Journal of Research in Music Education

Rudolf E. Radocy is the recipient of the MENC 1998 Senior Researcher Award. The following speech was presented on April 16, 1998, at a special session of the Society for Research in Music Education at MENC's National Biennial In-Service Conference held in Phoenix, Arizona.

We sought to discover whether listening to songs over an expanded period of time would contribute to a greater integration of wards and music in memory among preschool children (3-5 years old). The following specific problems guided this research: (1) What are the effects of songs performed with and without texts on preschool children's melodic-recognition ability? (2) Do differences in meter and tonality have an effect on song-recognition capability? and (3) Are songs of similar melodic content, with or without words, more difficult to recognize than songs of diverse melodic content? The subjects (N = 75) were assigned to one of three treatment conditions in which children, with their parents, listened to tape recordings of eight unfamiliar songs. Preschool children were more accurate in recognizing songs performed without texts when they had heard them performed previously with texts. Melodic content, however, was found to influence song-recognition ability in that distinct (unrelated) melodies were more readily recognized than songs with similar (related) melodies, with or without text.

This study is an investigation of the effects of short-term conducting gesture instruction on seventh-grade band students' recognition of and performance response to musical conducting emblems (gestures). Subjects were 60 seventh-grade wind instrumentalists. During 5 consecutive days, treatment-group subjects (n − 30) received instruction designed to improve their recognition and response to common conducting gestures. The control group (n = 30) participated in a warm-up routine designed to review concepts of musical expression without the use of conducting gestures. Two dependent measures of conducting-gesture recognition were used in this study: (1) a paper-and-pencil measure and (2) an individual musical performance measure. An independent t-test revealed statistically significant differences in favor of the treatment group for the paper-and-pencil test (p < . 001). Additional analysis by a repeated-measures ANOVA revealed statistically significant differences in favor of the treatment group for the individual musical performance test (p < .0001). Results of this study indicate that short-term conducting-gesture instruction is effective in improving the recognition of and performance response to musical conducting emblems for seventh-grade band students.

The primary purpose of this study was to identify the music skills and understanding taught during preservice training that in-service preschool classroom teachers perceived, as practical and beneficial. A 31-item questionnaire was developed and mailed to directors of 89 public and. private preschool programs where music specialists were not used. The mailing resulted in a return of 210 individually returned forms, representing 66% of the total mailing. Results demonstrated that the teacher skills and. understandings that were considered most useful were those that provided students with direct music experiences. These skills, which teachers learned in preservice training, included movement activities, using rhythm instruments, and singing experiences. More traditional music skills and understandings, such as those taught in courses such as music theory and. history, were not perceived to be useful to preschool instructors. Descriptive information revealed that although most teachers held a college degree and a teaching certificate, the majority were unaware of and none had read the Performance Standards for Music: Grades PreK-12.

Effects of contextual sight-singing and ear training on pitch and rhythm error detection abilities among undergraduate instrumental music education majors were examined. Experimental (n₁ = 15) and control (n₂ = 15) groups received identical training in instrumental methods and conducting. Experimental subjects additionally received 50 minutes of sight-singing and ear training per week over 11 weeks using materials drawn from extant band repertoire. Subject responses to errors in one-, two-, and three-part homorhythmic and polyrhythmic examples were examined. Results showed significant differences in correct detection of rhythm and pitch errors. Experimental subjects were better at error detection compared to control subjects. Subjects were better at detecting rhythm errors compared to pitch errors. They were best with one-part, did less well with two-part, and least well with three-part examples. Differences attributable to texture were not significant. Contextual sight-singing and aural skills training and practice may have contributed to short-term development of error-detection abilities.

The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of expressive variation in dynamics on the musical preferences of elementary school students. Participants were 315 students in Grades 1–5 who attended two urban elementary schools. The music teacher administered a music preference test that presented two versions each of 10 folk songs. One version of each song used expressive variation in dynamics; the other was consistently even in dynamics and other expressive variables. Analysis of the results indicated that a significant proportion of students at each school preferred the expressive versions of 6 different songs. Between the two schools, seven expressive versions were preferred. Age did not seem to have a systematic effect. It was speculated that different dynamic interpretations of the three nonsignificant folk songs may have produced different responses. Recommendations were made concerning the importance of expressive performance in elementary music education.

The purpose of this study was to use citation information from six nationally distributed music education research journals for the period 1990–1995 to determine journal eminence. All references for all articles in the six journals were reviewed and the journals cited were tabulated. Final tabulations included 576 different journals, with 134 of the journals from the field of music. Music journals included both professional and research journals. Through citation analysis, it was found that 15 journals represented the majority of music research journal citations. Three journals formed a first tier of prominent music research journals and represented over 80% of the total citations, with one journal accounting for nearly 55% of the total citations. Three journals in a second tier accounted for approximately 12% of the total citations, while the remaining 9 journals, in a third tier, accounted for less than 8% of the total citations.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of movement instruction on beginning instrumentalists' steady beat perception, synchronization, and performance. Seventy sixth-grade students were randomly assigned to treatment and control groups. The treatment group received movement instruction generated from general music, dance, and theoretical ideas. The control group received “traditional rhythm instruction, ” operationalized through qualitative description of normal classroom activities. After 10 weeks of instruction, a researcher-designed battery of tests was administered. A t-test of the perception measure showed that the groups did not differ significantly, t (66) = .84, p = .41. The ability to synchronize taps to a musical stimulus varied significantly as a function of group membership, t (68) = 4.22, p = .0001, favoring the treatment group. Performances differed significantly as a function of group, favoring the treatment group, t (68) = 5.74, p = .0001. There were low positive correlations among the three dependent variables in this study.

Participants from Grades 3, 4, 5, and 6 (N = 238) rated selections on an 18-item music listening tape four consecutive times at 2-week intervals, alternately using pictorial and verbal Likert-type response scales. The order of response scale administration was counterbalanced among the classrooms involved. There was no significant difference between preference scores generated by participants using either form of response scale. Test-retest reliabilities ranged from .65 to .88 using a 4-week time interval, with higher grade levels associated with higher reliabilities and the pictorial scale generally associated with higher reliabilities. Internal consistency reliabilities measured by coefficient alpha ranged from .90 to .93 for the verbal scale and .92 to .93 for the pictorial scale. A large and statistically significant majority of participants (84%) expressed a preference for using the pictorial scale to record their music listening preferences.

The purpose of this study was to investigate how instruction in the use of specific rhythmic nuances influences the performed timings of a musical performance. Volunteer participants were asked to learn and musically perform an excerpt from Mozart's Concerto for Horn and Orchestra, No. 2. They did this using computer software titled Instant Pleasure. As the title of the software implies, no prior musical training is required to perform a piece of music using this program. The only element that the operator controlled was the rhythmic onset of each pitch. Pitches, amplitude, and all other musical variables were controlled by the computer. When the participants had generated a performance of the concerto with which they were pleased, they recorded it using the same software. Participants were then taught the rhythmic tendencies that have been identified in the finest performances of this excerpt and practiced them until they believed they were prepared to make a second recording which served as a posttest. All digital onset data were calculated and analyzed to determine if participants had successfully integrated the given rhythmic tendencies into their performance. Results indicated that subjects did indeed use significantly more rubato in their posttest performance and that usage more closely reflected the model performance. In a further analysis, a single aggregate performance rhythmically representing subjects' pretest performances and a single aggregate of subjects' posttest performances were evaluated on the basis of musicianship by a select panel of musicians. Results indicated that the aggregate posttest performance was somewhat more musical.