Journal of Research in Music Education

John M. Geringer is the recipient of the MENC 2000 Senior Researcher Award. The following speech was presented on March 10, 2000, at a special session of the Society for Research in Music Education at MENC's National Biennial In-Service Conference held in Washington, D. C.

This study is an examination of teacher and student behavior in 48 violin and cello lessons taught by 12 expert Suzuki string teachers. One representative excerpt of work on a repertoire piece that had been introduced in a preceding lesson was extracted from each lesson videotape and analyzed in detail. Each excerpt was divided into segments (labeled “rehearsal frames”) that encompassed the instructional activities devoted to proximal performance goals (labeled “targets”) identified by the teacher. Targets were recorded for each rehearsal frame and categorized according to the teacher's description of the target and according to the aspect of performance to which the target pertained. Instructional activities within 338 rehearsal frames were examined in terms of the rates, durations, and proportions of time devoted to aspects of teacher and student behavior. Across all rehearsal frames (N = 338), approximately 45% of the total time was devoted to teacher verbalizations, 20% to teacher modeling, and 41% to student performance. Episodes of teacher and student activity were frequent and brief, indicating a rapid pace of instruction. Lessons were characterized by high rates of approvals and a clear focus on one aspect of performance at a time.

The purpose of this study was to assess the effects of changes in tone quality on the perception of pitch and to determine the extent to which the same tone-quality conditions would affect the performance of pitch. The experiment was conducted in two segments: a perception task that involved judgments of paired comparisons of tones, and a performance task that involved tone matching. High school and university wind instrumentalists participated in perception and performance tasks that were similar to provide a basis for comparison. Results indicated that tone-quality conditions had significant effects on the perception and performance of pitch. Subjects judged “bright” tones “brighter” in tone quality and sharper in pitch than reference tones and performed sharp when matching “bright” stimuli. Subjects judged “dark” tones “darker” in tone quality and flatter in pitch than reference tones and performed flat when matching “dark ” stimuli.

Second graders through sixth graders (N = 343) listened to 10 musical selections in music classes and marked their preference and perception of each selection's tempo on rating scales. Listeners responded to children's songs played with nine electronic keyboard sequenced accompaniments, including popular to more traditional folk styles. The tenth accompaniment style featured simple chords with piano timbre, included to represent a typical acoustic piano accompaniment. All selections were performed at the same tempo. Three versions of the survey, recorded with various song-style combinations, were prepared. Responses indicated lower preference for older students, but also revealed that students across grades judged styles more similarly than the songs. The most preferred styles were those labeled Hip-Hop, Heavy Rock Shuffle, Samba, and Funk2; the least preferred were Polka, March, Bluegrass, and Piano Chords. Song and style combinations affected children's musical preference. There was a significant correlation between perceived faster tempo and style preference for third through sixth graders, but not second graders. All styles except Samba revealed a significant but modest positive relationship between faster perceived tempo and greater preference. Students perceived the piano-chordal accompaniment to be much slower than the other styles.

This study is an examination of the effect of classroom ethnic majority/minority status on third-, fifth-, and seventh-grade children's (N = 118) interactions and affective responses while these children listened to and discussed a Latin salsa artist, an African-American rhythm and blues artist, and a European-American folk artist. Classroom ethnic-group proportions determined African-American and European-American children's classroom status. The study also examined the children's preference ratings for each artist. The researcher recorded the children's interactions on a laptop computer while they listened to and discussed the performers. The findings suggested that classroom status affected girls' interactions more than boys'. The study reports statistically significant differences among the children's music preferences.

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of instruction in writing about music on descriptions of music excerpts. Fifth and sixth graders received 4 days of instruction in music description focusing on metaphor and emotion, analytic music elements, and temporal language. Then, they wrote brief descriptions of six excerpts that were counterbalanced for instrumentation and style. Their descriptions were compared to those of students who did not receive instruction. There were no significant differences between children receiving and not receiving instruction within each grade level, except that the taught fifth graders mentioned significantly more musical elements than did fifth graders who did not receive instruction. There were no significant differences within grade levels in the rate at which expert readers matched descriptions to the original music excerpt, but sixth graders significantly outperformed the fifth graders. When excerpts were not correctly matched, they were usually misassigned to the excerpt with the same instrumentation, corroborating the priority of naming instruments in music description tasks.