rests!
3. Imagine the key signature is C major.
4. Imagine a slow steady pulse.
5. Read each note, one on each pulse (just say the letter names, skip all the fancy Do Re Me). Important: look ahead more as you go faster. Most important--NEVER ever stop for a mistake. Just make the mistake in tempo and continue. You must learn how to move your eyes, and keep your eyes from getting "stuck." Time must be treated as inviolable, i.e., not to be violated--it is always moving on. You can not stop, go back, drag, none of it. One note per "tick," period--even if the metronome is imaginary.
6. If it is too easy, do it faster, then faster, then--you get the idea.
7. If it is too hard, or certain notes always trip you, after you get to the end, just write the pitch name in pencil under the note, and start at the begining, slower if need be. Next time with this clef you won't need to do that.
8. Repeat this every day, faster and/or with different music, but practicing the same clef(s). You can also use the same music with different imaginary clefs.
9. You can do this anywhere you are waiting in line.
10. Challenge yourself with music that has lots of ledger lines and big leaps.
Method 2--Parlando solfege with Rhythm--harder, but reading rhythm is usually the real barrier to reading well, so this can really help you read better. Probably impossible to figure out from my explanation.
1. To add rhythm is more complex, but almost all the above applies except the part about ignoring rhythmic values.
2. Set a (real or imaginary) metronome on a very moderate eighth-note pulse (1/8 =76 is good). Conduct the meter of the exercise you are going to read/recite, preferably snapping your conducting hand fingers on the weak half of each beat, e.g., 1 snap 2 snap 3 snap 4 snap while conducting 4/4. Adapt for any other meter or changing meter. N.B., this is the Mannes method, probably from Marie Powers. I don't know where she got it.
3. Say the note names, but in rhythm. Go slow enough so that it is rigorously correct, right down to holding out all durations, long or short. Remember, the metronome is "measuring" eighth notes, so your quarter note tempo is actually half the metronome speed (or a third if you are in 6/8, or 9/8 or 12/8 and the beat is the dotted quarter).
4. Again, never stop for mistakes, redo, pause, or slow down. Mistakes are fine, just keep going. To do an entire exercise that is all mistakes but the flow of time is never stopped until the last beat is better than even stopping once.
5. Go slow enough so that you can do it all. It is OK to work out sections, but never ever stop for mistakes. Keep eyes moving and looking ahead. Always conducting, always snapping. Always.
6. Go faster, get harder music, and change clefs.
7. optional: Start transposing (beyond the scope of what I care to explain).
Hope this gives a picture of it. It is not ear training at all, really, it is eye/brain training.
