When listening to music, people are able to separate the various parts or streams that the respective piece is made of, depending on their musical experience and aural training. Specific musical expertise affects these analytical listening skills, but different studies have shown that differences between experts and amateurs are smaller than often anticipated and depend heavily on the adequacy of the task for amateurs. The present replication study of Kopiez and Platz (2009) has investigated in a convenience sample ( N = 97) whether a presumably obvious clash of keys between solo and accompaniment can be detected. In an incomplete study design, participants listened to two pieces of music (jazz and classical) with solos each played by one of two instruments (trumpet and saxophone) in either a clashing or fitting condition. Participants' musical training and perceptual abilities showed a medium correlation with the harmoniousness ratings difference between the clashing and fitting stimuli. Overall, the clashing version of the classical piece was rated as less harmonious than the jazz piece. These results are in line with similar research and raise questions concerning the appropriate research method to investigate the perception of participants with various degrees of expertise.

Deliberate Practice (DP) is a fundamental aspect of musical expertise. Measuring DP in child musicians could provide useful information about its role in determining progress towards higher levels of expertise. This study aims to develop and validate a standardized instrument for measuring the level of DP that child musicians exhibit in their practice routine. The questionnaire is intended to be used by music teachers, parents and child musicians. The Deliberate Practice in Music Inventory (DPMI, Passarotto et al., 2022) for adult musicians was revised and simplified for the use with children by experienced musicians and music educators. The resulting child DPMI (cDPMI) consisted of 11 items, grouped into a main scale and four subscales. Analyses of data collected from a sample of primary school children, their parents, and teachers confirmed the appropriateness of the factor structure of the new questionnaire with good fit indices. The cDPMI main scale and subscales showed acceptable internal consistency in the parents and teachers groups, but internal consistency indices fell below the acceptable level in the children group. The cDPMI was invariant across groups of users (i.e., children, parents, and teachers) and times of measurement. Finally, the cDPMI main scale and subscales were significantly correlated with related personality traits and self-regulatory behaviors, suggesting its convergent validity. In conclusion, the new cDPMI is a standardized and valid instrument for measuring DP in child musicians, although it appears to be particularly suitable as an external evaluation tool for parents and teachers and less suitable as a self-assessment tool for primary school children.

Understanding the relationships between different pitches as a form of tonality is a key element of listening skills in Western tonal music. Tonal hierarchies (i.e., genre-dependent differing prominence of tones) are reflected in the internal representations of tonal hierarchies (IRTH) in long-term memory. Over the past 40 years, research on how individuals—primarily students aged 6 to 15, as well as adults—acquire IRTH has yielded varied and sometimes contradictory conclusions about the timeline and underlying mechanisms of this process. This review aims to synthesize the evidence and critically examine potential reasons for the heterogeneity in prior findings. To this end, two approaches were applied. First, a Bayesian three-level meta-analysis of 60 effect sizes from 16 studies, reported in 13 articles, revealed a medium difference in IRTH sensitivity between younger and older participants. Second, a model comparison analysis based on cross-sectional data from a single study revealed a non-linear growth dynamic, with a larger increase during adolescence as the best model solution to describe the relationship between sensitivity and age. We also examined the considerable heterogeneity observed within and between studies, particularly how task-specific features of the operationalizations might account for these differences. These findings contribute to the development of theoretical models of music-related skill acquisition and suggest directions for future research.

