A Study of High School Music Participants Stylistic Preferences and Identification Abilities in Music and the Visual Arts

Little is known about how high school students conceptualize the basic Classical-Romantic style dichotomy or how students operate within such a conceptual framework as concerns stylistic preference and identification. Thus 55 subjects were tested with music and visual arts exemplars to assess their preferences and stylistic identification abilities.

Although there was a slight preference for the Classical style in general, an interesting interaction resulted in preferences for Classical music and Romantic art. Because the subjects were music performance students, their demonstrated preference for music examples was expected; more surprising, however, was their ability to identify visual arts styles more effectively than musical styles. Knowledge of one's personal preferences appeared to relate to better stylistic identification ability, but more music performance experience did not seem to relate either to preference or stylistic identification ability.