Tempo Preferences of Different Age Music Listeners

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to measure the effect of four levels of tempo on the self-reported preferences of six different age-groups for traditional jazz music listening examples. The authors administered a listening test to 926 students in 45 classrooms from third grade through college level in Michigan and Pennsylvania. Test reliability was evaluated in terms of internal consistency, student behavior was observed during the test, and free-response feedback was solicited from the students at the end of the measurement procedure as an additional check on the validity of results. A Friedman analysis of variance disclosed a significant preference for increasingly faster tempi at every age level. These results confirm and extend those LeBlanc and McCrary obtained in a 1983 study that was limited to fifth- and sixth-grade students. Listener age exerted a strong influence on overall preference scores, which were highest with the youngest listeners (third grade), declined steadily to a low point at seventh grade, then rose again as age increased to the college level.