Beim Musikhören auftretende Bewegungsempfindungen und Bewegungsimpulse können ganz unterschiedliche Qualitäten besitzen und im Alltag bei hinreichendem Gefallen an der Musik und situativer Passung zu körperlichen Handlungen, z. B. Tanzbewegungen, führen. Um der qualitativen Vielfalt von musikinduzierten Bewegungsempfindungen zu begegnen, stellen wir mit den Dimensionen der Groove Affordanz (DGA) ein neues, theoretisch begründetes Messinstrument vor, welches auf einer Faktorenanalyse bereits erhobener Daten basiert und in der Lage ist, zwischen drei grundlegenden Dimensionen wahrgenommener rhythmischer Angebotsstrukturen beim Musikhören zu differenzieren: Roll, Drive und Pulse. Unter Nutzung digitaler Methoden der Datenerhebung (Webscraping, APIs, digitales Audiosampling und Online-Befragung) wird anschließend in Kombination mit Faktorenanalysen und Linear Mixed Models im Abgleich mit dem deutschsprachigen Experience of Groove Questionnaire (EGQ) untersucht, ob sich das neue Messinstrument auch an einem großen Stimuluspool von k = 448 Popmusikstücken hinsichtlich Modelpassung, Reliabilität und Diskriminanzvalidität bewährt. Dazu werden nach Berechnung von Faktorenwerten aus n = 1775 gesammelten Ratings von 178 Hörer*innen die nach Genres aufgetretenen Unterschiede bezüglich der Bewegungsempfindungen beim Hören von Popsong-Exzerpten ausgewertet. Die Analyseergebnisse zeigen, dass das DGA auch bei einer großen Anzahl musikalisch diverser Stimuli eine gute Modellpassung und Reliabilität aufweist und somit seinen Anspruch einlösen kann, unterschiedliche phänomenologische Aspekte von Bewegungsimpulsen bei vergleichsweise geringer Beeinflussung durch persönliches Gefallen abzubilden.

Although the last two years have seen AI systems progress significantly when it comes to generating cultural products like literature, poems, or music, the jury is still out when it comes to determining whether the aesthetic quality of these products increases in tandem with the performance enhancements of underlying large language models (LLMs). We replicated the study by Schreiber et al. (2024) to test whether the creative performance of selected LLMs had improved over the past two years in the musical domain. In an online rating experiment based on a melody continuation paradigm, 75 melodic continuations generated by the AI systems Qwen 2 (Version 72B Instruct), Llama 3 (Version 70B Instruct), and ChatGPT (Version 4) were compared to 23 solutions composed by humans. The aesthetic quality of the sound examples was then evaluated by N = 54 listeners (music students) using four criteria (convincing, logical and meaningful, interesting, and liking). As the first main finding, human-based creative solutions outperformed all three AI systems on all four dependent variables (large effect sizes 1.11 ≤ dz ≤ 2.51), thus confirming the finding by Schreiber et al. (2024). The second main finding revealed a mean (and meaningful) discrimination sensitivity of d’ = 1.09 for AI- and human-based solutions. We conclude that merely boosting the volume of training of the AI systems does not guarantee correlating improvement in the creative musical output produced under controlled conditions.

Der Begriff Neuromythen kennzeichnet falsche bzw. durch Vereinfachung verfälschte Darstellungen neurowissenschaftlicher Forschungsergebnisse im wissenschaftlichen Diskurs, in der öffentlichen Wahrnehmung und in pädagogischen Praxisfeldern. Bislang vorliegende Befunde belegen das Vorherrschen von Neuromythen in pädagogischen Kontexten. Düvel et al. (2017) haben erstmals die Prävalenz und Prädiktoren von musikbezogenen Neuromythen vergleichend bei Musiklehrenden und Musik-Lehramtsstudierenden im Paradigma der Signalentdeckungstheorie ermittelt. Daran anschließend fragt unsere Replikation (N = 439) nach etwaigen Veränderungen der Diskriminationsleistung von Musik-Lehramtsstudierenden in Bezug auf musikbezogene und allgemeine Thesen zu neurowissenschaftlichen Befunden (Neuromythen und Neurofakten) und auch im Vergleich mit Studierenden anderer Studienfächer sowie im Vergleich mit der studentischen Stichprobe der Referenzstudie. Die Ergebnisse der Replikation zeigen, dass Musik-Lehramtsstudierende, Studierende anderer Lehramtsfächer und Studierende anderer Studiengänge keine signifikanten Unterschiede dahingehend aufweisen, wie gut sie musikbezogene oder allgemeine Neuromythen und Neurofakten als wissenschaftlich belegt oder wissenschaftlich nicht belegt beurteilen können. Im Vergleich mit der Referenzstudie ist die Diskriminationsleistung der Musik-Lehramtsstudierenden in der Replikation signifikant geringer; auch konnten die in der Referenzstudie ermittelten Prädiktoren (Anzahl gelesener Medien, bisherige Studiendauer) nicht repliziert werden. Um die Ausformung und Akzeptanz von Neuromythen im Studium weiterführend zu ergründen, sollten neben individuellen Hintergründen und Interessen auch Lehr- und Studieninhalte sowie die Vermittlung von Bedeutungen und Funktionsweisen des Gehirns und kognitiver Prozesse in der Beschäftigung mit Musik (Hören, Machen, Lernen) untersucht werden.

