Journal of Research in Music Education

In this study, the use of rehearsal time during the initial minutes (i.e., the warm-up time) of 33 high school choral rehearsals was examined. Student attentiveness was also investigated during initial rehearsal activities. Trained observers used interval observation techniques in collecting attentiveness, rehearsal activity, and time usage data. Interobserver agreement averaged .93 for off-task, .88 for activity coding, and .85 for rehearsal timing. Conductors averaged 43.45 elapsed seconds prior to the first verbal statement to begin and 14 minutes 19 seconds prior to rehearsal of literature. Time allotted to rehearsal activities was the following: sight-reading, 22.23%; vocal warm-up, 9.63%; getting ready, 6.75%; physical warm-up, 3.37%; literature instruction, 1.84%; and other activity, 1.46%. Off-task percentages were: getting ready, 26.14%; physical warm-up, 18.48%; other, 16.53%; literature instruction, 16.27%; vocal warm-up, 15.07%; and sight-reading, 9.22%. Results indicated that the highest percentages of off-task behavior occurred during activities requiring less singing and active participation. Off-task behavior seemed to be a function of the nature of the activity.

The researcher attempted to determine whether instruction using colored rhythmic notation affected first- and second-grade students' rhythm-reading skills. As a regular part of general music classes, 64 experimental-group students participated in reading, clapping, and vocalizing rhythms notated in color. Seventy control subjects participated in identical activities in which rhythms were notated without color. Subjects were tested individually using both colored and uncolored notation. Results after the 23-week treatment period revealed that the experimental group scored slightly higher when reading both colored and uncolored notation than did the control group. Group differences on the colored-notation task were statistically significant (p < .05). Experimental and control-group means did not differ significantly (p > .05) when reading uncolored notation. Comparison between the scores of each group on the task similar to the training mode (color-trained students reading colored notation versus control students reading uncolored notation) also showed the experimental mean to be slightly but significantly (p < .05) higher. A positive affective influence was noted in that 78% of all students favored the colored-notation task as the exercise they liked performing the most.

Before and after completing a university course for teaching music to special education learners, master's-level music education students (N = 18) were given a measure examining their attitudes toward students with disabilities. The survey instrument consisted of 20 statements describing five different groups of students; these were learners with emotional, physical, multiple, mental, or no impairments. The participants were directed to indicate strength of agreement or disagreement with the following statements: “I would feel comfortable in interacting with this individual,” “I would be willing to work with this individual,” and “I would feel capable in working professionally with this individual.” Results showed an increase in the participants' responses to the statement “I would feel more capable in working professionally” but a statistically significant decrease (p < . 05) to the statement “I would be willing to work” with special-needs learners after the completion of training.

This study examined relationships among selected aspects of parental involvement as they relate to the cognitive, affective, and performance outcomes of instrumental music students. Independent variables were music aptitude, parental involvement, grade level, and gender. Dependent variables were cognitive musical outcomes, performance outcomes, and affective outcomes. Subjects were instrumental music students (N = 406) from five intact band programs located in rural New York and Pennsylvania. Wind and percussion volunteers from Grades 4 through 12 participated. Data were examined using descriptive analysis, correlational analysis, and analysis of variance. Major findings included: (1) Parental involvement was related to overall performance, affective, and cognitive musical outcomes. (2) For cognitive musical outcomes, parental involvement was only related at the elementary level. (3) For musical performance outcomes, parental involvement was only related at the elementary level. (4) For affective outcomes, the strength of the parental involvement relationship increased with student age. (5) Items concerning concert attendance, providing materials, participating in parent groups, and tape-recording student performances were related to all outcome areas.

We measured the music preference opinions of 2,262 listeners for examples of art musk, traditional jazz, and rock. Our subjects were enrolled in Grades 1 through college, and we also tested adults who were not college students. Participants ranged in age from 6 to 91 years. We found that music preference means for the different styles were comparatively similar across grade levels, and when style subtest scores were pooled to make a general index of music preference, a characteristic pattern of responding across grade levels emerged. Listeners in Grade 1 had a high level of preference, but preference levels then declined to a low point at Grade 6. From that point, preference steadily rose into the high school years, reaching its highest point at college level. Preference declined again for our adult group, which included a good representation of senior citizens. However, adult preference was higher than that of any other grade levels except Grade 1 and college.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships among musical characteristics and musicians' and nonmusicians' preferences for world musics. World musics were drawn from Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Musical characteristics included tempo, pitch redundancy, tonal centeredness, consonance, brightness in timbre, percussiveness, loudness, textural complexity, and richness in embellishment. Preference was also examined in relation to familiarity. Subjects were 449 undergraduate students (180 music majors and 269 nonmusic majors). Subjects completed a preference-rating scale that included a total of 36 instrumental excerpts from nine countries. Results showed that all nine musical characteristics were significant sources of variance in world music preferences. The following musical characteristics were preferred by both musicians and nonmusicians: fast tempo, loud, tonal-centered, having many different pitches, consonant, moderately embellished, smooth-sounding, and bright timbre. Musicians preferred excerpts with complex texture, whereas nonmusicians preferred moderately complex textures. A positive relationship between familiarity and preference was found across all musical styles. In general, musicians had significantly higher preference means than did nonmusicians_:

The purpose of this study was to investigate musicians' and nonmusicians' assessment of perceived rubato in musical performance. Music majors (n = 48) and nonmusic majors (n = 48) listened to four different soloists' performances of the development section of Mozart's Concerto for Horn and Orchestra No. 2, movement 1. Subjects evaluated the degree of appropriateness/inappropriateness of each soloist's use of rubato using the Continuous Response Digital Interface (CRDI), an instrument that allows ongoing evaluation of specified performance variables. Using a Likert-type scale, subjects also assessed soloists with regard to musicianship, expression, tone quality, and tempo. Results indicated significant differences for musicians compared to nonmusicians regarding rubato assessments. Musicians agreed with expert assessments, whereas non-musicians' scores seemed haphazard. When musicians were separated into two groups based on musical skill level, results from the “more proficient” musicians were in direct agreement with the panel of experts' evaluations. The “less proficient” musicians were much less discriminating across all dependent measures; rubato assessments disagreed substantially with those of experts. This study suggests that rubato is an extremely subtle musical nuance. Though nonmusicians and less proficient musicians seem to be able to assess performances on somewhat more obvious variables, it seems that only the most proficient musicians can evaluate the usage of rubato in performance. Based on the data from this study, it appears that a relationship exists between musicianship and the use of rubato and that use of rubato might well be one element that separates the very finest performance from the simply ordinary.