Musical Achievement Research Articles

Instrumental Music Performance: One Approach toward Evaluation

This study sought to determine if an objective measurement of instrumental music achievement could be obtained on sight-reading rhythms and if it could differentiate degrees of attainment. Through the utilization of concepts introduced by Joseph Schillinger, mathematical constructs were used to develop equivalent forms of an individual instrumental music performance test. Complete test protocols for 771 subjects at the 5th grade level or above revealed a high degree of consistency for the two forms of the test. Randomly selected tape recordings of testing sessions reflected a high degree of scorer reliability. Multiple and partial correlations revealed the importance of experience to performance, and t-test results indicated differences between any two levels of experience when experience was defined in years.

R. V. W.: A Biography of Ralph Vaughan Williams

In addition to his great prowess as a composer, Vaughan Williams was a man of strong character and unflagging energy, who lived a long, full life. He was at the centre of musical events in England for sixty years, a period which for sustained musical achievement is probably unequalled in the history of this country. Ursula Vaughan Williams's intimate and detailed biography of her husband used much material not hitherto available to scholars to produce a balanced and judicious portrait. It is now made newly available as a Clarendon Paperback.

A Standardized Music Achievement Test Battery for the Intermediate Grades

THE TASK of assessing pupil in music has received considerably less attention and research than has testing for talent. This situation is probably due to the widely disparate musical goals and standards to be found in various parts of the country, which would seem to render standardized tests of meaningless for the general population. That this same situation was at one time also true of the other subjects in the school curriculum did not deter earlier testmakers from constructing tests of in arithmetic, spelling, reading, and the other subjects. As these tests became progressively more refined and pertinent, ciarifying data concerning them became available, they attained wide usage and respectability, and to a considerable extent, they have exerted a salutary influence on the body of the subject matter taught. A comprehensive, carefully constructed test of in music might in a similar manner help standardize the content of the music curriculum in the schools of today. Achievement tests in music currently available for use in the intermediate grades are unsatisfactory in many respects: (a) they are insufEciently comprehensive in scope; (b) the size of the item samples is generally inadF quate for purposes of comprehensiveness or reliability; (c) many of the <'appreciation alld achievement tests make use of a simple paper-and-pencil format, neglecting aural presentation of the test items; and (d) few of the tests have been shown to possess acceptable levels of validity. The main purpose of the study reported herein was to construct, validate, and standardize a test of in music for use in the intermediate grades. The test was designed to be sufficiently comprehensive in scope to sample adequately the various activities normally included in the music program at this level, and to be sensitive enough to discriminate between pupils of high or low in music at each of the three grade levels

An Investigation of Musical Achievement Among Public School Students

An Investigation of Musical Achievement Among Public School Students

An Investigation of Musical Achievement Among Vocal Students, Vocal-Instrumental Students, and Instrumental Students

IN THE EVER-INCREASING BODY of literature pertaining to music education, the area of evaluation has been strangely neglected. Most current texts, though they discuss aptitude and achievement tests, do not discuss evaluation as such or attempt to relate the use of aptitude and achievement tests to an evaluation of the music program. Since evaluation provides a means for determining the worth of the entire music program, as Leonhard and House point out, it is surprising that so little attention is given to it.l There is a growing awareness of the need for sound objectives for music programs yet the fact is that objectives are largely useless without a process of evaluation to determine whether the objectives are being achieved, and to svhat degree they are being achieved. This report describes an investigation of relative achievement among students in the three primary phases of public school music: vocal, instrumental, and a combination of the two.2 The study did not concern the acquiring of factual knowledge, which is easily measurable by any number of printed tests, but rather achievement in the

The Outlook for Young Composers

ONE CAN scarcely compare the dilemmas faced by young composers today with those of the preceding two generations and say whether they are more vexing or more capable of solution. To those composers still in early stages of their careers, the difficulties which must be met today necessarily appear mountainous, and it must be said that many tend to look with mingled envy and condescension at what seem in retrospect the clear-cut issues faced years ago by older colleagues. In any case, it is plain that like everything else in the world at this time, the issues involving young composers are more subtle, more ramified, and much less sharply drawn than ever before. It is probably safe to say that the major twentieth century revolutions in musical thought are behind us. Almost every form of departure that can be imagined at present has or is being taken. In this context, the young composer (by nature rebellious) finds himself somewhat nonplussed-for whatever device he may invent with a radical artistic content, he will probably find that it has been already developed by a member of the older generation. Thus, it is difficult to conceive any major innovations in composition arising during the next few years. So many aspects of the musical achievements of the first half of the century are as yet undigested that the present generation of young composers must concern itself more with consolidation and synthesis, with acting out the implications of the older generation's work, than with innovation. The young composer functions in a strange environment. On the one hand, the works of Webern (for him traditional) are still performed only on esoteric concerts of new music. On the other, the theatrico-musical expressions of John Cage and others of like persuasion are seriously discussed and reviewed in the press. The young composer thus finds himself largely without external standards by which he can measure his own activity. He lacks even the negative standard of revolt-for it seems that today, in a musical culture which takes seriously the burning of a violin as a musical happening, there is little positive enough in existence against which to revolt.

