Kerman's "Listen" comes with a superb set of six CDs. Here are some tips for getting the most out of the set.

About the CD and Study Guide Sets

The CDs that come with the Kerman/Tomlinson book provide a valuable resource for you. They may, in fact, make a fine starter point for a musical library.

Copying the CDs

It is OK for you to make copies of the CDs to a personal computer or a portable player, in a standard compressed format like mp3, AAC, or Windows Media Audio, for your own use. It is not legal or ethically balanced to make such copies and then give them to others, or sell them at a discount. Please don't do that.

If you make a legal copy for yourself, note that most of the longer selections are split up into many separate tracks in order to facilitate queueing from the text. You may want to make up playlists on your computer or portable player. You may refer to this document for more information about making the legal copy.

A nice study tool for preparing for exams is to put together a playlist of all of the pieces on the exam, and then use the 'shuffle' feature on your player to throw the selections at you randomly. (Unfortunately, playback always begins at the beginning of the selection, so it's not perfect--but it's a good start.)

Using the Study Guide DVD

The Study Guide DVD (bound into the back of the book) is really a handy item. There are interactive listening charts that you can use to move your way around the compositions on the DVD set. I urge you to install the software on your computer and use it in your study.

Be advised, however, that the interactive listening charts aren't all that accurate! So don't rely on them. The programming has been a bit sloppy, to say the least. Sometimes the interactive chart indicates that you are in a new section and you haven't gotten there yet, or is very late to get to a new section, and so forth. So use those interactive listening charts with a grain of salt.