Instrumental Music Students Research Articles

The Effect of Tonal Pattern Training on the Aural Perception, Reading Recognition, and Melodic Sight-Reading Achievement of First-Year Instrumental Music Students

This study investigated the relationship of tonal pattern instruction to tonal concept development and performance achievement of beginning instrumentalists. The problem was to compare a course of study emphasizing tonal concept development with another emphasizing technical skill development Forty-eight subjects were randomly assigned to the experimental group or the control group. Experimental group content included tonal patterns taught through harmonization and vocalization. Control group content included a set of symbols and range of pitches taught from notation. Students received 14 weekly 30-minute lessons. A one-factor design was employed. The independent variable was teaching content. The dependent variables were pastiest mean scores from Iowa Tests of Musical Literacy and an investigator-constructed sight reading test Analysis of covariance was used. The experimental group scored significantly higher (p < .001) on aural identification of major and minor tonalities and significantly higher (p < ....

Divergent Production Abilities as Constructs of Musical Creativity

The investigation concerned the construction of a test of musical creativity that would assess the hypothesized divergent production abilities of music fluency, flexibility, originality, elaboration, and quality in school instrumental music students. The developed test, Measures of Musical Divergent Production (MMDP), was based on models of Guilford and Torrance. Tests were scored for the number of improvised phrases produced, shifts of musical content, varied use of musical content, rarely used content, and music appeal. Evidence for content validity was provided by expert opinion. The multiple correlation of the five ability scores with teacher ratings of musical creativity was .57. Factors of fluency, flexibility, originality, and quality were demonstrated. Only quality scores were not distinct from measures of general intelligence. Reliability coefficients were moderately high. MMDP scores showed no pattern of correlation with selected music aptitude and achievement test scores and were not dependent on age, music training, or experience.

Effects of Certain Lateral Dominance Traits, Music Aptitude, and Sex Differences with Instrumental Music Achievement

The effects of music aptitude, sex, handedness, eyedness, and footedness on music achievement and executive skills of elementary instrumental music students was explored. Handedness was defined for the present study as the observed preferred hand used for a specific set of familiar tasks; eyedness refers to sighting dominance; and footedness was defined as the observed foot preferred to perform selected familiar tasks. A five-way multivariate analysis (2×2×3×2×3) was employed to analyze the data. No conclusive evidence was found to show that combinations of eye and limb dominance, sex differences, and music aptitude variables affect music achievement or executive skill variables. Only music aptitude levels when considered alone strongly affected tonal, rhythmic, and performance achievement

The Role of Musical Aptitude, Intelligence, and Academic Achievement in Predicting the Musical Attainment of Elementary Instrumental Music Students

The Role of Musical Aptitude, Intelligence, and Academic Achievement in Predicting the Musical Attainment of Elementary Instrumental Music Students

Sight-Reading and Ear-Playing Abilities as Related to Instrumental Music Students

DURING THE LAST forty-five years attempts have been made to devise tests of musical talent which have been used with varying degrees of success. These include such standardized music tests as those developed by Seashore (8), Mosher (6), Gildersleeve (2), and Kwalwasser-Dykema (4). Only a few ewerimental studies, such as that by Ottmann (7), have been made coincident with the construction of these tests. Farnsworth ( 1 ) has attempted to write about musical talent and growth based upon empirical evidence. Discussions concerning musical characteristics, however, are frequently based upon esperience or opinion or both. Although attempts to define musicianship have not succeeded, mally of the skills which comprise it are wellknown. Wheelwright (10) gave a definition of musicianship as related to reading music. Sight-reading has always been considered an important part of good musicianship, although teachers present a wide variance in both attention and approach to its development. Although research is needed concenling much of the music-learning process, investigation of the unknown role of the ear may be especially important. Schools are at great variance in their attention to the ear-training of students. Research concerning tonal memory by Van Neuys and Weaver (9), concluded that a group's memory span for various kinds of meaningful melodies decreased as the complexity of note relations increased, both for rhythm and melody. While observing the learning process, educators have noted those musically talented students who have the ability to reproduce immediately music which they hear. It is implied that this skill for the instrumentalist, ear-playing, is dependent on inherent ability as well as on the technical skill required when playint the instrument. This paper describes an attempt to find the relationship between high school instrumental music students' performances of sight-reading music and reproducing music immediately by ear, and to discover the relative contribution which certain student characteristics may malie to these two performances.1 The student characteristics include amounts of music instruction, kinds of music instruction, intelligence quotients, mental ages, leadership status, and music goals.