The Changing Composer-Performer Relationship: A Monologue and a Dialogue

Progress in the arts: a series of gifted mistakes perhaps. We owe our greatest musical achievements to an unmusical idea: the division of what is an indivisible whole, music, into two separate processes: composition (the making of the music) and performance (the making of music), a division as nonsensical as the division of form and content. The history of music is a series of violations, untenable positions, each opening doors, as it were: the well-tempered scale, Wagner's music drama, Stravinsky's neoclassicism, Schoenberg's twelve-tone method, to name but a few. (My method does not quite work . . . that makes it interesting, Arnold Schoenberg to Gustave Arlt, U.C. L.A.). The methodical division of labor (I write it, you play it) served us well, until composer and performer became like two halves of a worm separated by a knife, each proceeding obliviously on its course.

Music Achievement Test: College Midpoint Level

Music Achievement Test: College Midpoint Level

A Study in the Correlation of Music Theory Grades with the Seashore Measures of Musical Talents and the Aliferis Music Achievement Test

HE PROBLEM of the diagnosis of musical talent has occupied music psychologists for years. One of the great pioneers in the field was C. E. Seashore, who developed a series of tests designed to measure what he believed to be the fundamental components of musicality: the abilities to hear differences of pitch, loudness, timbre, time, rhythm, and tones in pairs of nonmelodic tonal sequences.l The Seashore tests have been used extensively, often along with other tests, in the prognosis of success in music. It is obvious that the acuity of the successful musician's ear is only one of the things that have helped to determine that success, and other tests have been developed to try to discover other aspects of talent that can be tested objectively. One of the more recent tests that have been developed in the attempt to measure musical components other than the ones tested by Seashore is the Aliferis Music Achievement Test. Aliferis developed his test while he was teaching at the University of Minnesota. In this test, musical items involving melody, harmony, and rhythm are played on the piano, and the student must select the musical notation that corresponds with what he hears. This test, as the title implies,

The Aliferis Music Achievement Test as A Predictor of Success in Music Theory at St. Olaf College

(1961). The Aliferis Music Achievement Test as A Predictor of Success in Music Theory at St. Olaf College. The Journal of Educational Research: Vol. 54, No. 8, pp. 315-317.

The Relationship of Instrument to Music Achievement Test Scores

The Relationship of Instrument to Music Achievement Test Scores

Review of Aliferis Music Achievement Test.

Review of Aliferis Music Achievement Test.

Statistische aspecten der muziek

SummaryStatistical aspects of musicWith reference to a recent paper in »Statistica« the problem of characterizing composers and their musical compositions by means of frequency distributions is approached from a slightly different angle. Not only the frequency of notes is considered, but also their duration. A method for representing this resulting weighted frequency‐distribution in a polar‐coordinate diagram is indicated and illustrated by means of some examples. It is demonstrated that in this way an analysis may contribute towards a better understanding of the structure of the various types of musical achievements.

Measurement of music achievement at college entrance.

Measurement of music achievement at college entrance.

The Development of a College Entrance Test in Music Achievement

AN ADEQUATE testing program should provide valuable information pertinent to the accurate appraisal of and to the successful counseling and guidance of music students. Such a program should be of particular value in counseling the music student who is about to enter into the academic preparation required for his chosen career. The development of the Aliferis Freshman Test in Music Achievement represents an attempt to ielluminate another facet of the complex of'abilities constituting musical talent and to provide counselors with a standardized instrument for its measurement.

An Investigation of Musical Achievement and Relationship to Intelligence and Musical Talent

An Investigation of Musical Achievement and Relationship to Intelligence and Musical Talent

Charles Theodore Pachelbell, Musical Emigrant

The story of the concert in New York in 1736 and of the subsequent one in Charleston in 1737 is full of the action of the period. One can imagine the struggles for existence, physical and cultural, to say nothing of those of transportation. Sonneck stated that Pachelbell to New York in 1736, where he gave a Consort of Musick, Vocal and Instrumental on January 2 1, 1736, and again drifted as far South as Charleston, South Carolina, where on November 22nd, St. Cecilia's Day, he purposed to give a Benefit Concert for himself; but the word may not be quite appropriate. When one views his final period at Charleston after a life of musical achievement, one appreciates his very real contribution to early colonial culture.

Supervision as a Factor in Musical Achievement1

Supervision as a Factor in Musical Achievement¹

The Relation of Supervision and Other Factors to Certain Phases of Musical Achievement in the Rural Schools of Utah

The Relation of Supervision and Other Factors to Certain Phases of Musical Achievement in the Rural Schools of Utah

The Songs of Gerald Finzi

The period of sensationalism and experiment in music seems to be passing; of the giants of a period which was richer in technical research than in musical achievement it is the mature Bartók and the thoughtful Hindemith who alone seem to have sufficient vitality to interest a more balanced generation; and it is even possible in the most sophisticated circles to mention British composers without making a shamefaced apology. Indeed, the gap between popular and sophisticated opinion seems to be narrowing: Peter Grimes was a popular success; A Child of Our Time aroused widespread enthusiasm; and the concertos of even the redoubtable Bartók filled the Albert Hall. All this is a sign of a new and healthier orthodoxy. But one fundamental heresy is still widespread; it is the tendency to judge music not for what it is but for what it portends; to regard works exclusively in terms of their potential significance instead of in terms of their achievement; to make (as someone put it) “the best the enemy of the good.”