Das Singen im Musikunterricht ist für den Schulalltag von zentraler Bedeutung. Die vorliegende Studie untersucht den Einfluss ausgewählter Faktoren auf die Anstrengungsbereitschaft von Schülerinnen und Schülern beim Singen im Musikunterricht. Die untersuchten Faktoren sind: (a) die Bedürfnisse nach Kompetenz, Autonomie und sozialer Eingebundenheit gemäß der Selbstbestimmungstheorie; (b) die Beziehung zur Lehrkraft; (c) die musikalische Erfahrenheit der Schülerinnen und Schüler; (d) das Wohlbefinden beim Singen; (e) die Häufigkeit des Singens im Musikunterricht; (f) das Gefallen am Singen in der Freizeit; (g) die Mitgliedschaft in einem Chor; (h) das Gefallen am Liedrepertoire des Musikunterrichts und (i) das Alter und das Geschlecht der Kinder. Um mögliche Zusammenhänge zwischen diesen Prädiktorvariablen und der Anstrengungsbereitschaft zu untersuchen, wurde ein Fragebogen von Schülerinnen und Schülern (N = 225) im Alter zwischen 10 und 13 Jahren (M = 11,38; SD = 0,70) ausgefüllt. Unterschiedliche statistische Verfahren kommen zu dem übereinstimmenden Ergebnis, dass das Gefallen am Liedrepertoire und das Wohlbefinden beim Singen die wichtigsten Prädiktoren für die Anstrengungsbereitschaft sind. Aber auch Kompetenz, Autonomie, die Beziehung zur Lehrkraft und die musikalische Erfahrenheit haben eine sichtbare Auswirkung. Von diesen für die Anstrengungsbereitschaft relevanten Faktoren können alle bis auf das Wohlbefinden beim Singen von Lehrkräften beeinflusst und so in der Praxis genutzt werden.

Many generative artificial intelligence (AI) systems have been developed over the last decade. Some systems are more of a generic character, and some are specialized in music composition. However, whether these AI systems are serious competitors for human composers remains unclear. Despite increased public interest, there is currently little empirical foundation for a conceivably equivalent performance for creative AI when compared to human experts in a controlled task. Thus, we conducted an online experiment to evaluate the subjectively perceived quality of AI compositions with human-made products (by music students) in a standardized task. Based on a melody continuation paradigm, creative products using AI were generated by the AI agents ChatGPT (Version 3.5) and Google Magenta Studio (Version 2.0). The human creative performances were realized by 57 melodic continuations, composed by music students. In the online evaluation study, listeners (N = 71, mainly musicians) rated the aesthetic quality of the outcomes of the various systems. Additionally, the raters’ musical experience level was controlled as well as the length of the given melody completion task (two probe positions). As a main result, the overall quality of the AI compositions was rated significantly lower on all four target items compared to the human-made products (large effect sizes). Musical experience and the length of the melody did not influence the ratings. We conclude that the current capabilities of AI in the domain of musical creativity determined by a standardized composition task are far below human capabilities. However, we assume rapid progress will be made in the domain of generative music-specific AI systems.

The perception of emotions in humans moving can be influenced by several movement features such as fluidity, complexity, and tempo. Manipulations of movement tempo by acceleration or deceleration are widely employed in media, yet there has been limited research on how these affect perceived emotions. The current study examined how tempo-manipulated point-light displays (PLDs) of human dance-like movements, compared to their tempo-original counterparts, influence the perceived emotional arousal and valence by altering the tempo and hence the underlying movement characteristics. In an online perceptual experiment, we presented tempo-original and tempo-manipulated PLDs at three tempi, with and without synchronized drumbeats. Participants were asked to judge the PLDs based on their emotional arousal, valence, and naturalness. Results suggest that movements with higher fluidity were perceived as lower in arousal than those with low fluidity. Stimuli higher in naturalness were perceived to be more positive in valence than those low in naturalness. Audiovisual stimuli, including the drumbeats, received higher arousal but lower valence ratings than visual-only stimuli. Furthermore, decelerated movements were associated with increased fluidity compared to accelerated or tempo-original ones. Tempo deceleration was associated with lower naturalness compared to tempo-original movements. These findings indicate that tempo manipulation can be identified via kinematic feature changes, consequently altering emotional attributes perceived in the movements.